Avon 50th restoration anniversary

THE Avon Navigation Trust are to recreate the late Queen Mother's two boat trips to relaunch the Avon and the Stratford Canal as navigable waterways.

Members of the Orchestra of the Swan's wind and brass section will play aboard two floating pontoons at the 4th July event to mark the 50th anniversary of the restoration of the canal and the 40th year since the river was reopened from Evesham to Stratford-upon-Avon.

Representatives of workers

Avon Navigation Trust's VIP guests will include representatives of the Royal Engineers and Birmingham's Winson Green Prison, who both sent many teams to help with the original work. The picture is of the Queen Mother being taken through a lock while on her 1964 canal trip. Photograph by courtesy of The Stratford on Avon Canal Society.

Also there will be Job Hutchings, whose father led the drive to save the canal, and Nicholas Barwell, whose pioneering dad is the Avon's local hero. They will unveil commemorative plaques.

It was the young Midlands industrialist, Charles Douglas Barwell OBE, who was prompted to act when a 1948 family boat trip from Birmingham was unceremoniously halted by the choked up route.

Clearing the way

He and an army of volunteers moved heaven, and a lot of earth and mud, to reclaim the river from Tewkesbury to Evesham. Tireless Birmingham architect David Hutchings MBE, who had already spearheaded the successful rescue of the canal, went on to clear the way through to Stratford.

Avon Navigation Trust's Engineering Director Roger Clay, who has organised the event with the support of town groups, including The Stratford on Avon Canal Society, explains:

"They were both pioneers. The river and the canal became the life-blood of the area's leisure and tourism industry. We owe a lot to both men, and to all those who supported them."

Travelled by narrowboat

Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother travelled by narrowboat to officially open the canal in 1964, and to celebrate the river relaunch in 1974.

Some of the people who were there then will be among the guests, along with representatives of organisations who supported the restorations, including the National Trust, RSC, local authorities, The Stratford on Avon Canal Society, the Inland Waterways Association and the Canal & River Trust.

Repeated journeys

The Queen Mother's two journeys will be repeated to take the groups to the unveiling ceremony and concert at Bancroft Lock at approximately 3.30pm, before boarding Canal and River Tours' new full-size barge Jennifer May to hear the concert by the Orchestra of the Swan, pushed along the river by Eric the tug boat.

The organisers were keen to have a floating orchestra because David Hutchings had the whole of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra on a floating platform of barges in 1964.

Performing on the river will be a 'first' for the orchestra, which will give it the opportunity to engage with the local community, showing a different facet to what it normally does.