Meet The Boaters: Nigel and Janet

Nigel and Janet

This is the last in my series of interviews about families living on narrowboats. Why do some families stay living aboard, and others decide that as their children grow older, it’s time to leave the waterways and live ashore? I came very close to living in a house this year, and it was partly my friends Nigel and Janet that changed my mind about leaving the water. Although I have referred to their interview in my article about jumping ship I wanted to publish their whole interview because I found it all so inspiring and interesting! 

Janet (46) is presently working as a disability support worker, but when I first met her she was a paramedic. She started looking at boats in about 1989. She was working for a bank, which used to be in Wembley and then relocated to Uxbridge, on the outskirts of West London. She was the kind of person who hated the office and at lunchtime would go to the park or off for a walk. That’s how she found the canal, by the ‘Swan and Bottle’ pub, and saw the boats and the people living aboard.

The Swan and Bottle pub, Uxbridge

“I  got out the local map and went a-wandering. I think it was the freedom that appealed to me, taking off in your own home to wander the countryside like a gypsy with never a worry..ha ha - sounds so romantic doesn’t it? Also I was getting too old to live at home and didn’t want a mortgage, house, and bills etcetera. I met Nigel while I was going to the boat yards and it was a brilliant idea for a shag pad!

 I bought ‘Amelia Rose’ for 15 grand and for the first few days lived out of water bottles, battery powered radio and candlelight as I did not have a clue how it all worked...don’t laugh!  I loved the lifestyle, the friends, chatting to strangers, moving around ...everything. I hated...er....er....er...um...the restricted space but only after having children and...er...running the engine to charge to batteries, (too noisy) and I think that’s it. 

It all changed in 2004, I just didn’t want to be there anymore, but to be honest I was hinting to Nigel to move before, for all the reasons you mentioned when we were emailing recently; laundry, cramped space - especially when it was raining, dragging shopping and kids from the car to the boat; and I was always paranoid about the water.

I do miss it terribly but would not go back for the reason mentioned above. What do I miss? The shock on people’s faces when you say you live on a boat, the friends, the pubs and social life, talking to complete strangers on the towpath and not being treated or treating anyone like a psycho murderer, the peace and quiet, no traffic, crowds, noisy neighbours and of course the beautiful English countryside like nowhere else on earth.

It was the best time of my life and I wouldn’t swap it for the world, a house is great...bigger though more expensive, more mod cons, and cleaning! Believe me cleaning a boat was fun compared to a big house. If we didn’t emigrate we would be still on the boat unless we moved completely away to the countryside, somewhere quiet, remote and beautiful, and I doubt that would have happened.”

Nigel - 'The Marine Engineer'

 Nigel (48) was a marine engineer, when I knew him on the Cut: A good one. He serviced my boat and everyone else’s that I knew.  He lived aboard from 1996 until 2008. Charlie was born on the 1^st February 2000 and Alfie was born on the 9^th April 2002.

“I moved onto Janet’s first boat as a very short term stop gap as I had nowhere else to go and needed a roof. It was only going to be for two weeks and I did not want it to be any longer. On my first morning I awoke to a frozen canal covered in snow and found that the fire had gone out...bloody freezing, but after one week at the end of a very cold January I had got the bug and Janet couldn't get rid of me. Prior to meeting Janet it would be fair to say that I knew nothing of the canals or the wonderful life that could be had on it. Janet had always wanted a boat though from her early twenties I believe.

We bought our first boat together in 1998 (Rebecca) and I was probably the catalyst for that as I didn't want to be a lodger and shagging my landlady for the rest of my days, (although it did fulfil some landlady fantasies!)

Charlie and 'Rebecca' (The boat)

‘Rebecca’ was a 70ft Bantock coal butty c1928 that had been converted around 1980 to a liveaboard. We did major work on her over the years but she was a trad style with an engine room cabin at the back for the boys, and then pretty open plan up to the front where our bedroom was.

The things I liked were that there was plenty of room inside for a boat, diesel fire, super big water tank: and moving every couple of weeks to do the toilet, water and bins etcetera usually involved a beer along the way somewhere.  My only dislike was the lack of headroom.

“If you never had a friend in the world then the Cut is the place to find them.” 

The lifestyle was brilliant, if you never had a friend in the world then the Cut is the place to find them. Summers are wonderful for socialising and getting together, moving around all the time was for me the greatest part of it all. A different view every couple of weeks and even when you were somewhere that was not great you knew that very soon you would be moving on again. Generally we always tried to find somewhere really remote and out of the way so there was no one around for miles, or we would be very close to the pub which was equally as nice but for completely different reasons. last but not least the pleasure of just picking up my rod and fishing whilst carrying on with the rest of my life, at times I fished from the moment I got up until I left the boat and started again as soon as I got home, wonderful . 

I didn’t like changing the gas bottle when you’re in the middle of a shower in the freezing cold. When we had a pump out (got rid of that pretty quickly) and it was full you had no toilet until you got it emptied. Another thing is having to be mindful of how much water and power we were using all the time.

Charlie and Alfie

Once we had Charlie and then Alfie, I think my feelings pretty much stayed the same. To be honest we had a better social life on the Cut with kids than we ever would have had in a house. You can be outside with friends and the kids inside asleep or outside playing with you, and when we moored out side or near a pub a really good quality baby monitor meant we could sit in the pub have a few drinks and the boys would be asleep inside a locked boat and very safe.  

We lived aboard for four years before Charlie arrived, and lived aboard as parents for 8 1/2 years in all. 

The advantages for kids are the outside lifestyle, growing up knowing and understanding a non orthodox way of life, great education of life and nature. Healthy living - having to walk to many places sometimes a long way to get to the shops or even just the car. Living in some of the most beautiful places in England. Oh yeah, and did I mention getting to have the pub garden (swings, slides and the rest) as your own little garden when you were moored up outside?

The disadvantage for kids are the dangers of water; you know what I am saying Boat-Wife.

As a parent the greatest thing for me was teaching and watching my boys learn how to swing a lock gate and lift and lower paddles properly etcetera, at an age where most other kids would not have a clue what they were even for.

The worst things I guess would be the lack of room for all, you certainly learn how to get along with each other but if you need a bit of space and be away from the kids for a bit of chill time then you are very limited, especially when it’s cold or wet outside.

Common questions would be,
Do you have a toilet or shower? Can you stand up? Oh it looks so small, how do you all live in that?

We left only to emigrate, and I think if we had not then we may still be afloat. Living in England I had no urge whatsoever to move to a house. Having since left and now living in a house I appreciate all the luxuries in life which people take for granted: such as a never ending supply of water from taps that never run out; toilets that never have to be emptied - let alone carried in hand, a big bath and a never ending source of electricity and room soooo much room. We have a front veranda with more floor space than the whole of our boat.

It was sad to leave the canal and all of our friends but everything comes to an end eventually and if you stay anywhere for too long it will eventually change, and no one likes change so you end up hating it and fighting it rather than just enjoying what you used to unconditionally enjoy.

 What I am trying to say is that of all the chapters in my life, the canal would be the longest, and holds truly some of the greatest, loveliest memories I could ever wish for. It also holds the most painful as well, so for us it was a good time to go. Never look back, just forwards but always remember what has passed, it makes you a better person at the end of the day and appreciate what you had and what you now have.

Learn from it all and then a house can be as enjoyable (for all the opposite reasons) as the canal ever was.

Uxbridge Lock

All drawings and paintings on this post are my own. (c) Boat-Wife.

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Meet The Boaters: Memories of 'Betty Blue'

Photo Credit: K&A Boating Community Website*

What makes someone decide to live aboard? Does having kids change that? Why do some families stay living aboard, and others decide that as their children grow older, it’s time to leave the waterways and live ashore? This article continues my series of interviews exploring the pro’s and cons of living afloat with children.

 Clare is 39, has three daughters and lives with her partner in Wiltshire. She is just coming to the end of her PGCE and trained as a therapeutic  counsellor before that. She lived on her boat ‘Betty Blue’  for about five years. ‘Betty Blue’ was a 70 foot narrowboat built by Colecraft.  

Clare says, “We bought ‘Betty’ as an unfinished project from someone else; my ex is a carpenter and he did most of the fit out. The only thing we had to go on was a week spent renting another boat to see if we liked it - we did! We moved on with our daughter who was two at the time and I had just found out I was pregnant with our second. After we split up I stayed on the boat with the girls, it was then that I really started to appreciate and love being on the boat (even though I was a single mother of two at the time!)

Were you on a mooring or a continuous cruiser?

We were classed as continuous cruisers and were on the Kennet and Avon (canal). I moved roughly between Pewsey and Bath but seeing as those places were separated by the Caen Hill flight I tended to spend periods of time either above or below the flight.

(The Caen Hill flight is a famous canal feature, as there are 29 locks in three groups. The locks take up to 6 hours to travel in a boat.) 

 What first attracted you to the lifestyle?  

It was my ex's idea really and I liked the idea of a travelling lifestyle  (although we didn't travel that far in distance).

‘Betty Blue’ was lined in oak, and was open plan with one bedroom and one door! My boat was my sanctuary and I loved nothing better than battening down the hatches and shutting the world out.  It had a pump out toilet which made the boat quite smelly the further into it you got.  I really liked the fact that individual boats had their own unique smell, it’s comforting!

The best thing about living on a boat is living lightly on the earth, feeling connected to the outside and nature, minimal housework, getting away from it all, the sound of the engine lulling babies to sleep, fires on the towpath and a sense of community. 

The worst things about living on a boat are the lack of space, people looking in your windows, muddy towpaths and the worst of the worst DOG POO (for some reason people treat the towpath as a  general dogs toilet!)

Did your attitude to living aboard change after having children? 

I've never lived on a boat without children - I bet  its lovely! 

What are the best things for children about this lifestyle? 

Connection to nature, low living costs mean you can spend time with the kids, my girls were little when we lived on the boat so we spent a lot of time together, they and I was never really out of sight. 

What are the worst things for children about this lifestyle? 

 The danger of the water, and dog poo on the towpath (which was essentially my back garden). 

 What are the most common questions people ask you about living on a boat?

"Aren't you worried about your children falling in the water?" My answer is “No”,  I'm more worried about them falling in dog poo!

 "Do you pay council tax?" My answer to that was  "Do you pay for a British Waterways license?"  

What prompted you to leave the waterways?  

After my relationship with my ex broke down I stayed on the boat for another three or four years. After a year or so on my own really getting to know myself and what I was really capable of I met my current partner. He lived on the boat with me for the next couple of years but when I fell pregnant with my third daughter we decided to call it a day. 

Although I would have stayed on the boat he wasn't keen on having a baby on there so we moved into a house and have been in one ever since. I still really miss my boaty days and sometimes see ‘Betty’ on the canal (we live close to the K & A), but I wonder if I just  look at those times with rose tinted spectacles. It was time of freedom in that I wasn't constrained by school pick up and drop off. 

 If we found ourselves stuck for somewhere to live I would rather go back to the canal than live in a cramped estate or in a big town.  Unfortunately having teenagers limits us as they (especially the eldest) point blank refuses to live on a boat again.  My partner thinks he might like to get a boat as a bolt-hole, I think once the girls have flown the nest. We would like to retire on a boat.

Clare is crafty and blogs about her crafts at Woollycraft Wonders.

*Photo Credit: Kennett and Avon Boating Community Website

To read more boaters’ interviews click on ‘Meet The Boaters’ in the tag/label cloud.

Meet The Boaters: Karolina's Family



Rainy Kensal Green

 What makes someone decide to live aboard? Does having kids change that? Why do some families stay living aboard, and others decide that as their children grow older, it’s time to leave the waterways and live ashore? I’ve begun to interview some boaters and ex-boaters about life afloat.


Karolina, (32) is a finance officer and lives with Grzegorz, (27) a sound technician, and their daughter who is fifteen months old. They bought their first narrowboat in April 2009, so have lived aboard for two years. They are “continuous cruisers” who sometimes take a winter mooring. She loves the peace and quiet of canal life.

Karolina, what first attracted you to the boating lifestyle?

There are no noisy neighbours, you can sightsee London easily, it’s close to nature and on top of it. We could not get a loan for buying a flat so this was a nice alternative. My husband always dreamed of living on a boat, he is a "sailor soul."

Our boat is a 40 foot, traditional, BMC1.5 (engine) I love my plants on the roof. The down sides of this boat are that there is less space for a spare gas bottle, and we need to fold and unfold our table every time after eating.
The best things about living on a boat are being close to nature - birds, peace – and escaping from the rush of London.

The worst thing about living on a boat is winter - you need to be careful with the heating (not too hot, and not too cold, and not to run out of coal etcetera).

After having our daughter I would say that the worse elements are these same things.

I lived in Germany for four or five years before moving to the UK, and we moved together to the UK in Autumn 2008, so we have lived for one year in the UK before having children. I think the best thing for children about this lifestyle are that you can feed ducks from the kitchen window!

Duck

So what are the worst things for children about the boating lifestyle?

I just wonder how I will commute to work and nursery once the winter mooring has finished and we have to cruise again.

What are the best and worst things for parents about living aboard?

My daughter will speak English without any troubles! But the worst thing is that we are too far from the grandparents and all family - I feel quite often isolated, we do not have here many friends who would do babysitting.

What are the most common questions people ask you about living on a boat?


Is it cold in winter? And is there any risk that my daughter will drop in to the water?

What encourages you to stay living aboard? Can you imagine anything that might change your mind about living afloat?

Poland is quite an expensive country; it is easier to live in the UK for us at the moment. We might move to Poland only due family reasons, for example, if our parents were ill.

Click on the label/tag Meet The Boaters (in the side bar) to read more boat family interviews.

Meet The Boaters: Rosie and Tony

Rosie and Tony lived on a narrowboat for four years and a Dutch barge for two years. Rosie is an artist and Tony is a careworker. They have two dogs and a one year old baby.

Rosie says, “Tony used to walk Mabel, our dog, down by Kensal Green canal when we were renting a flat up that way and he got into the idea of the boat, I was nervous about coming back at night but there was a woman with a baby moored there and I thought, ‘If she can do it we can’.

We got a shell from the Liverpool boat company and fitted the whole thing out at Kensal Green. We had a camp stove and no toilet or running water. We had to go to Sainsburys for the toilet and a pound shower at the leisure center. The roof was totally piled up with crap but we were really excited about it and enjoyed roughing it up! We did Bobby Dazzler out lovely in the end, and it’s now well loved and looked after by its new owners.
Our next boat was bought off a bloke who was doing it out with his wife, but she died and he wanted shot of it. I was ready for land but Tony talked me into looking and we decided to buy it. It was cold when we moved onto it and the heating was a diesel stove that didn’t work; it was pretty grim. We had a beautiful lake to ourselves in Shepperton but it was full of Canadian geese which never shut up! It had a lot more space and it was a lot easier to do out as you could put normal furniture in it, but because it was old it wasn’t well insulated and needed all the rust taking off and painted and greased again.

The best thing about living on a boat is summer evenings when you’re moored with a nice bunch of boaters and there’s a barbeque on the go and we had some good New Years party cruises on the Bobby Dazzler. But the best thing is long summer trips down the Thames. You get a good set of people on boats from all walks of life but you all have the boats in common and I like that.

The worst thing is long winters; having British Waterways on your back, and toilets are nicer on land - but you just get used to that. It felt a bit damp on Jantina ( the Dutch barge) towards the end of winter but that was a long winter.

The best thing with our baby was that it was a nice towpath community, including some of the dog walkers. There were low overheads in that lifestyle. I would have loved to have taken our daughter on the Thames round Cookham way when she was a bit older. She used to like sitting in the wheel house when we were on the move.

The worst thing about boating with a baby is doing the locks, keeping the heat consistent (especially when she was really tiny) not having a doctors, having to move when you have made mum friends in an area, getting on and off the boat with a buggy, you couldn’t get a babysitter, and smoke coming in the boat! I could go on …ha ha!

We lived on the boat for four years before we had a baby and nine months with her.

I think it’s a nice way for kids to live as it’s a big adventure, although when they get a bit older they might make friends that they don’t want to move from. It would be ideal if you had a group of boaters with kids that moved around together. I don’t know how it would have been now that she’s walking; that wouldn’t be too relaxing.

I found it hard being so reliant on Tony for so much.. i.e wood for the fire, petrol for the generator, filling up, emptying out. It’s nice for him now that he can come home from work and settle instead of having a million things to do (athough he probably doesn’t know what to do with himself). The little things that are a bit harder on a boat really add up. Laundry, changing gas, topping up the fire, all become a lot more intense when there is a new baby. When she was really sick the other day we did about ten washes in one day, and I kept thinking, I’m so glad I’m not on the boat!

When you live on a boat people always say … “Oh how lovely, I’d love to do that!” …and I think, 'You wouldn’t last two minutes love!'

Rosie and Tony now rent a house with a garden.

“I left boating because of all of the worst things that I’ve just said, but in spring and summer I will miss it because of all the good things... “



Rosie Short creates quirky hand-made dolls at http://www.theworldofbobbydazzler.co.uk/

Meet The Boaters

What makes someone decide to live aboard? Does having kids change that? Why do some families stay living aboard, and others decide that as their children grow older, it’s time to leave the waterways and live ashore? I’ve begun to interview some boaters and ex-boaters about life afloat.


Louise (39) is a nurse and lives aboard with her eight year old daughter. She has lived aboard for fourteen years and loves the pretty colours and the glistening of the sun on the water.

She bought her first boat because she needed somewhere to live and she felt that rent in London was “absurd!”

What is your current boat like?

“It’s a 42 foot narrowboat, with a wheelhouse, 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, kitchen and living area and big hatch.”

What do you like about your boat?

“I love being able to steer from the inside, listening to the radio, watching the windscreen wiper when it's raining and I'm, warm and cosy inside and talking to my daughter the whole time and being able to keep an eye on her. I like pretty much everything!”

Is there anything you don’t like about boating?

“I dislike leaky windows but the tarpaulin does a mighty fine job keeping the blasted raindrops out.
The best things are a wonderful sense of community and belonging, looking after my neighbours and feeling looked after. Financial freedom, change of scene, great friends and canal family, lots of colourful characters and musical gatherings.”

And what are the worst things about the lifestyle?

“The worst things are running out of water, full toilet, when the engine will not start, and not having enough room on the back deck for my bike.”

Louise lived aboard for six years before having her daughter.

Did becoming a parent change your thoughts on living aboard?

“Yes, I enjoyed living on the boat even more when my daughter was born, because I spent a lot more time at home with her and enjoyed walking along the towpath whilst pushing her in her buggy. I knew a good few boat mums and felt quite connected. We travelled on the boat a lot as well before she started school, so it was a great adventure.”

What are the best and worst things for children living aboard?

“I'm not sure that it is that great for children to be honest, there’s limited space inside, no garden, and the water is so dangerous. We do so much off the boat, she is well loved on the canal. My daughter does like going up to Denham and being at the country park”.

Denham Country Park offers 69 acres of rambling walks and woodland footpaths. It is surrounded by the Grand Union Canal and the rivers Colne and Misbourne.

“Being on the boat, means that I get to spend more time with my daughter because I don't have to work like mad to pay rent or a mortgage and I like being there for her.
The worst things are that there are not many other children on the canal, parents are wary about their children visiting, there’s limited space, limited power, and she has to help or wait while I do the chores, like laundry etcetera.”

What do people usually ask you about living on a narrowboat?

“Is it cold in winter?”

What encourages you to stay living aboard a boat?

“What encourages me to stay? Being able to move into the catchment area for a great senior school when the time comes. Being able to live in bustling London or the green of Denham in the same week, canal family, fresh air, country walks around Denham at weekends, canal-side pubs and musical get togethers.

So would you ever leave the waterways and live on land?

“ If I did ever move ashore I think I would always keep my boat. It's quite refreshing to remember all the great things about boating.”