Canal Boat – July 2018

40 July 2018 Canal Boat canalboat.co.uk

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The Retford & Worksop Boat Club is credited with saving the

Chesterfield Canal in the 1960s. But as these old pictures show,

some of its leading lights ventured further afield too...

VENTURING NORTH EAST

T

hese pictures were sent in by reader

Mick White, whose late father

Charles White was very much

involved in the Retford & Worksop

Boat Club in its early days. The club was based

on the Chesterfield Canal, which had been

threatened with closure by British Transport

Waterways in the early 1960s – and it was

largely thanks to the Club’s campaigning that

the surviving length of the Chesterfield Canal

from the Trent to Worksop remained open and

was given official ‘cruiseway’ status in the

1968 Transport Act.

But there was more Charles and his family’s

boating interests besides that: as well as

helping to save their local canal they also

ventured onto the Trent and explored the

wider network. These are just a few of the

pictures he took when visiting some of the

other waterways in that part of the country in

his cruiser. We’re not sure of the date they

were taken, other than it was in the late 1960s

or early 1970s – either way, it was before Mick

was born. We’ve now been back to the same

locations and done our best to capture the

same views today, to show what’s changed and

what’s stayed the same.

Clayworth

Our first picture shows Clayworth on the Chesterfield Canal, home to the Retford & Worksop

Boat Club, looking north along the line of club moorings towards Bridge 67 in the distance, with the

clubhouse to the left. Something like half a century later, the club is still based there, as is the

clubhouse – although today it’s disappearing behind the trees, which have already hidden all the

buildings on the right. But the biggest change is that typical craft has changed from the small

cruisers of the 1960s to today’s narrowboats.

THEN & NOW

SEND US YOUR OLD PICTURES

Do you have old photos of canal scenes which have since changed?

We will try to match them with pictures from today