Why can't we all be friends?

I'VE ONLY been living afloat for a short while, but the canals have been in my blood since I can remember. I used to think of them as a place where class, money, social mobility and all of the other 'trappings' of a capitalist system didn't reach' writes  Gareth Haines.

It turns out I was wrong.

Several divides

I noticed several divides amongst boaters during my travels on the system, notably:

• Shiny Boaters vs Scruffy Boaters.
• Moored Boats vs Continuous Cruisers.
• Holiday Boaters vs The Rest.
• Liveaboards vs Non-Liveaboards.
• Marina Boaters vs Non-Marina Boaters.

And the list goes on.

I'm a liveaboard, continuous cruiser who polishes his boat, although I wouldn't consider it to be shiny. I don't like to think of myself as fitting into any particular box. That's part of the reason that I retreated to the canals in the first place. I have a vociferous dislike of any form of categorisation and take individual people on their own merits. Sadly, this does not seem to be the attitude of a growing number of boaters. Whilst the snobbery of 'shiny, marina boaters' that I have experienced is bad enough, it pales into insignificance when compared to the growing view of continuous cruisers by the rest of the boating community.

Divide and conquer

Whenever you talk to other boaters, they have views to express on all things canal related from the lack of the British Summer to CaRT's poor maintenance; we're certainly an opinionated breed and there's nothing wrong with that. When the conversation turns to continuous cruisers, they really get animated and parrot the same worn out rhetoric that is awash on boating forums:

• There's loads of boaters taking advantage and not moving far enough.
• Lots of boats don't have licences.
• They pay less money than other boaters.
• They leave the towpath in a mess.
• They take up all the prime moorings and overstay.

Ad Infinitum.

Clear up a few points

To clear up a few points: we pay the same as any other boater; we don't pay for moorings because we don't want to. Unlicensed boats are a rarity, as are those boaters that don't move that far. These boats are mainly confined to London and certain areas of the Kennet & Avon that are clearly overpopulated and merit a different approach (I'll not get into that here). Yes, there are a few boaters who dump rubbish, but I can't believe that they are solely continuous cruisers and thankfully they are also rare. In fact, it's more likely that a  continuous cruiser will spend their time cleaning up their immediate environment, after all, we live there.

I've done some ruminating on where this anti-continuous cruiser attitude comes from and it seems to me that it is proliferated by CaRT's portrayal of the minority of boaters who it finds itself in conflict with. It is certainly blindingly obvious that in recent years CaRT have been targeting continuous cruisers and this no doubt gave rise to the current scapegoat mentality. One could be forgiven for thinking that it is CaRT's intention to preserve the inland waterways as a playground for the moneyed middle classes.

CaRT's Terms and Conditions

Those of you who have switched off at this point, dismissing this article to be just another  continuous cruiser defending his ilk, should pay more attention to CaRT's new Terms and Conditions. They're coming for you too. It all puts me in mind of Maurice Ogden's poem—The Hangman. If you are not familiar, it's a poem that tells the tale of a hangman arriving in a village and executing people one by one. Nobody speaks up as the hangings take place, rather they shrink into the background, grateful that for the moment they are spared, until eventually there is one person left and there's no-one left to defend him.

United we stand

In all but the minority of cases, we boaters share a common ideology and reason for getting out on the cut: to enjoy our boating, our way of life and to get a reprieve from the frantic pace of modern society. Let's focus on that, stop the divisive attitudes and take on the policy makers and suit wearers as a unified whole. Next time you see a boat with barely a space on its roof, a boat that is badly in need of some care and attention or a boat that is so shiny it obscures your view of the canal, just smile and wave, spare a friendly greeting and remember—we're all in this together. United we stand and divided we will fall.