The show goes on

THOUGH virtually everything came to a standstill over the recent bad weather, it did not stop the Stourbridge Santa Boat Trips operating on the Stourbridge Canal.

It needed icebreakers to clear the path for the Santa boat, but members of the Stourbridge Navigation Trust turned out with their poles to smash the ice so that the children could have their boat trips, Alan Tilbury tells us.

Four inches of ice

There were up to four inches of ice at the Bonded Warehouse where the trips were to start, and members of the Trust used steel poles to ensure the pre-Christmas boat trips went ahead despite the low temperatures.

The trips are part of the children's Santa Boat Trip event run by Stourbridge Navigation Trust that coincided with winter weather which brought chaos to the region, with Chris Dyche of the Trust remarking:

"It was the worst we have seen here in over 20 years, we didn't want to disappoint the children and their families.  It took four hours to break about half mile of ice. and we were worried about damaging the boat.

"It was very hard work, we had to cancel one trip but all the rest went to plan, there is not a lot we can do if people can't get to us."

The temperature was so low that it caused the waterway to re-freeze between trips.