Canal

These warehouses were where the barges unloaded their goods. By the time this photo was taken in 1963 the canal basin had been filled in. Photo courtesy of the Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester & Rutland.

Mrs Williams: A new estate that’s just, that was built what 25 years, I should think, the other side of River Way, and I call it Poet’s Corner because all the streets are named after poets. Now, not many of those are local boys and girls that have grown up, I think they’re people that’s come from outside, and I get the impression that they live there but they travel out to work. And there’s another new estate on the left, just past River Way. Now, I remember my boys playing up there, that was all the fields. And the (River) Mease, we used to go down there, take the boys. You could walk right down the canal, you could walk as far as Snarestone along the side of the canal, you could walk in that direction on the canal.

Interviewer: Was the canal busy when you came?

Mrs Williams: Oh you could see the barges going up and down, yes.

Interviewer: Did the people ever stop here, the barge people?

Mrs Williams: Yes, yes.

Interviewer: Did you ever use the canal yourself or did you just walk alongside it?

Mrs Williams: No, no, but you could speak to the bargee people and…

Interviewer: Do you remember them, any in particular or what they were like?

Mrs Williams: No, I just remember beautifully painted barges. People, they looked a bit rough but they spoke to you quite courteously, you know, they were just very ordinary people and that was their way of life. Do remember how clean the barges were and how clean the people were, and they’d got the most beautiful painted, you’ve seen all these buckets and all these things, I don’t know if they’re hand painted but they’d got roses and things, and they were really were clever, you know. And often they’d be towing another barge, that would be the working barge behind them wouldn’t it?

Interviewer: What would the cargoes be?

Mrs Williams: I remember coal, but you see ‘cos Measham had got two collieries then, but I don’t remember much apart from coal. That was going right up to Snarestone. And of course the basin is next to John Jerrom’s shop in Measham, is between that and the youth club, well of course that’s all the youth club yard now, so, and that was filled in. I can’t remember how many years ago but that was filled in, but I do remember it, you know, water going under that bridge that I walk up from Measham, that hill gets very steep up there, but that used to be a canal under there. I was in my 20s when we came to Measham, so probably when I was a little girl it was busier wasn’t it, you know, the village. The barge people would be busier then because even in that short time since the war, just before the war and during the war years, things altered didn’t they?

©EMOHA