I read the news today, oh boy - four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire

Dear Motley Crew,

It was 8 am, and we’d already done two locks. The forecast high for the day was 27 ° and unfortunately for us, the cloud cover was beginning to burn off. Normally, we’d welcome the fine, clear skies, but not today, for today we were doing the Wigan 21.

A flight of 21 double locks, the Wigan 21 takes the canal up a rise of over 200 feet into Lancashire where you must work through a further 35 locks to arrive at the Yorkshire Dales, our intended goal.

When asked where we were headed, All and Sundry had told us that we would love it. “Skipton is beautiful”, they enthused, “and the views are astounding. The countryside is breathtaking, and you won’t have too many boats to contend with.” “Hmm,” we thought, “seems we’ve heard something like this before.”

The first inkling that All and Sundry may have been wearing rose-coloured glasses, came as we reached the top of the flight. Here we were told that only the ground paddles were being used in an effort to keep the weed from the top canal spreading, via the locks, into the canal below. And so it was that our run into Skipton was to be defined by weed. Oh, and for me, ground paddles.

The weed was a constant but the variety of ground paddles made life interesting for the person wielding the windlass.

Some you lifted,

Some came with their own forms of handles, which you turned,

And some required you to apply your windless.

The amount of weed in the canal and the poor edges made finding a suitable mooring along the canal difficult – the edges were either concrete with a protruding cill, or shallow with rocks – both of which meant that we had to travel until we happened upon a suitable spot. It was fortuitous for us then, that the next possible mooring should be within easy walking distance of Hoghton Tower.

The story is thus. In 1617, James I and his royal party were travelling to London from Scotland, when they were invited to break their journey at Hoghton Tower. Here they were fed and watered for three days and nights. The menu was lavish in the extreme – a staggering 129 dishes which offered mutton, chicken, veal, turkey, rabbit, pig, pheasant, duck, deer, wild boar, quail, heron, and beef. It is said that when the loin of beef was served, James, who was probably well and truly more than three sheets to the wind by this stage, declared it to be so delicious, that he decided to bestow an honour upon it. Leaping onto the table (I imagine), he drew his sword, and reportedly declared “Loin, we dub thee knight – henceforward be Sir Loin! Arise Sir Loin."

The truth about the origin of sirloin beef is apparently much less intriguing and is more commonly attributed to the French word “surlonge”, but why let the truth stand in the way of a good story.

Incidentally, the cost of the food, drink and entertainment put on to amuse James and his retinue was so steep that the owner, Richard Hoghton, was unable to meet the debt and landed in Fleet Prison. Somewhat ironically, it has to be said, a copy of the menu printed by the Hoghtons in 1790 came to light in 2019 and was bought at auction for a staggering £ 3000, far exceeding the expected £400. No doubt that, back in the day, that would have gone some way towards defraying the costs.

Hoghton Tower:

the scene of the supposed origin of sirloin steak

Ahead of us now were the former mill towns of Blackburn and Burnley. “Don’t moor up in Blackburn or Burnley” we had been told, “they’re not the best places to stop. Once you get past Burnley though, the canal improves.” As usual, we found the truth to lie somewhere in between. Between the opinions that is, not between Blackburn and Burnley.

We didn’t pause in Blackburn or Burnley as it happens, simply because there was really nowhere suitable to moor. Each of these places exuded a general air of dilapidation and deprivation that extended to the buildings along the canal. Both towns had reached the apex of growth and expansion during the industrial revolution, but just as their rise was linked to the textile industry so too was their decline, and by the mid-20th century, they were experiencing the challenges that faced many towns and cities in the post-industrial cycle.

At the peak of textile production, Blackburn’s skyline was studded with over 200 factory chimneys, the tallest rising to 312 feet above the town. Most mills have long since been bulldozed into oblivion but the stunning Imperial Mill is one of the few that has managed to evade that fate.

Despite its significance to the textile industry, Blackburn has another claim to fame that is linked neither to cloth nor woollen mills, but rather to sleuthing. In 1948, it became the first place in the UK to use mass fingerprinting to assist in solving a murder – that of three-year old June Devaney. The prints of every male over the age of 16 were taken - 46,253 sets of prints in all – and subsequently, one Peter Griffiths was arrested, convicted and hanged for the crime.

Burnley may not offer good moorings, however it does offer a feature that has been listed as one of the Seven Wonders of the Waterways. Known simply as The Embankment, it carries the canal across the converging Calder and Brun valleys and gives an astounding view of the town centre.

The Embankment is sixty feet high and three-quarters of a mile long

Rows of mill houses - so quintessentially English

We chugged on, seeing no signs of the "improved conditions on the other side of Burnley”, until we arrived at the top of Barrowford Locks, where we were greeted with this.

This, we agreed, was more like it.

We arrived in Skipton in the midst of school holidays, and after the calm of the canals, it was something of an assault to our senses. The days were clear and sunny, and the streets were choked with tourists and an assorted array of children. A constant flow of people streamed along the towpath beside the boat at all hours of the day and night. A veritable madding crowd!

Skipton was once a prosperous market town, trading in sheep and woollen goods. These days, it trades in tourism, sitting as it does in close proximity to the stunning beauty of the Yorkshire Dales. A few days mooring in the town though would be enough for us.

But, to be fair, we were also tourists and also there to experience the Dales, albeit at a less frenetic pace, and so we chose a steam train.

We had not planned to alight at Haworth, assuming that it would be teeming with holidaymakers, all clutching worn copies of Wuthering Heights, but we did, and it wasn’t. Although we’d visited the Bronte Parsonage some years previously, we couldn’t resist taking another look.

The last time that we were here, it was freezing and these views were under several feet of snow.

But we had come not only to see the Dales, but to walk them as well, and so, after having re-stocked our pantry, we upped pins and headed for a quiet mooring in which to regain a sense of equilibrium.

This would fit the bill nicely

It rained most days, but somehow it seemed fitting. We donned out wet weather gear and struck out to take it all in.

We would have happily stayed moored here for weeks, but sadly, we couldn't tarry, as we had a train to catch. So once again, with real reluctance, we upped pins and headed off towards Reedley Marina, where we intended to leave Matanuska and head off to see the world.

The Captain, The Commodore and Mrs Chippy

P.S. And sadly, we didn't get a chance to count the 4,000 holes in Blackburn either, so we'll have to take The Beatles word for it!