The Ferryman and the Narrowboat People

I took tonight off, after working three late nights, and went to see The Ferryman, a very interesting play about how the IRA got its hooks into people, usually young men of a certain age, and used those hooks to manipulate them well past their fighting days. The title refers to a poem by Virgil about the souls of the dead needing to be free of sin to be able to cross to the other side. My crude interpretation of the classics. The only thing I didn’t like about it was the very bad Derry accents put on by the mostly English cast. Pretty painful.

So back to St. Pancras. To get there I walked along the Regent’s Canal and saw many, many narrowboats, or canal boats. People live on these, sort of a watery alternative to a Winnebago. Here are four docked together.

I kind of like how this one complements the building behind it.

You get the impression the people who live on these boats are characters. Care-free nomads living off the grid and out of time. You see gardens on a lot of them, including this one, which is available for hire.

British people are very taken with narrowboats. The actors Timothy West and Prunella Scales (famous as Cybil in Fawlty Towers) did a show called Great Canal Journeys where they explored the many canals of Great Britain. Here is a very sweet, poignant story about Prunella having some form of Alzheimer’s and the couple's decision to enjoy life on the canals, where memory isn’t of much value and one can enjoy being in the moment. I’ve watched the show and it’s more interesting than it sounds, offering a lot of history about the places they visit. They came once to Fermanagh and tracked down a West ancestor. There’s nothing wrong with Prunella physically and it’s her job to open and close the locks on the canal--not a job I’d want to do. Hopping on and off the boat and pushing these massive wood-beam levers that operate the lock gates.

Finally, here is a couple on their boat with their dogs. Now that’s the way to travel.

I did get their permission to take their photo through some form of miming.
March 28