Rickmansworth Festival

17th to 19th May  2013

Dave arrived home from work on Friday evening to find me waiting with our waterproofs and thermals packed. The forecast for the weekend was dire! We had been looking forward to the Rickmansworth festival for ages. It was the first time we had attended this event, but many of our boating friends would be there. During the 2½ hour drive in the Friday traffic, we tried to concentrate on how lovely it would be to be on board a historic boat right at the heart of the action and not remind ourselves how miserable it can be sleeping under the cloths of a boat when you have had a cold and wet day.

We arrived to find Python had been given what must have been about the best mooring of the festival by the organisers – a towpath side spot right in the heart of the historic boats. Having installed ourselves onto Python, we set about erecting the display banner on her cloths. It is a new banner this year and we had not seen it before. As we unrolled it and started to familiarise ourselves with the detail on it, we very quickly realised what a superb promotional tool it is. By draping it across the clothed side of Python, it effectively turns her into a large advertising hoarding for the work that The Chesterfield Canal Trust are doing. The map and pictures draw people to look, then, if they are interested, there is as much detail as they can want. No sooner had we started to tie the banner in place than we had people coming to look at it and ask us questions. We realised the banner was the conversation opener we needed to allow us to talk about the canal and its restoration; the project that is so dear to our hearts.

As we prepared Python and ourselves for the weekend, other boats were arriving and Chris, the harbourmaster, was kept busy as they shuffled boats around to fit newcomers in. Before long Python had another five boats rafted up outside her. All of them beautiful historic boats that were equally as deserving of the public’s admiring gaze as Python, but, on this occasion, Python took the starring role bankside. I do hope this treatment does not go to her head! The crew really doesn’t want to be handling a diva!

Dinner was overdue. We wandered up into the town to find something to eat. The restaurants and hostelries all looked rather up-market, as did the prices on their display menus. I had decided against wearing my silk Armani frock and Laboutins in favour of jeans and walking boots that evening, so we were feeling somewhat underdressed for the assortment of high quality eateries. Looking at some of the customers leaving these establishments I suspect they had no concerns of their designer outfit getting contaminated by stern tube grease when they returned home though!

Rickmansworth is a really beautiful place with some very old and attractive architecture. Well worth a visit. Thankfully, shortly before we starved, I spotted a kebab house down a side street. There comes a time in everyone’s life that a Doner kebab fits the bill and this was it! However, upon closer inspection, even this kebab house was aimed at a clientele from the higher end of the social spectrum. Looking at a range of authentic Turkish kebabs cooking over charcoal behind a glass screen it took no time for the authentic Turkish owner of the place to persuade us we were hungry enough for a mixed grill. We sat on stools at a small bar and watched then prepare our food. Two plates came out with a tower of food on them. So many different types of beautiful flavoursome meats on a mound of crisp fresh salad with charred peppers and pickles then pitta bread followed. It was delightful!

Back at the festival, we found some friends in the beer tent and sampled a wee drop as a nightcap. They mentioned to me that the weather forecast had changed and we were due a weekend of unbroken sunshine. Yeah right! Pull the other one, it has bells on!  As I snuggled into my sleeping bag that night and pulled the extra blanket over me, I didn’t think I would ever be warm again. People were talking on the towpath; people were climbing across Python’s stern deck to get to their own boats rafted up on the outside. It was cold! An owl hooted, a siren wailed where was the sleep I needed? It was cold, very cold. My eyes were still closed as my sleep was broken again by another noise, a raucous bird noise. I recognised that call. My brain registered where I remember it from. It was a parakeet. I had seen them in India. The hotel beds in India are as uncomfortable as the one I was lying on. In my semi-comatose state, my brain pondered on the fact that I was clearly not in my own bed at home and, as I could hear parakeets, perhaps I was in India? No, my brain now registered that my skin has gooseflesh from the cold. Not India but Rickmansworth at 5am. Parakeets? Where was my camera? Time to get the kettle on and start the day!

The day started a little overcast but there was no hint of the wind and rain that had been forecast. I checked my phone for an up to date forecast and realised that those friends were not winding us up in the beer tent last night. The sun was going to shine on us after all! I took a long early morning walk in the nature reserve next to the canal and watched nature busying itself with the business of spring. It was a wonderful start to the day, some peace and tranquility, the calm before the storm. A very friendly moorhen was making itself at home by wandering around the boats looking for food. Our neighbours on board Sickle were eating breakfast in their back cabin when the moorhen stood on the step watching them.  We felt certain there must be a nest somewhere close but could not see it in the little stream running adjacent to the towpath.

The festival gates opened and the trickle of people walking the towpath and looking at the map on Python’s cloths grew steadily until there came a point when there were so many people crowding around studying the images and information and engaged in conversation with Dave or I that others were having to walk in single file to squeeze past between the towpath and the little stream. We soon became aware that, as we talked to people, others were standing nearby listening to what we were saying as they absorbed the information displayed on the banner. Before long many of them would join in the conversation, so we would find ourselves talking to a small group rather than just individuals or a couple.  Everyone seemed genuinely interested in this quaint little bit of England that is so far north of the place they call home that they might struggle to identify where to stick a pin in a map of Great Britain to find it.  I was almost expecting someone to ask if they would they need a passport to gain entry to such a delightful place?  There was lots of interest in visiting from walkers, cyclists and boaters alike.

The people just kept on coming.  We had not stopped all day. Our legs felt like lead and our voices were wearing out. We packed away; fielding more questions as we did so and finally locked the cabin door on Python and headed off to the main festival site to see what the food stalls had to offer. The place was heaving.  Hundreds of revellers were sitting on the grass in the evening sunshine enjoying the music from the stage. The beer tent could only be entered by someone with a sharp pair of elbows; getting to the bar was another game altogether. Multi-coloured helium filled balloons floating above the heads of the crowd, children with smiling faces and an assortment of expertly applied face paint, good music, assorted well behaved dogs socialising and living in hope that someone might drop a morsel of burger as they walked past. The atmosphere was amazing. Some uniformed police officers standing none too discreetly at the side were relaxed, joking with people and smiling. There was no “proper” work for them among this well-behaved, smiling crowd of people. We had heard this event was a special one and to experience it for ourselves was something we had wanted to do for some time. To be right in the heart of the action upon the lovely old historic boat Python was the icing on the cake.

For some reason, I slept a lot better the second night; it felt warmer and quieter. Maybe it was because I was so tired from the day before. Maybe Timothy Taylor’s sleeping draught – the type sold in 1-pint doses – really does work! After a quick breakfast from the burger van we set up for another day as the sun came out. Our little friend the moorhen had answered our question about there being a nest. She was fussing around in the stream as four tiny little black powder puffs took to the water from a very cleverly concealed nest one by one as we stood and watched. We felt honoured to share the moment with the proud parent birds. Moorhens make great parents but this pair had their work cut up with a newly mobile brood as a few thousand people were going to be tramping the path a few feet from their home that day!

And so they came, people, lots of them, boaters, walkers, cyclists, historians, others that fitted into none of those categories but they were interested in our canal. Full credit to the crew who had toiled to ensure Python was at Rickmansworth in time for the festival, covering 236 miles and 177 locks from her home mooring in some very un-spring like weather. They all deserve medals! We quoted those statistics to people throughout the weekend, pointing out Shireoaks, Python’s home mooring, on the map. Their next question was almost always “How long did it take you to get here?” Our reply of “2½ hours down the M1” was not what they were expecting but, while we may have been the public face of the Chesterfield Canal Trust for that event, we made sure that everyone we spoke to that weekend was well aware that it takes a team of dedicated volunteers to run Python and she is one very fortunate boat to have such a motivated and experienced team at her disposal. It was a superb but tiring weekend. Python and the Chesterfield Canal Trust got a warm welcome both from the organisers of the event and the people who attended.  As I am typing this I am aware of the ripples that started with conversations at that event are widening to the benefit of local businesses and the local economy. Thank you to Rickmansworth Canal Trust for giving us such a fantastic opportunity. Python enjoyed the festival I think – but possibly not nearly as much as her crew!

Jan Warsop