CANAL IS KING

摘要

"Travelling the canals with Bill is sometimes a tiny bit weird," begins the introduction to this book. And one slightly weird thing is how author Bill Savage came to be walking canal towpaths. It began with a rash decision to sign up to complete a series of challenges working up to climbing Mount Fuji, and the realisation that some training might be in order. Rejecting the gym, the local roads, and cross-country running (he kept getting lost) he settled on the canal-and found his local towpath was part of something called the Warwickshire Ring. And from then on there was no stopping him. He ran the whole ring in sections, running back to his car each time, then he walked it, then he walked it using only public transport. Along the way he gained a respect for the canal and its builders - hence the title, And from his years of doing this he takes us on a tour of the ring. We hear the familiar canal history - the straightening of the Oxford, the widening of the Grand Union - along with less-familiar local history snippets. Did you know that a steam-powered mill in Fazeley made nothing but red ribbons to tie up legal documents - giving us the expression 'red tape'? Or that the first successful parachute escape from an aircraft emergency happened in Long Itchington? On the way we have various encounters from the amusing (an unsuccessful attempt to reunite a lost dog with the wrong owners) to the sombre (a memorial to a policeman who died in the line of duty), the surreal (involving six half-naked men and a banana) and the weird (a ghost-hunter), while lots of names - Shakespeare, jet engine inventor Frank Whittle and the Gunpowder Plotters - come up more than once. Don't expect a canal guide, but take it with you on a trip round the ring and you'll learn something you didn't know.