Saturday 19th July 2008 Saturday arrived with a rare thing aboard Jannock – a lie in! Then Matt and I walked to Salford to commence a car shuffle, returning at 3pm. At 3:30 we left Castlefield basin and headed up the Rochdale 9 – or at least we tried to – it took all 5 crew plus an onlooker and Jannock’s engine flat out to get the bottom gates open on the first lock. The cascade of water over the top of the top gates was more than the lower gate paddles would let out and so we could not shift the gates. Phaedra pushed so hard on the windlass at this lock that she broke a tooth. I know that Terry Streeter recently passed down this flight working solo, he has my admiration as our experienced crew of five struggled with wiering locks and bl@@dy awkward gates. Brenda could not even locate the pedestrian access to lock 7 and was offered a ‘bunk up’ over the wall by two gay gentlemen whilst trying to do so. As she was lock- wheeling up the flight she came across some dubious charachters under one of the bridges and so she waited for the rest of us to catch up before proceding. Whilst passing through lock 9 (Piccadilly) we were visited by two totally tooled up (Tazars, pistols, batons, the works) but Brenda sent them packing after satisfying their concerns about a dad and his two boys who had been spotted in the area by a camera. She had managed to get their complete life stories in about 5 minutes and so could satisify the law that nothing untoward was going on. Matt, Simon and Phaedra were stars today, I do not see how we would have managed the 9 without them – even if Terry could. Graham www.jannock.org.uk
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