Hi, it’s me again, Bernie. When you left me I had been pulled out of the ground by that David character, dumped rusty and naked by a lock on the Rochdale Canal. Well eventually there was a tidy up and I was lifted and despatched to the West Midlands office of British Waterways. This office is known as the ‘Nomads’ since they have moved offices so many times. I think they are trying to escape boaters, to find an office which is not by a canal – such as the main office at Watford. This is difficult in Birmingham with its 35 miles of canal. This week the West Midlands HQ sits in offices at Cambrian Wharf but I was sent to other offices at Icknield Port Loop.
These are great offices built as an old workshop and wharf. If you get the chance pay the Icknield Port Loop a visit. Don’t just go straight down the Birmingham Main Line, drop round. You will enjoy the architecture, honest. Coming from a long line of bollards I know a thing about canal architecture and believe me these buildings are spectacular. Go now, before they redevelop the old factories along the loop and the yard is sold for exclusive development.
Exclusive; now there’s one of those modern words that means nothing. Like ‘Have a nice day’ or ‘How are you?’ people use them all the time and don’t even listen for a reply. Exclusive to whom? Exclusive to those with money. Contemporary, there’s another word used on building developments. Contemporary - characteristic of the present, it’s obvious the development is of the present - it’s a new build. Have you noticed how the artists’ drawings of new developments always show boats on the move, and moorings by the development but when it’s built there are no moorings. Our family of bollards gets excited at the thought of new homes and nothing happens.
Anyway I’ve been dumped along with rubbish on ‘Aquarius’ the electric tug. Not that I’m rubbish, I’m being re-used in another location. It’s just that they have forgotten about me and I’m left on the tug. Our main job is to clear flotsam, jetsam and general floating refuse dumped in the canal; mainly by the inebriated. Now I know what you are saying, that there is far more rubbish on the Walsall canal than anywhere else. But you see if we cleared that it would only help boaters and we form part of the tourist industry. Our task is keeping the waters looking beautiful for the visitors. It’s not just that, we are a tourist attraction in ourselves. Visitors all wave and take photographs. John and Grant who normally drive the boat get on with the job. They are a pair of great guys who love their jobs on the water, working with Aquarius. Just don’t get them started on what rubbish they find or you will never want to open your weed hatch again!
I smile at the tourists and try to wave but it’s a bit hard when you’re a bollard. I do want to wave, I think it’s the same with boaters when one tillerman waves. The other helmsman does want to wave back but some are too concentrated on steering to acknowledge the wave, or perhaps they are just shy. When David once noticed that a lady’s boat had no licence, just a note saying ‘in the post,' he called over ‘Not the old in-the-post excuse’. She got very angry and just glared back at him with her hand on her hips; a bit like when he used to ask girls for a dance.
I’m in this lavender boat next to some snobby ropes. They think they are cut above the rest of us. Don’t know why, something about coming from hemp which is a superior material and that a bollard would be useless without rope. They claim they are from Birmingham and not Stoke on Trent like me. Asserting solemnly that I’m an immigrant and won’t talk to me, oh, and they wouldn’t marry my daughter. Don’t get yourself in a knot, I said. No daughter of mine would look at a rag-bag like you lot. After all we’re all immigrants at some stage or other, even the bridges who have been straddling the canals for, like ever, they came from somewhere. Even David who claims to have a dash of Viking (his mother slept with the captain of a Viking hire boat), his ancestors came from Scandinavia; it shows that we are all immigrants if we go far enough back. Hopefully the ropes will be dumped in a skip along with their opinions.
I’m sailing along past the Fiddle & Bone public house, closed by the local residents because the music was too loud. It’s a good job that Aquarius is an electric tug and doesn’t make any noise. The only trouble is that we can’t go too far, just down to the Mailbox and back. So if you had hopes that we are coming your way you are mistaken we only do the glossy area of Birmingham City Centre. Those who slag off Birmingham probably have not been here for some time. Most of the old buildings around the canal have been bulldozed and twentieth century buildings constructed. We have lost a lot of heritage but the new buildings are what most people seem to want, bar/cafes, expensive offices… This human world seems to consist of people sitting in offices all day producing paper, going home to watch television, some going to the bars on Friday and Saturday. Not much of an existence. I’m glad that I’m a bollard. At least I’m outside in the fresh air and doing something useful, holding tight to boats. Don’t you wish you were a bollard? No cares, no worries, life is slow and peaceful.
Being on Aquarius and watching the human world has made me wonder about people. Are they happy in their lives? I see them in the mornings pouring off buses, droving their way to the offices a bit like cattle going to milking, a slow, unhappy plod, advancing into work. Most of them never reappear during the day, just sit by the computer. They then rush off home buoyed up a little at the thought of another day completed. A few hours at home, TV for the most part, and then bed. Up in the morning, bus or train into the office, work eight hours. Weekends are better for them, perhaps a night out, a trip out in the car but they still have jobs to do: supermarket shopping, filling up the car. Who was it who said ‘Consider the bollard, how it rests; it toils not, neither does it spin, and yet it goes not hungry, it is happy, contented, and has a peaceful life on the canal.’ It was me, Bernie. Perhaps you might wish to consider which of us has the better life.
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