Now into my 35th year of selling narrowboats on brokerage, I am still surprised from time to time by what comes along, and the fascinating stories that the owners have to tell about their boats. Take for instance Balthazar. In the summer of 2009 I was asked by one of our moorers Debbs, if I could help out with the sale of it. The boat was owned by her sister's husband Paul. Although only in his sixties, Paul had become incurably ill and could no longer go boating. For the last year or more Balthazar had been lying unused on its mooring on the Aylesbury Arm of the southern Grand Union Canal. It was, Debbs told me, an unusual and somewhat large old boat, the steel hull of which had originally been built in 1968 with a wooden superstructure fitted out by its owners. It had always been well maintained and had later been converted to all-steel. We normally don't take on boats of that age; however, seeing as it was Debbs, who smiled so sweetly and had moored her boat at Braunston Marina more or less since I bought the place in 1988,I agreed to take it on.
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