I’d like to be on the Leeds Liverpool Canal. But if you can’t get the box to float, you can happily put me anywhere on the tow path from Salter to Gargrave to the top of Bank Newton locks.
I became ill and housebound with ME when I was 18 and I was desperate to find a way to feel free and alive within the bounds of my condition. A narrowboat provided that, plus I’d always wanted to live in a caravan or on a boat.
On a boat you get deep into the wild while still having a bed, a fire and a kettle to hand. You can be in motion whilst lying still and in the middle of nature without any hiking. The four mile an hour speed limit suits my slow paced body well.
Now I’m bed bound again, I lie in my bed conjuring up the canal, haunting its tangled tree roots and stagnant edges where the cows come down to drink. I imagine I float across its surface like the swallows diving in the evening mist.
I breathe the smell of diesel and damp and I imagine the bluebell woods beyond Skipton, the under tunnels, the immovable swing bridges and the view from the top of Bank Newton locks. I’m steering the boat standing next to the tiller, just nudging it a bit so it keeps us on course, chatting, feeling the sun and wind on my face.
Or crossing the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct in a snowstorm, pootling up the Selby Canal through the yellow water lilies that dip under and resurface in your wake. Past the kids knocking off school thinking no one would see them drinking on the towpath, who looked horrified when we came past.
I miss all the brilliant people I met and volunteered with on community boats over the years; the laughs, the disasters, the terrible weak tea and the inevitable engine troubles.
I thought this project would be a fun way to talk about all that but it’s actually been quite hard to make a message. I’m in my mid 40s now and here I am reminiscing about even a moderately active life in the past tense. That’s not right is it?
So I hope you feel some of the excitement and joy I feel as you look out over the cut’s dark waters, but this message isn’t here to make you feel grateful for your own life or to feel things more deeply or have a mindful moment.
It’s because there are many, far too many like me with M.E. or Long Covid who are left adrift, without treatments, without understanding or any research into our conditions – when we could be standing there alongside you, looking out and living much fuller lives.
Thanks for listening.
