Winter Readings ('The Great Frost of 1895' and 'Day of the 'Iceberg'')

A winter’s night on the canal, starless and wind gnawed. A snug cabin with a warm stove. A hot drink in a favourite mug (and a biscuit or two). A cosy chair waiting for you. It’s just the perfect kind of night to curl up and listen to some accounts about life on the canals in winters past, when the ice was 2ft 6in deep.      

Journal entry:

14th February, Friday 

"Steel-grey half-light.
 Rooks swing round the naked oaks.
 The daily clamour of heading for home;
 Roosting time.

Their exuberant crow song
 And sense of life
 Fill me with a nameless emotion.

It's something about
 A longing for home."

Episode Information:

The two readings featured in this episode are: 

‘The Great Frost of 1895’ by Monica Bennett and ‘Day of the ‘Iceberg’ by Ron Whatley. They both can be found in Up the Cut: An anthology of inland waterways edited by Ivan E Broadhead, published in 1994 by Alan Sutton Publishing.   

With special thanks to our lock-wheelersfor supporting this podcast.

Kevin B.
Fleur and David Mcloughlin
Lois Raphael
Sami Walbury
Tania Yorgey
Andrea Hansen
Chris Hinds
David Dirom
Chris and Alan on NB Land of Green Ginger
Captain Arlo
Rebecca Russell
Allison on the narrowboat Mukka
Derek and Pauline Watts
Anna V.
Orange Cookie
Mary Keane.
Tony Rutherford.
Arabella Holzapfel.
Rory with MJ and Kayla.
Narrowboat Precious Jet.
Linda Reynolds Burkins.
Richard Noble.
Carol Ferguson.
Tracie Thomas
Mark and Tricia Stowe
Madeleine Smith

General Details

The intro and the outro music is ‘Crying Cello’ by Oleksii_Kalyna (2024) licensed for free-use by Pixabay (189988).

Narrowboat engine recorded by 'James2nd' on the River Weaver, Cheshire. Uploaded to Freesound.org on 23rd June 2018. Creative Commons Licence. 

Piano and keyboard interludes composed and performed by Helen Ingram.

All other audio recorded on site. 

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 0:28 Journal entry
• 1:00 Welcome to NB Erica
• 2:18 News from the moorings
• 4:53 Cabin chat
• 9:04 Winter Readings
• 9:40 'The Great Frost of 1895' by Monica Bennett
• 18:15 'Day of the 'Iceberg' by Ron Whatley
• 24:13 Signing off
• 24:28 Weather Log

Transcript

JOURNAL ENTRY

14th February, Friday 

"Steel-grey half-light.
 Rooks swing round the naked oaks.
 The daily clamour of heading for home;
 Roosting time.

Their exuberant crow song
 And sense of life
 Fill me with a nameless emotion.

It's something about
 A longing for home."

[MUSIC]

WELCOME

A cold easterly wind is still with us, rustling the dried reed blades and setting the burgundy-deep alder a shimmer. Heavy skies still prevail and a full moon has come and gone without much evidence of it. All along the bank – the dark is cat-quiet – save for the flustered scurry in the vegetation at the waterline of a moorhen, set affright by some unseen danger. But all is silent again. All is still, save the cold breath of wind dancing over the waters.

This is the narrowboat Erica narrowcasting into the darkness of a mid-February night to you wherever you are.  

You’ve made it! I was hoping you’d come. The kettle is on, the stove has been stoked, the biscuit barrel has been replenished. There’s rain in the forecast, so come inside out of the night and welcome aboard.

[MUSIC]

NEWS FROM THE MOORINGS  

Dirty laundry-water coloured skies and clouds as heavy as soaked sheep’s wool have persisted. It’s kept the temperatures fairly stable – the highs and lows often only measuring a couple of degrees. It has meant that, save for a couple of mornings of frost, we’ve not had any freezes – although the easterly wind still kept its bite. Rain when it comes, is undecided between straight rain or sleet.

A pair of gold finches have been visiting us recently, charming the alder saplings and old willowherb tangles. And moorhen strut and fuss, becoming much more visible now as the days begin to lengthen. Soon we’ll be having ten hours of daylight. And the ducks are a joy, many of them paired – males tagging along behind the females – like husbands following wives around the supermarket aisles. There’s something rather endearing about them. Earlier as darkness deepened, I could just make out little figures afloat in the centre of the water. Ther relaxed, chuckling chatter, of companionship.

This is a rather hurriedly put together episode as I realised that I am not going to be around to record one next week. So, in order to avoid having a gap of three weeks between episodes, I thought I’d try to get one in this week. It also struck me that it has been a long time since I did any of the ‘Readings’ podcasts and so thought that a winter night like this would make a perfect time to have a wintery-based one.

Both readings are from an excellent little anthology of writings about Inland Waterways called Up the Cut, compiled by Ivan E. Broadhead and published in 1994 by Alan Sutton Publishing. 

[MUSIC]

CABIN CHAT

[MUSIC]

WINTER READINGS (‘THE GREAT FROST OF 1895’ AND ‘DAY OF THE ‘ICEBERG’’)

It might not be quite freezing tonight, but it's not far off, the wind chill is bitter and is taking us well below zero, so let's settle closer to the stove and lose ourselves in times past.

‘The Great Frost of 1895’ by Monica Bennett

[READING]

‘Day of the ‘Iceberg’’ by Ron Whatley

[READING]

SIGNING OFF 

This is the narrowboat Erica signing off for the night and wishing you a very warm and cosy, restful and peaceful night. Good night.

WEATHER LOG