WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:07.559 It starts with ordinary light and the anticipated clink of 2 00:00:07.599 --> 00:00:10.919 a Thermo's cap. Early April Son finds the towpath in 3 00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:13.640 soft yellow washes, lay gently over the metal gleam of 4 00:00:13.640 --> 00:00:16.359 lock gates and a rough tumble of willow roots. The 5 00:00:16.399 --> 00:00:19.039 others arrive in twos and threes, bots, darkened by dewe 6 00:00:19.120 --> 00:00:22.640 practical voices cutting through the silvery hush. I set down 7 00:00:22.679 --> 00:00:25.079 my rucksack by the benchineer the heritage board, the one 8 00:00:25.120 --> 00:00:27.399 we're supposed to clean each brain and catch sight of 9 00:00:27.399 --> 00:00:30.640 misses wap marshaling the younger volunteers. If you are not 10 00:00:30.679 --> 00:00:33.240 from the Midlands, you might think an old canal looks static, 11 00:00:33.280 --> 00:00:37.119 as sluggish, manipulated slip of water bracketed by hedges. But 12 00:00:37.200 --> 00:00:40.759 these few miles of Ashroff navigation have their own quiet dynamism. 13 00:00:41.119 --> 00:00:44.039 Joggers use it for measured progress. Children launch paper boats 14 00:00:44.039 --> 00:00:46.119 from the brick corokd by the cafe. Anglers know where 15 00:00:46.119 --> 00:00:47.719 to drop a feed of for a rooch that bites. 16 00:00:47.719 --> 00:00:50.759 On certain overcast mornings. There's a patience to it, as 17 00:00:50.799 --> 00:00:53.359 if whatever has happened elsewhere, the canal is always midway 18 00:00:53.399 --> 00:00:56.079 from one moment to the next, lately, I'm the old 19 00:00:56.079 --> 00:00:58.920 engineer among the local history lot. I hung up my 20 00:00:58.960 --> 00:01:01.439 high vist jacket to you back. Now they rely on 21 00:01:01.479 --> 00:01:04.879 me for the teche exhibits, this time replanning a small 22 00:01:04.879 --> 00:01:08.200 indoor display about Ashcroft's waterway charts, lock models, some photos 23 00:01:08.200 --> 00:01:11.319 from miss s wads attic apparently involving bearded men and waistcoats. 24 00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:14.719 I was drafted to fetch comparative water readings, which should 25 00:01:14.719 --> 00:01:17.079 have been simple. Look in the lock books, collate some 26 00:01:17.120 --> 00:01:19.519 memorable floods or droughts, put together a neat before and 27 00:01:19.599 --> 00:01:22.680 after yet imposed at the first hurdle thumbing the soft 28 00:01:22.799 --> 00:01:25.719 yellowed pages of the lock keeper's book, there's a rythic 29 00:01:25.879 --> 00:01:28.120 looping needst at the old hand writing every day, neatly 30 00:01:28.200 --> 00:01:31.439 rule every column field. Still, as I work backwards through 31 00:01:31.439 --> 00:01:33.840 a series of entries for water levels, all I see 32 00:01:33.840 --> 00:01:38.120 earn the identical numbers month after month, year after year, 33 00:01:38.799 --> 00:01:41.680 the occasional come into temperate breeze wsw but never a 34 00:01:41.760 --> 00:01:45.159 note of worry, correction or repair. I flip further back 35 00:01:45.280 --> 00:01:49.319 the nineteen seventies, the notorious dry spell. The Ashroft navigation 36 00:01:49.400 --> 00:01:52.200 is unchanged level of five point twenty seven feet flow 37 00:01:52.200 --> 00:01:55.400 at zero point thirty three meters per second, keep going. 38 00:01:55.480 --> 00:01:58.519 Nineteen forty seventh. The Big March flood ruined crops Demriver 39 00:01:58.599 --> 00:02:02.239 is still steady modily. P I tried to cross reference 40 00:02:02.280 --> 00:02:06.319 the logbook. Were clippings for known disasters. The surrounding brooks urged, 41 00:02:06.680 --> 00:02:09.719 Rhodes washed out in certain years installed the canal remained untouched. 42 00:02:10.400 --> 00:02:12.599 Not a single high, a low, or even monitor for 43 00:02:12.680 --> 00:02:17.840 potential issue, Just steady standard, all in order. Beside me, John, 44 00:02:17.879 --> 00:02:21.439 the local fisherman leans over curiosity already turning to amusement. 45 00:02:22.159 --> 00:02:24.919 Don't you get lost in those? He says, could draw 46 00:02:25.000 --> 00:02:27.199 up a year's readings, you'd have the same story. Every 47 00:02:27.199 --> 00:02:30.240 time canal behaves itself, always has Like a milkman on 48 00:02:30.319 --> 00:02:32.639 his round. A point to a stretch in the logo, 49 00:02:32.719 --> 00:02:35.280 particularly wet, weak by the squiggled edges of the ink. 50 00:02:36.439 --> 00:02:39.719 Nothing not even a silt up. He grins and stretches 51 00:02:39.759 --> 00:02:43.039 his back. What's to change? Never once lost my catch 52 00:02:43.080 --> 00:02:45.719 when it rained. Not here she carries on, no matter 53 00:02:45.759 --> 00:02:49.639 what the cloths decide. Missus ward overhearing chips in reckon, 54 00:02:49.680 --> 00:02:52.159 she saved the town more than once. Canals are old friend, 55 00:02:52.319 --> 00:02:56.080 reliable's clockwork. Thus smiles have a warmth that's gently dismissive 56 00:02:56.599 --> 00:02:59.319 for them. The canal's predictability is an old song sung 57 00:02:59.360 --> 00:03:02.560 without thought, but from me with decades spent plot ingradients 58 00:03:02.599 --> 00:03:06.319 and designing overflows. Routine is perfect is a puzzle. Water 59 00:03:06.400 --> 00:03:09.960 doesn't listen to nostalgia. In the real world, rainfall means 60 00:03:10.039 --> 00:03:12.879 rising gages, dry spells, me muddy bottoms, and every river 61 00:03:12.960 --> 00:03:16.080 or canal has its fifth for moments. But here reckers 62 00:03:16.080 --> 00:03:19.280 say it simply doesn't. I try not to sound over 63 00:03:19.280 --> 00:03:21.280 eager as I ask the group, has any one ever 64 00:03:21.280 --> 00:03:24.039 seen flood marks on these stones, old sandbags, even from 65 00:03:24.039 --> 00:03:28.199 before the council days. A volunteer shrugs, John pulls a face. 66 00:03:28.280 --> 00:03:31.240 Now you are looking for ghosts, mate, missus Ward shakes 67 00:03:31.240 --> 00:03:33.840 her head, already moving on to the bunting. So I 68 00:03:33.879 --> 00:03:36.879 make a note. Canal levels perfectly steady from more then century, 69 00:03:37.439 --> 00:03:40.960 no major correction, no overflows, no drought loss, even when 70 00:03:40.960 --> 00:03:43.719 the rest of the county floods or parches. It gnaws 71 00:03:43.719 --> 00:03:46.039 at me, though I'm not sure if it's the lack 72 00:03:46.080 --> 00:03:48.520 of evidence or the comic sentence that stirs something stubborn. 73 00:03:48.560 --> 00:03:51.439 The curious water can be coaxed to manage, true, but 74 00:03:51.479 --> 00:03:54.800 perfect obedience is not something I've ever seen. That morning, 75 00:03:54.919 --> 00:03:57.360 a walk home by the towpath, thinking about every course 76 00:03:57.400 --> 00:03:59.919 I ever took, open channel flow, of the calculus of risk, 77 00:04:00.879 --> 00:04:03.240 I tried to tally the anomalies. How could this be true? 78 00:04:03.800 --> 00:04:05.639 Is there something wrong in the wreckers or is the 79 00:04:05.639 --> 00:04:08.960 canal itself quietly refusing the rules. It's less a chill 80 00:04:09.000 --> 00:04:10.919 than a tuck or mental itch. I turn over as 81 00:04:10.919 --> 00:04:13.360 the spring sun falls over still mirror flat water, and 82 00:04:13.400 --> 00:04:15.360 a faint rush of a distant railway line brings me 83 00:04:15.439 --> 00:04:18.519 back to present things. I decide to return the next morning, 84 00:04:18.600 --> 00:04:21.439 before the others arrive. I want to look again, as 85 00:04:21.480 --> 00:04:23.360 an engineer and as a local, at what a stretch 86 00:04:23.399 --> 00:04:28.160 of ordinary English water might be hiding in plain side asterisk. Retirement, 87 00:04:28.240 --> 00:04:31.000 it turns out, does not mean stillness. There's always a 88 00:04:31.079 --> 00:04:34.519 job measuring, fetching poor and tea council meetings, fixing a 89 00:04:34.560 --> 00:04:37.439 split fence some one else will soon repaint. I came 90 00:04:37.480 --> 00:04:40.360 back to ashroftaff to forty mostly unremarkable years working on 91 00:04:40.439 --> 00:04:43.480 water scheme, serban pipes, the ard or or canal. Nothing 92 00:04:43.480 --> 00:04:46.240 with the charm of this old place. My parents used 93 00:04:46.240 --> 00:04:48.240 to bring me here on week ends. We walk from 94 00:04:48.240 --> 00:04:50.439 the market to the lock keeper's cottage, eat melting ice 95 00:04:50.519 --> 00:04:53.600 cream under the buzz of summer flies. Since returning, I've 96 00:04:53.639 --> 00:04:56.040 done my best to blend back in. I signed up 97 00:04:56.040 --> 00:04:58.000 for the Heritage Group, checked in at the museum, where 98 00:04:58.000 --> 00:05:00.480 c Needa k nodded briscolothes from behind a glass cases. 99 00:05:01.120 --> 00:05:03.720 I went to John's Wednesday fishing sessions. Though I never 100 00:05:03.759 --> 00:05:07.560 fancied baiting worms myself. Missus War drew me into council events, 101 00:05:07.720 --> 00:05:10.480 always with an eye for new blood. Most weeks I'm 102 00:05:10.519 --> 00:05:13.160 somewhere on the routine at checking the loch, dusting up 103 00:05:13.199 --> 00:05:15.959 for exhibitions, walking the same foot worn roup beside the water. 104 00:05:16.600 --> 00:05:18.720 The canal carves through the county like an old seam, 105 00:05:18.879 --> 00:05:20.720 older than most of the houses that now lie in 106 00:05:20.800 --> 00:05:23.959 its banks. This broadest reach glides past what's left of 107 00:05:24.000 --> 00:05:26.160 the old brickworks, now a youth theater and a terrace 108 00:05:26.160 --> 00:05:29.600 of hopeful new builds. Further along, read its crowd into 109 00:05:29.600 --> 00:05:32.920 half tended banks. You'll find kingfishers if you're patient, shouting 110 00:05:32.959 --> 00:05:36.120 coots if not a little past the unused railway bridge, 111 00:05:36.199 --> 00:05:38.160 you come to the heart of the old navigation three 112 00:05:38.160 --> 00:05:41.639 locks and quick succession feels behind factories on the far side, 113 00:05:41.639 --> 00:05:45.839 folded into apartments and galleries. That constancy is the canal's currency. 114 00:05:46.480 --> 00:05:49.199 Sunita likes to remind school groups that even now, its 115 00:05:49.279 --> 00:05:52.519 level is managed for boat toros and pleasure craft. Rossi 116 00:05:52.560 --> 00:05:55.399 at the Riverside Cafe asks every spring for the latest readings, 117 00:05:55.480 --> 00:05:57.240 so she knows how much rope to leave loose from 118 00:05:57.279 --> 00:06:00.079 rring picnic launges. Sanderbatman keeps his schedule with matthae the 119 00:06:00.120 --> 00:06:04.120 matic need us. The fishermen pipegs and squabble over old conquests, 120 00:06:04.120 --> 00:06:06.360 but everyone trusts the water's measure will houl from one 121 00:06:06.399 --> 00:06:09.240 week to the next. A jazz band sometimes sets up 122 00:06:09.240 --> 00:06:11.439 for the annual tope of picnic, counting on the banks 123 00:06:11.439 --> 00:06:14.600 to stay dry beneath up ten chairs. Every pattern I've 124 00:06:14.600 --> 00:06:18.000 seen here runs on small public noble gears. There are 125 00:06:18.040 --> 00:06:21.079 council lists for inspection, family grumbles abou wheat growth, and 126 00:06:21.160 --> 00:06:24.040 every so often the burst of shared memory floods somewhere else. 127 00:06:24.279 --> 00:06:27.160 But never hear The older hands say it lightly, but 128 00:06:27.199 --> 00:06:30.199 their routines are build on this trust. They fish fro 129 00:06:30.399 --> 00:06:33.480 and repaint without hedging beds on the weather. Once over 130 00:06:33.480 --> 00:06:35.519 a pint at the anchor, John explained it like this, 131 00:06:35.720 --> 00:06:37.720 She's part of us, this stretch. Don't care what the 132 00:06:37.720 --> 00:06:39.839 brooks to do. You canal keep itself in check. You'd 133 00:06:39.839 --> 00:06:41.920 see a tornado in the sky before she'd give us trouble. 134 00:06:42.360 --> 00:06:46.079 It's almost superstition, but not quite. No offerings or prayers, 135 00:06:46.199 --> 00:06:49.079 just a faith born of unbroken repetition. Yet my eye, 136 00:06:49.120 --> 00:06:51.680 trained by years of damn inspections and nervous meetings about 137 00:06:51.720 --> 00:06:53.959 rain for projections, keeps snacking on the one problem you 138 00:06:54.079 --> 00:06:56.439 only notice if nothing else goes wrong. The numbers are 139 00:06:56.439 --> 00:06:59.079 wrong for being always right. I asked Uniter if the 140 00:06:59.160 --> 00:07:03.920 museum had any news, notable stories. She grinned plenty of nemesis, 141 00:07:04.120 --> 00:07:06.480 but all on the other rivers. The canal not so much. 142 00:07:06.639 --> 00:07:08.879 I think people enjoy saying it never changes more than 143 00:07:08.920 --> 00:07:12.160 any actual evidence of disasters avoided. When she leads me 144 00:07:12.199 --> 00:07:14.360 through the museum one great Thursday, the cabinets are full 145 00:07:14.399 --> 00:07:17.560 of mudded buttes, miner's lamps, certificates from the Canal company, 146 00:07:17.600 --> 00:07:19.560 and a CP photograph of a group in hats beside 147 00:07:19.560 --> 00:07:22.399 the lock in nineteen o two. No snaps of disaster, 148 00:07:22.560 --> 00:07:26.560 no flood lines, just the feathered edges of a tranquil pass. Still, 149 00:07:26.600 --> 00:07:29.079 I wonder about the stories people don't bother to commemorate. 150 00:07:29.759 --> 00:07:32.199 For the history expiion I master join it then and now, 151 00:07:32.199 --> 00:07:35.600 mapping overlain century old readings with recent ones showing skulkis 152 00:07:35.600 --> 00:07:37.680 where the canal has stood solid while fields turned to 153 00:07:37.720 --> 00:07:41.000 ponds and roads to ruts. Missus Ward suggests we highlight 154 00:07:41.040 --> 00:07:44.680 the irreplaceable reliability of heritage infrastructure. She says it with 155 00:07:44.720 --> 00:07:47.839 that particular town council shine. But even as we draft 156 00:07:47.920 --> 00:07:51.000 the poster, I drift into diagrams calculating the improbability of 157 00:07:51.040 --> 00:07:52.879 a waterway built for an ear of horses and wooden 158 00:07:52.879 --> 00:07:56.079 lots of lasting. Every innovation, every unpredictability, are never once 159 00:07:56.120 --> 00:07:59.120 demanding an urgent fix. Maybe it's just a sign of 160 00:07:59.160 --> 00:08:02.600 age overthinking, or reading ghosts and empty margins, but I 161 00:08:02.639 --> 00:08:05.959 can't quite settle for that. If engineering is anything, it's 162 00:08:06.000 --> 00:08:10.199 a patient irritation of an unexplained anomaly. Asterisk a week 163 00:08:10.279 --> 00:08:12.519 later brings the kind of frame that sits in new bows. 164 00:08:13.160 --> 00:08:15.319 It starts in the night, a ceaseless tapin on the roof, 165 00:08:15.480 --> 00:08:18.079 drenching the skirts of the valley. I dorn. The brooks 166 00:08:18.079 --> 00:08:20.279 are thick with runoff foam, licking at the edges of 167 00:08:20.319 --> 00:08:22.399 the cricket pitch, the old drive by the skull an 168 00:08:22.399 --> 00:08:25.199 angle deep current. I slip on boots and cut down 169 00:08:25.240 --> 00:08:28.480 to the main road, dodging a collapse sign messas ward, 170 00:08:28.600 --> 00:08:30.759 wrapped in a reliable green Mac is waving at a 171 00:08:30.759 --> 00:08:32.799 lorry crawling through a puddle half the width of the street. 172 00:08:33.360 --> 00:08:35.679 It's the trendful lot coming back to haunt, as she sighs, 173 00:08:36.360 --> 00:08:39.480 best check your canal. I do just that. There are 174 00:08:39.559 --> 00:08:42.000 years in my working memory when extreme event meant running 175 00:08:42.039 --> 00:08:44.720 for the emergency sluice or calling in sandbags from three 176 00:08:44.720 --> 00:08:48.480 tons over. But here the canal lies pristine. The bricks 177 00:08:48.480 --> 00:08:50.320 above the lock were the same coat of lichen and 178 00:08:50.360 --> 00:08:53.960 touched by Selter's gum. The surface has glassed, no upturned branches, 179 00:08:54.279 --> 00:08:58.080 not even a chair margin to spoil. The mirror willow overhead. Curious, 180 00:08:58.120 --> 00:08:59.799 I take out my old steel rule and check the 181 00:08:59.799 --> 00:09:03.320 gate five point twenty seven. I read, same as last week. 182 00:09:03.840 --> 00:09:05.840 The slight feathering of a current, but no more than 183 00:09:05.840 --> 00:09:09.399 its customary pace. There's no odor of fleef mulch, no 184 00:09:09.480 --> 00:09:11.799 brown stain pushing up from river Eethorn, No sign the 185 00:09:11.840 --> 00:09:14.919 canal knows anything happened at all. I walk its length, 186 00:09:14.960 --> 00:09:18.360 scowning for anomalies, pebbled after rain pools beside the swing gate. Yes, 187 00:09:18.440 --> 00:09:20.559 but the canal's edge does not falter, and the tow 188 00:09:20.600 --> 00:09:23.039 path is dry. I double back to the bridge, where 189 00:09:23.120 --> 00:09:26.039 John is inspecting his tackle. He laughs when I ask, 190 00:09:26.879 --> 00:09:28.879 told you a bomb could drop a knack of brook 191 00:09:28.879 --> 00:09:30.759 and the canal flow on. I lost a rod once, 192 00:09:30.840 --> 00:09:33.879 never my nerve. I go farther up toward Hart's Lane, 193 00:09:33.919 --> 00:09:36.879 where the brooks are spilled onto the water meadows sheets 194 00:09:36.919 --> 00:09:40.519 Danwarry clustered on high ground. Beside them, the canal lies 195 00:09:40.559 --> 00:09:44.080 and touched blue green, unflustered. A few pair of specks 196 00:09:44.120 --> 00:09:46.440 of rain from the night line the stone steps, nothing more. 197 00:09:47.080 --> 00:09:49.039 Back in town, the water company is already up of 198 00:09:49.039 --> 00:09:51.919 pumps on the corner by the primary school. The headlines 199 00:09:51.919 --> 00:09:54.360 in the local rag crow about flowed resilient ashcroft with 200 00:09:54.440 --> 00:09:58.320 a smiling councilor and borrowed waiters. No one, it turns out, 201 00:09:58.440 --> 00:10:02.000 finds the canal's immunity. Surprise to them, this is routine. 202 00:10:02.000 --> 00:10:04.440 The canal always holds. Everything else is up for grabs. 203 00:10:05.039 --> 00:10:08.240 My head, however, is somewhere else entirely if the canal 204 00:10:08.279 --> 00:10:10.840 neither rises nor falls, except may be in careful theory, 205 00:10:11.000 --> 00:10:13.320 What exactly is it doing that rivers and brooks cannot 206 00:10:14.000 --> 00:10:16.720 I text, Cunita, canal unchange again? Can we check old 207 00:10:16.720 --> 00:10:20.720 logs for any levy repairs? Over full actions? Her replies, Brisk, 208 00:10:20.960 --> 00:10:23.200 meet at museum after lunch. I'll put the kettle on. 209 00:10:23.759 --> 00:10:25.799 It's not the promise of tea that settles me. As 210 00:10:25.840 --> 00:10:29.399 the new age, at the age of certainty asterisk. Sunita 211 00:10:29.480 --> 00:10:31.240 is waiting with a stack of folders in the promise 212 00:10:31.279 --> 00:10:35.159 of good biscuits. She's methodical, prefers order to speculation, but 213 00:10:35.240 --> 00:10:39.039 her curiosity quickens around puzzles. Records say canal hasn't needed 214 00:10:39.039 --> 00:10:41.320 a maintenance draw down since the late eighteen hundreds. Dis 215 00:10:41.440 --> 00:10:44.159 routines graping and weed raking. No events, odd, isn't it, 216 00:10:44.240 --> 00:10:46.600 she says, sliding minutes from an eighteen ninety three board 217 00:10:46.639 --> 00:10:49.639 meeting across the table, we read in silence for a while. 218 00:10:50.240 --> 00:10:53.159 The language is clipped proud. The channel remains in disturbed. 219 00:10:53.159 --> 00:10:57.200 Standard operation continues there's a recurring phrasing, all in order, 220 00:10:57.240 --> 00:11:00.960 no adjustments warranted, per inspective measures. Even during the county 221 00:11:01.080 --> 00:11:03.399 so called great flood of forty seven, a canal's record 222 00:11:03.519 --> 00:11:06.080 is the same. I flipped through to the council digest 223 00:11:06.159 --> 00:11:09.639 brief minutes, bare mention of routine check, no hazard. How 224 00:11:09.679 --> 00:11:12.879 do you think it works? I ask, only half in jest. 225 00:11:13.639 --> 00:11:17.679 She shrugs. Best construction in England. Or maybe they're just cautious. 226 00:11:17.720 --> 00:11:19.639 The canal's been good to us, Mom says her dad 227 00:11:19.799 --> 00:11:21.519 used to call it the only part of the landscape 228 00:11:21.559 --> 00:11:25.799 worth relying on. Something nags I ask, has any part 229 00:11:25.799 --> 00:11:29.200 of the canal failed? Leaked? Even minor Sunita reads down 230 00:11:29.200 --> 00:11:32.679 a fragile sheet, a crack paddle here, broke and gate, 231 00:11:32.679 --> 00:11:35.480 there are nothing to threaten flow. There's lots about painting ironwork, 232 00:11:35.559 --> 00:11:38.320 but never any true panic makes for boring reading. Really, 233 00:11:38.879 --> 00:11:41.960 that's the thing. It should be boring. But as I 234 00:11:42.000 --> 00:11:44.320 overlay recent day to my own measurements taken but the 235 00:11:44.320 --> 00:11:46.679 same instrument I used in Birmingham and leads there's a 236 00:11:46.679 --> 00:11:48.879 clean sameness in the numbers that borders on the absurd. 237 00:11:49.519 --> 00:11:52.399 I decide to take things further for the next fortnight, 238 00:11:52.559 --> 00:11:54.879 under the half smiling tolerance of my friends, I run 239 00:11:54.919 --> 00:11:57.080 my own route summis at the upper pound than mid 240 00:11:57.120 --> 00:11:59.320 day che could stand all lock, then the downstream gage 241 00:11:59.320 --> 00:12:02.559 by the overgrown botause I borrow a precise flow meter 242 00:12:02.639 --> 00:12:05.840 from the club. Sometimes I pack at thermometer. Sometimes I 243 00:12:05.879 --> 00:12:08.840 shot the banks to measure of aporation. The April weather 244 00:12:08.919 --> 00:12:12.279 is lively drizzle one day, hot sun the next. Each 245 00:12:12.320 --> 00:12:14.519 time I check the readings are as close to identical 246 00:12:14.519 --> 00:12:17.399 as makes no practical difference. On a whim, I try 247 00:12:17.440 --> 00:12:20.159 a dye test. I drop a small packet of harm 248 00:12:20.159 --> 00:12:22.360 as rasa at the intake and walk the bank, watching 249 00:12:22.360 --> 00:12:25.200 for the feinned emerald pulse. I'm joined by two school 250 00:12:25.279 --> 00:12:27.519 kids who jog along in a race with the current. 251 00:12:28.159 --> 00:12:32.039 We reach the lot together. The dye arrives bright and unhurry, 252 00:12:32.159 --> 00:12:34.559 precisely on schedule, matching my own restrartch to the minute. 253 00:12:34.559 --> 00:12:38.919 At three points later, I run another experiment. John helps. 254 00:12:39.000 --> 00:12:41.480 We launch three identical twigs at stagger picks, one by 255 00:12:41.519 --> 00:12:43.879 the factory, another at the church Bend, and the last 256 00:12:43.919 --> 00:12:46.399 at the old gas works. I time each one to 257 00:12:46.440 --> 00:12:50.159 the next lock. The result every stick glides into the 258 00:12:50.159 --> 00:12:52.440 lockmouth together as if the canal. I end out every 259 00:12:52.440 --> 00:12:55.519 difference with invisible patients. When I mention this to the 260 00:12:55.559 --> 00:12:58.000 current lock keeper, man so robust, his laugh shakes leaves 261 00:12:58.000 --> 00:13:01.320 from trees. He winks it's the old party trick, he says. 262 00:13:02.120 --> 00:13:04.320 Visitors love it. Try to beat the canal. But she's 263 00:13:04.320 --> 00:13:08.720 always true to herself. Throughout the community's attitude is steadfastly practical. 264 00:13:09.360 --> 00:13:12.279 No one sees a puzzle or their friendly oddity. You 265 00:13:12.360 --> 00:13:14.960 want trouble, try the old mill stream, says a retired teacher. 266 00:13:15.080 --> 00:13:16.919 That one swells up just when you think you're safe. 267 00:13:16.919 --> 00:13:19.320 But the navigation not a drops built in a hundred years. 268 00:13:19.919 --> 00:13:22.720 At the Fox and Badger, Oldstein, who claims he's ninety 269 00:13:22.759 --> 00:13:25.200 seven and still sharper than the council's mole blade, says, 270 00:13:25.360 --> 00:13:27.480 rain on every roof and town, but canal path won't 271 00:13:27.480 --> 00:13:30.120 take a puddle, goes floods, we call and lonely haunt elsewhere. 272 00:13:30.600 --> 00:13:32.759 One afternoon, so Unita and I sit in the arc 273 00:13:32.799 --> 00:13:35.720 of room among the chemical time of old papers. She 274 00:13:35.840 --> 00:13:38.840 reads newspaper clippings from the notorious nineteen seventy six dro 275 00:13:39.039 --> 00:13:42.360 canal floats still carried on pleasure boats operated as usual. Elsewhere, 276 00:13:42.440 --> 00:13:45.919 panic and host but bands It's then I realize something new. 277 00:13:46.039 --> 00:13:48.799 Whenever disaster rings out the infamous region wide flood of 278 00:13:48.879 --> 00:13:51.000 seventh the hard freeze of nineteen six to two, the 279 00:13:51.039 --> 00:13:54.159 stories about the canal grow louder in their ordinariness. It 280 00:13:54.279 --> 00:13:56.840 is a routine. Itself provides comfort, a lullaby against the 281 00:13:56.879 --> 00:14:00.200 absurdity elsewhere. But the documents are dry to a fault. 282 00:14:00.679 --> 00:14:04.279 Old engineers wore by the routines know intervention required, maintenance 283 00:14:04.320 --> 00:14:08.320 judged are necessary, intended regularity achieve. You can cover aberration 284 00:14:08.399 --> 00:14:12.320 of language, But sturdy readings with no variations century to 285 00:14:12.360 --> 00:14:15.120 century are less comforting the more you understand what should, 286 00:14:15.240 --> 00:14:18.000 by all rights co wrong. This is not simply a 287 00:14:18.039 --> 00:14:22.080 matter of robust design. Not over such a span, no device, 288 00:14:22.320 --> 00:14:24.679 no siphon, no clever over folk could erase the thumb 289 00:14:24.720 --> 00:14:27.240 print of physics beyond the fleeting year or two. And 290 00:14:27.360 --> 00:14:29.799 yet standing on the bank, I watch another stick spin 291 00:14:29.840 --> 00:14:32.200 down stream and know what the supposedly learned. Never admit 292 00:14:32.399 --> 00:14:36.000 this is not luck nor canny engineering. This, whatever this is, 293 00:14:36.039 --> 00:14:38.159 goes beyond every lesson I have learned in a lifetime 294 00:14:38.159 --> 00:14:42.480 of worrying over water asterisk. I return early one Saturday, 295 00:14:42.600 --> 00:14:45.440 notebook in hand, sleeves rolled up. For a time, I 296 00:14:45.440 --> 00:14:48.039 focus doggedly on things I might have missed. Alternate inlets, 297 00:14:48.080 --> 00:14:52.559 camouflage by stone mark illicits, loose channels beneath weeds, perhaps nothing. 298 00:14:53.240 --> 00:14:56.799 The colworts are plane and functioning as drawn. If there's trickery, 299 00:14:56.840 --> 00:14:59.840 it's not visible with boots and schalk lines. I run 300 00:14:59.840 --> 00:15:02.399 o for the construction drawings that Sunita lent me, tracing 301 00:15:02.440 --> 00:15:04.440 the familiar button cove of the canal as that wind 302 00:15:04.480 --> 00:15:09.080 across three towns. Standard locks, ordinary pound lens, nothing like 303 00:15:09.080 --> 00:15:11.639 the elaborate balancing lakes I remember from the Foxton branch 304 00:15:11.679 --> 00:15:15.000 with the Pocklington cuts. No by passes or hidden sumps, 305 00:15:15.720 --> 00:15:17.679 and the logs. Not a single page hints at behind 306 00:15:17.679 --> 00:15:21.080 the curtain dramatics. There is, however, a recurring word in 307 00:15:21.120 --> 00:15:25.039 one or two nineteen forties logs mechanical inspection routine. Satisfactory 308 00:15:25.559 --> 00:15:28.240 phrase is so rode. It might be nothing, or it 309 00:15:28.320 --> 00:15:31.519 might be something. That day, for the first time, missus 310 00:15:31.600 --> 00:15:34.360 Warf remembers something odd in a meeting over coffee at 311 00:15:34.360 --> 00:15:36.840 the council office. She says there has always been rumors 312 00:15:36.879 --> 00:15:39.879 of hidden workings Lock nineteen's to one years back before 313 00:15:39.879 --> 00:15:41.960 my time, someone said there was machinery done there, but 314 00:15:42.000 --> 00:15:44.279 wreckers went clear. Low call Pollen. I think a bit 315 00:15:44.320 --> 00:15:48.360 of a local eccentric like clocks water engineering stunt. That 316 00:15:48.440 --> 00:15:50.879 name jolts something half remembered. I feign a recal an 317 00:15:50.879 --> 00:15:53.519 all drawing sign to Jay Pollen eighteen twenty three. Pinn 318 00:15:53.600 --> 00:15:55.519 behind gloss in the museum with more curves and a 319 00:15:55.600 --> 00:15:59.120 bombade whin Ken the legend Dequlabration Governor I rink Sunda, 320 00:15:59.200 --> 00:16:01.840 who promises to check the museum's confidential archive if I 321 00:16:01.840 --> 00:16:05.360 bring tea in patience. Meanwhile, John hal Is, the practical one, 322 00:16:05.360 --> 00:16:08.879 listens to my suspicions with a lopsided grin hidden machines, Eh, 323 00:16:08.960 --> 00:16:10.799 so long as they catch perch and don't pop up 324 00:16:10.799 --> 00:16:13.320 in my net, they are welcome to stay hidden. But 325 00:16:13.399 --> 00:16:16.480 for me the tone changes. It's no longer a question 326 00:16:16.600 --> 00:16:20.159 of above ground features or even of casual oversight. If 327 00:16:20.159 --> 00:16:23.440 something sustains this constancy, it's likely hidden, perhaps even purposely 328 00:16:23.440 --> 00:16:26.679 excluded from common knowledge. The History Group always assumed the 329 00:16:26.679 --> 00:16:29.120 canal a load its fortune to benign neglect. And decent design. 330 00:16:29.279 --> 00:16:32.279 I now imagine in undercurrent of ingenuity, perhaps eccentric, perhaps 331 00:16:32.279 --> 00:16:34.720 a shade secret of shaping Athroff's luck. With more than luck, 332 00:16:35.399 --> 00:16:38.600 I find myself studying the diegrounds for clues. A faint 333 00:16:38.639 --> 00:16:42.360 pencil mark under one lock, some non specific piping drawn 334 00:16:42.399 --> 00:16:45.919 in a looping arc and labeled only synchronization manifold. I 335 00:16:46.039 --> 00:16:49.279 envy Pollen's Victorian optimism. If the stories are true, building 336 00:16:49.320 --> 00:16:51.639 not just for function, but for something more, to impress, 337 00:16:51.679 --> 00:16:54.279 to experiment, or maybe even to persuade the land itself. 338 00:16:54.720 --> 00:16:56.679 The oddness of the records is joined now by the 339 00:16:56.679 --> 00:16:59.720 oddness of their makers, of deliberate silence, humming beneath the ordinary. 340 00:17:00.279 --> 00:17:02.639 It is no longer nature. I must interrogate by human 341 00:17:02.679 --> 00:17:06.400 contradance or perhaps amuses. A walk the dust street bank, 342 00:17:06.599 --> 00:17:10.400 some fragile alignment of the two asterisk. If the canal's 343 00:17:10.400 --> 00:17:12.519 secret is human made, it must be foundable. So I 344 00:17:12.559 --> 00:17:14.119 push you need to for a crack at the museum's 345 00:17:14.160 --> 00:17:17.880 locked archive, where in luck missus Ward secures permission, and 346 00:17:17.960 --> 00:17:20.960 one Wednesday morning mid dust and territorial cats s Needa 347 00:17:21.000 --> 00:17:24.279 produces about a chess marked private a d Pollen inside 348 00:17:24.440 --> 00:17:26.960 fifteen blueprints, a bundle of letters brittle with age, and 349 00:17:27.000 --> 00:17:30.319 one thick confidential folded from eighteen twenty two. We unroll 350 00:17:30.359 --> 00:17:33.839 the drawings on her desk. There in Sbia incann architectural 351 00:17:33.839 --> 00:17:37.400 precision is an intricate assembly of gears, rods, levers, and 352 00:17:37.440 --> 00:17:41.319 something label hydroic governor ashroft ecalibrium chamber. The drawings show 353 00:17:41.319 --> 00:17:44.000 a brit vault Lock nineteen, a mistakable in its location, 354 00:17:44.079 --> 00:17:46.599 beneath which a system of pendulums and clutch like devices 355 00:17:46.720 --> 00:17:50.480 is meant to interact with the canal. Proper accompanying annotations 356 00:17:50.680 --> 00:17:53.799 flow to be harmonized with local strata adjustments, self regulated, 357 00:17:53.839 --> 00:17:57.000 no manual over eye. I am half amused, half incredulous. 358 00:17:57.640 --> 00:18:00.480 An attempt two hundred years ago at automated high astrology, 359 00:18:01.160 --> 00:18:05.720 an equilibrium chamber marrying newtonium mechanics to ground water unthinkable 360 00:18:05.799 --> 00:18:08.200 unless you're a clock obsessed engineer with public money and 361 00:18:08.279 --> 00:18:11.559 few distractions. On a hunch, I take the diagrams, a 362 00:18:11.640 --> 00:18:14.759 lamp and some gloves down to the site. Lock nineteen 363 00:18:14.799 --> 00:18:17.880 is overgrown, shaded by halphone and a busted sign advertising 364 00:18:17.920 --> 00:18:22.000 discontinued morines. The inspection hatches rusted, but the bolt's yield 365 00:18:22.079 --> 00:18:24.759 beneath looks the thick smell of old water, stone, oil 366 00:18:24.920 --> 00:18:28.119 and time it takes worrek akneelings, scraping, breath, echoing in 367 00:18:28.160 --> 00:18:30.039 a tight stone chamber. But I edge into the cavity. 368 00:18:30.640 --> 00:18:33.279 Light flickers over metal components, a disc of iron teeth 369 00:18:33.319 --> 00:18:35.480 away to beendulum rods that dip into the water and 370 00:18:35.559 --> 00:18:39.319 up towards the brick arch. Some elements are recognizable, if antique, 371 00:18:39.359 --> 00:18:42.079 others are less. So this is a concentric assembly of 372 00:18:42.119 --> 00:18:45.400 floats brooking gendies. Water passes through a narrow channel joined 373 00:18:45.400 --> 00:18:49.519 to gears with delicately struck initials GDP. I write quick notes, 374 00:18:49.519 --> 00:18:52.759 sketch the system in my pad. The pendulum swing slightly 375 00:18:52.839 --> 00:18:57.519 but undeniably. Every turn of the canal bosseems somehow reflected here, 376 00:18:57.519 --> 00:19:01.359 Each rice transmitted to an oscillating, almost mutusic or mechanism. 377 00:19:01.480 --> 00:19:04.319 Its motion is graceful and conscious, interacting with the quiet 378 00:19:04.359 --> 00:19:07.599 trip of canal water entering through what must be the intake. How, 379 00:19:07.720 --> 00:19:10.359 I wonder, has this device in touch and supervised run 380 00:19:10.400 --> 00:19:13.960 for two centuries? And how could it correct every variation above? 381 00:19:14.640 --> 00:19:17.440 No rusted weight or mothbled flour should persist, let alone 382 00:19:17.519 --> 00:19:20.759 enforce such regularity on something as capricious as water. I 383 00:19:20.880 --> 00:19:24.319 merge blinking into sunlight. Even if this device was rebuilt 384 00:19:24.319 --> 00:19:28.559 every generation. The logs say no such thing. The public records, meanwhile, 385 00:19:28.720 --> 00:19:34.359 continue their litany routine, ordinary, no complications. Back at the museum, 386 00:19:34.400 --> 00:19:37.920 Sinita reads a lot of faded plaque, ashroft governor experimental insulation, 387 00:19:38.119 --> 00:19:41.880 no further record. It is both nothing and everything, part 388 00:19:41.920 --> 00:19:44.279 of me thrills at the improbable artistried audacity of a 389 00:19:44.319 --> 00:19:48.160 mechanism designed to harmonize with water itself part of me chafs. 390 00:19:48.839 --> 00:19:51.759 This cannot must not explain two hundred years of perfection 391 00:19:52.440 --> 00:19:55.759 Victorian folly. Perhaps, Yet no folly. Evsy never wrote local weather. 392 00:19:56.400 --> 00:19:59.160 Perhaps I amuse the canal's secret is not brew force 393 00:19:59.200 --> 00:20:01.960 or mechanical connate, but a subtler partnership of blurring at 394 00:20:01.960 --> 00:20:05.319 the edges of invention, discipline, and natural law. The awenness 395 00:20:05.319 --> 00:20:07.720 is less about capability than about the humility to try 396 00:20:07.759 --> 00:20:10.559 and the patience to hide success within routine. Through the 397 00:20:10.559 --> 00:20:13.039 dirty glass of the museum's reading room, I see children 398 00:20:13.079 --> 00:20:15.039 walking the bank in rober Butts, tracing the curve of 399 00:20:15.079 --> 00:20:18.039 the water with sticks and fingers. The canal offers them 400 00:20:18.039 --> 00:20:19.960 what had offered me, a place to project questions and 401 00:20:19.960 --> 00:20:22.920