Just read the whole thread fascinating. My daughter has just bought e apartments on Gloucester Docks and worked for a while as a volunteer in the British Waterways museum, because of the number of narrow boats moored around the dock area and what she saw in the museum, she and her husband booked a narrowboat in 2013 and with my wife the four of us did the Stourport Ring in a week, fascinating. Because of this we booked again this year and starting from Gailey did the Black Country ring. As a young married couple in the early sixties my wife and I and her best fiend and boyfriend used to walk along the Birminingham and Fazeley Canal in the region of Pype Hayes, Castle Bromwich etc. At that time the canal had a black oily, turgid look and I am sure that if one fell in, one would never have lived. Of course we regularly passed under the Cincinnati bridge. This year in early spring sunshine heading for Gas Street Basin and that wonderful flight of locks from Snow Hill to Brindley Place, we passed under that Bridge again. What a difference, the water was fluid not congealed, not old tyres, prams, beer bottles etc and even the tow path looked civilised. Back in 1960, I never thought that I would be on the canal retracing those walks from years ago. All that was missing from the scene was the BCT blue and cream buses on routes 66 and 28 and the odd Midland Reds heading along the busy main road, that parallels the canal after Tyburn House. No we did not stop, we had left Fazeley that morning early and were determined to make Brindley Place as we had a date with the big Chinese restaurant there. Keep up all the interesting posts. By the way can anyone tell me how to open the thumbnails?
