Email: Situation as described

I have to admit I did not know about narrowboatworld until a fellow boater told me about the write-up of your trip through Leicester, he knowing I had done the same.

So it was with some interest that I read it, and can only say that at last there is someone who tells us the facts, for we must have followed you through Leicester and down to the Grand Union proper, and can only say that the situation is as described.

St Mary's lock that has the broken cill was a problem last year, but is now worse, and as was written it was a job getting the water low enough to open the bottom gates to gain entry, yet it is not in the list for winter repair, though as you mention the two nearby in Aylestone Park are, though they are nowhere near as bad, but the public see those of course.

And I know about the policy of removing gate paddles instead of repairing them, which often leaves a single ground paddle when one breaks, as they do.

But I did not find the lock gates too hard to operate, but with us both being in our fifties we still have plenty of strength left!  But it is easy to realise older people would have trouble, perhaps your crew is older so finds the gates hard to move.  But this does not bode well for the older generation, and perhaps why there are not the boats moving that there were a couple of years back, something that the authorities should bear in mind, as there are very few young people nowadays on the waterways to take their places.

Adrian Sheldon