This dramatic sculpture, made from over 100,000 knives, tours towns and cities across the UK as a statement against knife crime.
I’ve had the privilege of working with young people seeing the Knife Angel first-hand this week as it arrived in Milton Keynes where it will be officially unveiled today (Saturday 3 December).
It’s a testament to the power of creative art, and particularly poignant at this time of year. It reminds that, because of violent crime, many families will have an empty place at their table this Christmas and a hole in their lives forever.
It makes me even more grateful for how fortunate we are to start our Christmas this weekend together with a family meal fornall generations at a lovely restaurant overlooking the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal.
The tradition began long before we owned our narrowboat. We would look out onto the canal every year and wistfully say “If only…” as we reminisced about family canal holidays.
Over the years, we have seen many personal changes. We continue to gather joyfully for our festive meal but now raise a grateful glass together to those loved ones no longer with us, and celebrate being joined by new family members. Whilst these losses and arrivals affected us all, they touched the individuals concerned most deeply. We did save to buy a narrowboat for family high days and holidays. Then came the last three years which have brought immense changes to all our lives.
In 2019 experiencing a pandemic was unknown to most of us. We came together for our traditional festive celebrations without much of a care in the world, unaware of what was to come.
In came 2020 – and with it pandemic, lockdown, social distancing. The family mealnwas off but for us it was a time to take chances, take a leap of faith, decide that life was for living and believe somehow (we weren’t totally sure on the detail) we could make lives living afloat, travelling the country on our narrowboat, living at a different pace. Christmas was subdued under the looming and very real shadow of Covid which like knife crime was actively and suddenly destroying health and lives. The joy of seeing family if and when we could was the only gift we all we all wanted.
2021 seemed very different again. We were back together, allowed to see each other, but tentative, nervous and it seemed a fragile reunion. We asked loved ones if they minded a hug and we celebrated with two missing from our festive table, because of Covid and a long-term illness.
This year, this weekend, we hope we will all be together, grateful we can be united once more. We remain grateful for our leap of faith and are still happily cruising round Britain, sharing how we live and what we see with increasing numbers of virtual passengers thanks to social media.
We meet many people on the waterways who have sold up, taken the plunge and become liveaboards. When you are surrounded by something it seems normal and not unusual. It’s only when talking to friends, family and work colleagues who don’t live on the move that how we live now seems different, even daring. Regular Teams calls for work begin with “Where are you today?” People often say how lucky they think we are. We are fortunate and still working hard to live like this and make it work.
We continue to cruise and to work. We have met more fascinating people and enjoyed more breathtaking sights and sounds on the waterways. This weekend once again I shall dress up, put my shoes in a bag, don my wellies to get me from the boat and along the muddy towpath to the bridge by the restaurant, and hopefully then celebrate with all the family. In my head I will be saying not “If only…” but “We did, and we do…”
We have learned along the way that if you want to make a change there is always a way to do so. There may be compromises – we don’t have a newest, smartest boat. We don’t have a bottomless purse but who does? Things go wrong. Things break and fail and frustrate at times, on and off the boat. We are at the mercy of the weather and the weaknesses of a 200+ year old canal network.
We have the fun of working together to find solutions, making things work for us, and figuring out ways to continue when things go wrong. It’s not all plain sailing but the satisfaction in a life lived for every moment is immense. Perhaps it’s no wonder over 76 narrowboats are named Carpe Diem – seize the day.
It all underlines for me how fortunate we are, how precious life is, and how we all need to seize the day, to make the most of every day, for ourselves and for others. Can we make that our Christmas gift to ourselves and each other.
Pickingupducks 