Canal Boat — January 2018

canalboat.co.uk Canal Boat January 2018 37

HISTORY

large barrels of beer; there were no taps or
pumps as beer was poured from the
barrels into jugs.
In front of the house was a triangle of
grass with a sumac tree in the middle and
an octagonal bench around it. The River
Cherwell runs at the back of the house and
at times flooded the back garden. The
village of Kirtlington was a mile away
reached by a dreadful unsurfaced
medieval road called Mill Lane and buses
to Oxford were infrequent.
The Pigeons was a magical place for me.
I much enjoyed fishing in the canal and
river and it was fun to walk to the ruins of
the old cement works and the quarry in
which dinosaur bones had been found.
Above all were the boats and the boat
people and I fell in love with them from a
very early age.
My grandmother was a great friend of
the boat people and when I went boating
regularly in the Sixties, I heard in what
high regard they had held her. As
shopping could be difficult for them she
would stock basic items of food like bread
and a few groceries and if they were
unable to pay at the time, the money could
be slipped under the front door when next
they passed.
Few boat people could read or write and
should a young man want to send a love
letter to his sweetheart, my father would
write it for him always ending ‘Roses are
red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet and so
are you’. My grandmother even helped
newborn babies into the world. On festive
occasions like Christmas and Boxing Day
boat people who were tied up at The
Pigeons would spend the evening in the

pub with people from the village making

merry and singing popular songs. Some

would aim to be at Banbury for Christmas

evening and move down to The Pigeons

for the following evening.

The boatmen would often let me ride

with them on their boats either up to

Northbrook Lock or down to the next lock

known variously as Gibraltar Lock from

the nearby pub The Rock of Gibraltar,

Baker’s Lock after an early landlord or

Head of River Lock as below that lock the

Cherwell becomes the canal to Shipton

Weir Lock a mile or so away. No one in

those days had any qualms about a small

boy walking back alone.

Two trips of many are fixed in my

memory. One Easter Sunday my parents,

sister and I walked to Northbrook Lock

and our arrival coincided with that of a

pair of boats. They took us back to The

Pigeons in a heavy snow storm. On

another occasion, early one beautiful

autumn morning, Jack Harwood and his

wife took my grandmother and me to

Northbrook on their boats Prince and

Searchlight. As we walked back we could

hear grass snakes slithering into the

undergrowth as they sensed our

approach.

Three carrying companies used the

canal at this time, Samuel Barlow Coal Co

Ltd, known as the Limited, SE Barlow,

known as Essy and Thomas Clayton of

The author in front of SE Barlow’s boat King’s Lynn above Pigeons Lock in 1947

The Three Pigeons in 1962, after conversion into a private house

‘Number One’ Alf Hone’s boat White CIty, its

‘ram’s head’ decorated with a horse’s tail