Here we are at the start of another year. 2018 has been and gone. A huge amount of work has been achieved at our Fosseway site throughout that year. Some of which I hope I have been able to describe to you throughout the year in my blogs.
There is however December still to add to the years achievements. What can we say about December? Well, it's been an incredible month. Early on in the month, December the 6th to be precise, the 'volunteers' held their Christmas Dinner at the Darnford Moors Golf Club clubouse. This year there was an open invitation to ALL active volunteers and some special guests. Some 75ish navvies, friends and guests accepted the invitation. The evening was a huge success, many thanks to navvie Brian Williams for all the time and effort he spent on making it so successfull, and thanks also to Darnford Moors Golf Club for the excellent food and hospitality.
It is appropriate to wish Brian a speedy recovery from his knee replacement operation which he endured just after Christmas. Brian! keep taking the pills and we look forward to your return to duties as soon as possible.
Being December the weather, as you would expect had not been too kind to us. Lots of rain and a cold atmosphere made life less than pleasant on many a day. However the brick layers still turned up as did the digger drivers and the dumper truck drivers and the labourers and Uncle Tom Cobbly and all. We splashed though mud and puddles up to 12" deep at times. Another large section of concreting shuttering was prepared where the towpath wall is to continue towards Falklands Road. However the concrete delivery itself had to be re-arranged several times and the concrete didn't get to be poured till 10th of January. As always the towpath wall grew both in height and length. as also did the towpath itself. Great work by navvie Paul Jewitt for his labours on this path. A real professional job.
And now I will try and best describe what the most significant achievement was in December. And it is 'many thanks' to Chasetown Civil Engineering Ltd for loan of an 11 tonne JCB Excavator and 6 tonne Dumper Truck over the Christmas /New Year period. It was also due to the fact that many volunteer navvies made themselves available to operate these machines, when all sane members of the Trust were sitting down stuffing turkey and plum pudding down themselves. Thanks in particular Adrian Sturgess and Tony Gardner who put in so many hours. The task was to clear the bed of the canal all the way from the steps to lock 18. This canal bed had been filled, and more than filled, many years ago with all sorts of rubble, concrete and soil.
We had loan of the excavator and dumper till
9th January and by working every day, except for Christmas Day, the task was completed,
just. There is still a lot of work to do around lock 18 but that's another story for another day
.
Thanks to all who have helped get us though 2018 and here's to 2019.
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ONE AND ALL .
Hugh Millington
And many thanks to Hugh for keeping us so well informed on progress - in addition to all the hard work.
