This boating life

“This would have been the parents’ bed,” says Tony Tibbins, pulling down a cupboard door and laying it flat to create a platform. “A teenager would have slept here”—he gestures to a small wooden bench—“and the baby in a drawer under the counter.”

The cabin of Kildare, a 1913 narrowboat painstakingly restored by the Black Country Living Museum where Tony volunteers, is no bigger than fingertip to fingertip in any direction. It would originally have accommodated the whole family of a boat haulier.

I met Tony in late May, at the Crick Boat Show and Waterways Festival, where more than 22,000 canal and narrowboat enthusiasts from across the country gathered this year. The bustling banks of Crick Marina indicate how far narrowboating has come since Kildare delivered her last cargo. Britain’s inland waterways—once sad symbols of decline after their eclipse by rail and road freight—are experiencing an unprecedented boom, driven both by escalating house and rental prices on land, and by the appeal of the lifestyle they offer. There are now a record 35,000 boats licensed to use the waterways network; more than during their early industrial heyday. Some 3,500 people live a nomadic lifestyle, “continuous cruising,” and many thousands more keep their boats on permanent moorings. Over the last four years, the number of boats on the river Lea alone has risen by 40 per cent.

Yet underlying the bucolic scene at Crick, a battle rages for the soul of the waterways. For years, many liveaboard boaters have taken advantage of loopholes and a lack of enforcement to pay the minimum charge of around £600 per year for a “continuous cruising” licence. But recently, keen to increase revenues and control the number of boats in the system, British Waterways, the organisation in charge of Britain’s canals and rivers, has tried to establish in the courts that boat residents who are not truly nomadic must pay thousands of pounds for a permanent mooring. British Waterways says it is only upholding existing rules, but critics have warned this will leave many boaters homeless.

Pat McLean and Nick Tumber, from Streatham, are perhaps typical of the boaters who will be able to weather the changes. After nearly 30 years working as teachers they will spend their retirement cruising the inland waterways aboard Bisous. For £80,000, no luxury has been spared: Bisous comes with underfloor heating, a dishwasher and power shower, dedicated wine cooler and wi-fi. Pat proudly shows off the sumptuous ash-panelled interior. “We are unbelievably excited about our new lives,” she says. “We’ve had enough of London.”

At Crick, only a few stalls sell traditional-style merchandise, such as water cans and vases decorated with roses and castles. Instead, vendors target the retirement market with shiny hybrid engines, luxury specialist narrowboat mattresses, arthritis massage beds, ergonomic chairs and even specialised dog buggies. Untethered by jobs or children, the retired have the disposable income to support a mobile lifestyle.

This is not the case for another group drawn to the boating life: younger people or families seeking an escape from the mainstream. Alex Blood, a 29-year anarchist and singer with his band the Diggers, estimates that he pays £400 per month less in mooring costs than he did in rent. “I was driven by cutting off from society. I was ploughing £500 per month into a house that wasn’t mine, and I didn’t want to play ball with the mortgage system,” he says. “Living on the canal seemed like an appealing alternative.”

Unsurprisingly, he reports tensions between the two boating factions. “I’d say seven out of ten people are doing it for very different reasons than me—I’d call it leisure or tourism rather than ideals,” he says. “They want all the marinas maintained just so, and when they see me with noisy dogs and my rapper mates, there’s a bit of a cultural clash.” For him, the money coming into the waterways has both pros and cons: “The heritage of the canals is working class. Let’s just say that those days have gone.”

For Meg Gregory, who works as a traditional narrowboat sign writer at Dadford’s Wharf in Wordsley, the increasingly strict regulation of the canals is robbing them of some of their charm. “Now British Waterways are doing things like auctioning moorings off to the highest bidder, it is really changing the face of the waterways,” she says, “and not for the better.”

As British Waterways enters its brave new post-public sector era (it becomes a charity next year), it will continue to face an age-old problem: that freedom—of movement, from the rules and regulations of the world beyond the towpath—is the key aspiration for those of all ages and backgrounds who choose to live aboard. As Pat McLean says, “we’re drawn to the freedom of being able to move around, to go wherever we like.” Blood echoes this sentiment: “It may not be quite what I thought it would be, but I wouldn’t go back to a house. I own my home—and any time I like I can raise the anchor and go.”