There has been a rather spectacular piece of chrome living on the roof of Craftybird.
It has been there ever since I was filmed for the Channel 4 programme Narrow Escapes. I ditched it only recently!
In the final edit, the chrome monster got about three seconds of screen time. Blink and you’d miss it. Personally, I felt it could have had a whole episode of its own.
Especially because the whole drama was caught on film.
So please allow me to tell you my version.
It was the final day of filming and, by then, I was very comfortable with the whole business of being miked up, with a camera present and filming my every move.
John Shackleton, the cameraman, and I had spent the morning travelling from Bumble Hole Nature Reserve, through Netherton Tunnel and towards Tipton Canal Festival.
Long strands of weed in the canal were efficiently collecting plastic bags and assorted debris, which in turn were being efficiently collected by Craftybird’s propeller. Every two or three hundred yards we slowed to a snail’s pace and I had to stop and clear it.
It was very slow progress.
Eventually we turned the corner and saw the festival: colourful boats covered in bunting lining the canal. It was the first Tipton Canal Festival since Covid and more than 60 boats had turned up.
I knew I had a mooring next to Roach. Lloyd, who was also mooring master for the festival, shouted across that I needed to go up to the museum and turn so both boats would be facing the same direction.
Daisy spotted me, hootched her boobs in my direction and shouted:
“You’ll be breasting up to Roach then!”
It took ages to get through the festival, waving and exchanging insults or greetings depending on who I saw.
On the towpath, the Withymoor Island boaters were having a party around a couple of kegs of beer. I spotted Rich from Roach among them and told him I was off to turn.
A few hundred metres further on, at Dudley Tunnel Museum, there was enough room to turn a 70-foot Craftybird.
Turning a canal boat is called “winding”, and traditionally boaters used the wind to help swing an unpowered boat around in a widened part of the canal called a winding hole.
On this particular occasion, the wind was not feeling helpful.
It was coming straight down the canal and I needed to do a U-turn directly into it.
I picked my moment, got Craftybird into position and increased the revs to bring the back end around as quickly as possible before the wind took her.
I misjudged it.
A small squall of particularly enthusiastic gusts arrived at exactly the turning point. I got partially around but there was no hope of completing the turn.
The only option was to reverse away and have another go.
I put Craftybird into reverse and, because the wind had really started to catch us, put on a bit of speed. After taking a while to change direction, we finally started travelling backwards.
Amazingly, because we were going at quite a pace, I could actually steer her.
This was a bonus.
And then the engine started to stall.
My beautiful, enormous vintage Lister JP2 engine.
Stalling.
I didn’t even know it was possible to stall a JP2.
Oh. My. God.
I immediately stopped what I was doing and turned the engine off.
There followed a stream of hardcore profanities.
John had been at the front of the boat filming. What I had forgotten was that the tiny microphone pinned to my dress meant he could hear every single word.
He appeared at the back.
By now we were floating silently in the middle of the canal with no engine.
“Let me film you opening the weed hatch and seeing what it is,” he said.
After the many, many visits to the weed hatch already that morning, this was the one time we were both genuinely interested to see what was down there.
I opened it.
All I could see was chrome.
A sea of shiny silver metal.
Massive and totally intimidating.
I gave it a tug.
It didn’t move.
I decided I needed tools, so I headed for the workshop and phoned Rich.
In these situations I always think it’s good to phone a friend, even if they can’t reasonably do anything to help.
“Rich, do you have any tin snips?”
“No.”
“Can you find some?”
“Not easily. I’m having a beer.”
“Does anyone near you have any tin snips I can borrow?”
“I can ask, I suppose. Where are you?”
“By the Dudley Museum turning.”
“Which side of the towpath?”
“It doesn’t matter. You can board either side. We are currently at a 45-degree angle across the canal.”
Why I thought tin snips were going to cut it with the chrome monster, to this day I have no idea.
I returned to the weed hatch.
John was now in it.
He was wrestling with the chrome monster.
I’m pretty sure this wasn’t part of his job description, but I think even he realised the severity of the situation.
“I think I’ve got it to move,” he shouted. “Can you grab it from the outside and give it a tug?”
I did.
And lo, the enormous chrome monster was finally removed from Craftybird’s prop.
It appeared to be part of a bus bumper.
John suggested that we film me making a bit of a joke out of it.
I told him I thought he should be taking the credit for removing it.
“It doesn’t work like that on TV,” he said.
“I’m not supposed to be in your story.”
And there you have it. The man responsible for actually removing the chrome monster was edited neatly out of the tale.
We put the monster safely on Craftybird’s roof and headed back towards the festival.
As we passed the Withymoor Island boaters again, they raised their glasses.
“WELCOME TO TIPTON!”
Cheers to that.
I tied the bunting to the chrome monster for the duration of the festival.
And then I kept it.
It is still on Craftybird’s roof today.
Three seconds on television.
A considerably longer story in real life.
You can spot the chrome monster in Channel 4’s Narrow Escapes, Series 2, Episode 20.
