2008/10/1 rigdent [EMAIL PROTECTED] > The place is a no go area > > I don't want to keep banging on about this, but if you accept any one area of the canals as a 'no go' area, then soon the whole system will be no go. You confront these people, not concede to them. The fact that there has been an incident on a section of a canal should be the signal for hundreds of us to go there to establish our presence, not a sign that we should just abandon it to the oiks. If the early canal pioneers had taken this view, there would be no canals, because despite this tendancy of us all to romanticise the past, there ALWAYS was trouble with oiks on the canal. It was an occupational hazard of the old boatmen, and in the 60's when I first started, you couldn't go anywhere without anticipating some hassle, even on what are now major cruising routes. I remember, for instance, being held up on the canal for an hour near the Woodseves cutting 1967ish by a group of kids peppering us with air rifles. Nowadays that stuff would be the headline in Towpath News, and the excuse for Narrowboatworld to blow yet another fuse about bandits. Then you just sortta lauhed it off and put it down to experience.
Part of the problem is that the resurgence of the canals in recent years has led many people to buy boats living in what I would term country and suburban areas. They are people who are not comfortable in the inner city, and have no experience of it. People not perhaps streetwise in the way that those of us living in big cities have to be. I'm not saying this of Terry any more than any other individual on this list, but I have seen boaters who are terrified in small towns like Banbury, let alone big cities like Brum, London and Manchester. It leads them to overreact to situations, and to treat people suspiciously which can sometimes precipitate trouble. Kids especially can be antagonised by adults who start out by thinking they're up to no good. Adapting the words of the old Pack of Cards song, I was one of those kids. Steve [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
