Holidays can be delightful opportunities to catch up with family and friends. As more hire boats appear with families on board, we left the canal last week to catch up with significant others in bricks and mortar life.
Lovely as it has been, it’s also lovely to come back to our gently rocking home. Possibly one of the best feelings is turning onto the towpath where we moored to see our home both where we left it and in the same state as we walked away from it. We were lucky this time that friends from a nearby boat kept an eye on nb Preaux, sending reassuring WhatsApp updates on a regular basis.
On our return, we find there has been a big change to our boat – she has shrunk. Her 50-foot frame is now housing us, a boatdog, and an energetic 5-year-old who appears to come with SIGNIFICANT LUGGAGE. Small as he is, he fills the boat delightfully – crayons, papers, books, toys, all add to his clothes, shoes and make us wonder how boaters with children on board full time actually manage! Boatdog finds it entertaining – more small spaces for her to curl up in and more cuddle time.
Ever since he was born we’ve been hugely lucky to have Tommy aboard for overnight stays, and now school features large, our summer holiday together is a long-awaited, eagerly-anticipated annual treat. We combine our time together with trips to see family so he, and we, get the fun of watching generations grow up together.
Last year, we headed to the delghts of Cornwall and family there, this year to Yorkshire, where teenagers proved patient, thoughtful, and went out of their way to make his time special. Parks, scavenger hunts, and an evening football match – they thought of everything to make his time with them fun, and he benefited immensely from seeing for himself what it means to be a totally terrific teenager.
They and he, enjoyed time with us older generations – identifying leaves, berries, wildflowers and birds. All generations exchanged stories, memories, knowledge, and also totally different perspectives on family members – many long gone. All these threads add new colours and strands to the rich tapestry of family.
Tommy at 5¾ was able to educate us all about Pokemon. He’s fluent about the names and skills of the characters on hundreds of cards, if a bit hazy still about how to play the associated games or swap duplicate cards.
This intergenerational learning is invaluable for us all. It makes us all feel valued, part of a greater unit, and reinforces our sense of belonging. Information, skills, attitudes, and habits are shared, observed, and understood. It’s a time to get multiple perspectives on those imponderable questions of long hot summer days (or wet soggy ones) like this year’s Are there crocodiles in canals? and Why aren’t there crocodiles in canals? and Where do people come from?
In less mentally challenging conditions, it’s amazing how everyone joins in on a scavenger hunt, and the treasures from oak apples (product of the gall wasp), spiky sacs of sweet chestnuts to feathers (swan, pheasant) become sought after by us all, surrounded by stories of the natural world surrounding them. They have been transported triumphantly back to our boat before they finally make their way back to his home, accompanied by no doubt sightly garbled recollections of the stories surrounding them.
Once back at the boat he was keen to find the surprises that are always hidden somewhere on board, and within seconds new games, books and Great Granny’s Smartie contributions were unearthed.
Together we’ve become enthralled with the humours horror of David Walliams’ Ratburger and obsessed with poring over Martin Handford’s Where’s Wally Now? (Don’t have a problem with Wally but we are all struggling with Woof the dog who is only ever seen by his stripey tail!).
Summer holidays are for many families a really special time for intergenerational learning, sharing and relationship building. We are lucky that it’s been the same for us, but we’re aware that it isn’t just within families where this wonderful learning happens.
For many canal holidays are a great place of family time and learning. Whilst in the past holidays were restricted to just days now and again, rather than weeks, canals themselves are historically the scene of intergenerational learning – when cargo boats plied the waterways, whole families lived on the water because it made economic sense – the barges were places of work and home, and the more hands available to help speed the cargo on its way meant the quicker they were able to deliver the quicker they were paid and could take on the next load. Perhaps because of their unique way of life, boaters like travellers were a close community and often married other boaters.
Children learned by observation – of their parents, siblings and peers. Often families worked the same waterways so for example on the Leeds Liverpool Canal many generations would see each other as they worked like the Martlands around Burscough or the Vickers near Preston. Children would be learning how to handle the horses, ropes, cargo and boats not only from their immediate family but from uncles, aunts, and grandparents also on the cut.
Observational learning is something we’ve been grateful for – watching other boaters and learning from them, grateful too for the generous sharing of knowledge on the cut which comes from boaters young and old keen to help others enjoy the life we find so rewarding. Maybe in years to come we can all join as a family on one of the Navvy camps helping to restore our canals.
Pickingupducks 