by Dave Spikey
We got to know each other over the next few years, but we really didn’t like each other for ages, especially after she ‘gave’ me leukaemia – alright, I won’t mention it again! I played football with her husband Peter quite a few times, and I remember he took coaching very seriously and invested in a book of Brazilian training methods. Believe me, we got some very strange looks from other teams training on Harper Green when he had us jumping up and at each other, banging chests for hours on end.
Having married at sixteen, it wasn’t surprising that they grew apart. Peter began to work away and found a job in the Middle East, where he converted to Islam and found a new lady. Kay always speaks very highly and lovingly about him and how much he changed after converting and found inner peace. He died aged thirty-two in Dubai, after a choking fit caused heart failure. A terrible tragedy and waste of a good life.
When a new bloke called Phil M started working in the labs a few years before my divorce, I matched him up with Kay (d’oh! Idiot). They went out for ages before moving in together. Phil was a good bloke, and a great addition in the department and the football team, even though he came from Leicestershire somewhere – Melton Mowbray, I think.
By the time my marriage started to flounder – my fault entirely – I was working closely with Kay because she had chosen to take her Special Exam in Blood Transfusion and so rotated between there and the Haematology lab next door. I suddenly realized that I’d started to like her and that she was quite attractive. No, I mean, very attractive; and not only that, it seemed that the attraction was mutual. We started to see each other outside work.
When my divorce came through and I moved out of New Hall Lane and into my new house, we started to see even more of each other. We never had the ‘Big Romance’ thing because we had known each other for years and had become good friends first. This friendship had just blossomed into a loving relationship without any fireworks exploding, orchestras playing, torpedoes shooting or tides lapping the beach.
I Name This Ship
KAY’S FAMILY HAD always been into canal boating and her parents, Albert and Alice, were part of the small band of boaters who, by sailing the canals in all weathers year round, navigating around rubbish tipped in the water, kept half the canal system open. We owe them a huge debt because our extensive national waterways are now a jewel in the crown of this country.
Kay’s sister, Christine, had a narrowboat, the Victoria Shane, and the first holiday I took my kids on after the divorce was on that boat, cruising round the ‘Cheshire Ring’ of canals.
I was hooked immediately. I loved the pace of life on the ‘cut’; I loved the fact that you could moor up in the middle of the countryside and open the doors in the morning to the peace and tranquillity of this beautiful country. I saw England from a different perspective, away from the hustle and bustle of towns and cities and the roar of the motorways and busy roads. Cruising at a maximum of 4 mph gives you the chance to take it all in, breathe it in.
The kids loved it too, helping negotiate the locks and open and close the swing and lift bridges. We sailed using the Nicholson Guide, which page by page illustrates the route of the canal, the position of the locks and bridges, the whereabouts of post offices and shops and the history of the towns and sites along the way. We also used the CAMRA Guide to the Waterways, which listed all the pubs along the way and the beers they served.
After the holiday, Kay and I had a chat about buying our own boat and came up with a plan, whereby I would sell my house and move in with her, thus freeing myself from a huge mortgage, which was crippling me. I would then use any profit to pay off my rather large credit card bills and hire purchase contracts, and use the remainder of the money freed up to buy a boat.
We bought Wanderer (actual name!) from the boatyard at Worsely soon after. It was a fifty-foot ‘Springer’ design narrowboat. Although not the best make of boat on the canal by a long way, it was in good condition, was a good size and had been well maintained.
We painted Wanderer blue with red panels in the traditional style, and John, a professional narrowboat sign writer, added the name. She looked beautiful in her new livery.
We sailed on Wanderer for many happy years and all loved it. One of our favourite trips was up the Llangollen canal and over the stunning architectural masterpiece that is the Pontcysyltte aqueduct. Crossing this 1,000-foot-long aqueduct is an exhilarating and slightly surreal experience, as you are effectively sailing in a metal trough 126 feet over the Dee Valley with no handrail on one side, which creates the impression of sailing high up in the air.
The aqueduct was started in 1795 when the French Revolution was still raging, Beethoven made his debut as a pianist and the British captured Cape Town … and today, well over 200 years later, it still stands as a monument to two great engineers, Thomas Telford and William Jessop. Even if you haven’t got a boat, it is well worth the trip to see this masterpiece: you can, if you dare, walk across it on the towpath side. There is a day boat hire firm at Trefor, which is in the canal basin at the Llangollen end, and it’s well worth a few of you hiring a boat and sailing across this and the Chirk aqueduct, which is a little bit further down.
A big part of travelling on the waterways involves, of course, the use of locks. As you probably know, locks are very dangerous – and I nearly died in one on the Wigan flight. This is an impressive flight of locks, which raises the Leeds–Liverpool canal over 200 feet through twenty-one double locks. These are huge locks, which were built to accommodate the big barges that used to ply their trade between these two great cities. The water pressure is enormous, and great care has to be taken when travelling up or down.
All would have been well if the idiot who had travelled up the flight before us had shut one of the top gate paddles after leaving the lock. I suppose we should have noticed, but with the gates being open, we simply sailed in and Kay and my mate Rick opened the bottom gate paddles and then strolled down to get the next lock prepared.
Everything was going well – until the water emptied below the level of the top gate paddles. The one that had been left open now admitted a torrent of water from above. This powerful spout hit me on the stern of the boat and knocked me clean into the turbulent waters of the lock – and I was on my own. Pam, Rick’s wife, was on the toilet, but unless she felt the boat buffeting about now that the rope I had fed round a bollard to secure us in the lock had been ripped out of my hands, I was struggling.
The boat was swinging dangerously about and there was no way I was going to push a fifty-foot steel narrowboat away from me. I tried to clamber back on the stern, but it was too high and I only succeeded in cutting my leg on the propeller, which I’d left turning in order to keep the boat near the front gates. I shouted and shouted, really scared now because I could feel the suction of the water pulling me down towards the front gates where the water was pouring out. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the unpredictable swinging of the boat in the turbulent water was threatening to crush me against the side of the lock.
Thankfully, Kay heard me and raced back up the hill to the lock. Without thinking, she jumped onto the roof of the boat, then onto the stern. She bent to grab my outstretched arm and tried to pull, but then, realizing that the boat was forcefully swinging towards the wall, she told me that she would have to let me go. I remember very clearly saying, ‘Don’t let me go!’ as I was so frightened and exhausted.
But she let me go – she had to. I went under again briefly, before surfacing to see her grab the bargepole and jam it against the wall to keep the boat away. Once she’d done this, she jumped back on the stern and I asked her to throw a rope, which she did and I grabbed. Rick had returned by now and I shouted up and told him to close all the paddles – but, being a novice, he didn’t understand at first and started opening others! No! Shut them all! He did; I was saved. It is very possible that Kay saved my life that day.
We cruised the waterways extensively during those years and were continually stunned and amazed at the b
eauty of the countryside. You sort of expect it if you are sailing on the Shropshire Union or Oxford canals, but one of the best views and the best stretches of canal for me is the length that takes you over the Pennines.
To get to it, you have to sail through the pretty grim industrial areas of Blackburn, Burnley, Nelson and Colne, until you get to a place called Foulridge. Legend has it that in the English Civil War, Cromwell faced the Royalists across the valley. When asked where he would like to engage them in battle, he said, ‘On that foul ridge,’ although this is probably bollocks.
There is a tunnel at Foulridge: as you sail through it, you leave behind the grey surroundings of the mills and warehouses. Almost a mile later – yes, it’s almost a mile long – you emerge into the most amazingly beautiful scenery. It’s like entering Narnia. The rolling foothills of the Pennines spread out in front of you and take your breath away.
A cow once fell into the canal on the Colne side of the tunnel some years ago and, being a cow, decided to walk through the tunnel. I would have loved to have been moored up on the Foulridge side to see the cow emerge, what a great moment that must have been. ‘Odd-looking boat that, Jim … Hang on, it’s a cow.’
The cow was helped out of the canal and taken into the local pub, The Hole I’th Wall, and given brandy. If in doubt, give ’em brandy! They have pictures of it on the wall if you’re ever passing – and I encourage you to do so.
There are some great pubs on the canals. Old-fashioned, never-beentouched, unmodernized pubs, which are listed in the guides. Our plan for these holidays was basically to sail to one of said pubs for dinner, and then to another one for an evening meal and overnight mooring.
We found a hidden gem, ‘The Anchor’ on the Oxford Canal, which according to the guide had been in the same family for generations and was completely unspoiled. We moored up outside and, being famished and thirsty after a long sail in the glorious sun, we went straight in. There were six of us – me, Kay, Jenny, Stephen, Jill and Jilly (Jenny’s cousin). We ordered the drinks and I asked for a menu. Menu? No menu. I explained that we were famished and asked if there was anything she could rustle up.
‘Toasties,’ she said. ‘Cheese toasties, cheese and tomato toasties, cheese and pickle toasties.’
‘Excellent, we’ll have toasties. Can we have four each? That’s twenty-four toasties please and mix them up.’
We received the toasties over a period of hours. I think she only had a basic two-slice toastie-maker, and she kept peeping out of the kitchen, asking, ‘How many have you had?’
‘Sixteen.’
It was a memorable night and when everyone else had gone back to the boat, I was tempted to try a glass of ‘Owd Tom’, which was too thick to draw up the beer pipes and she had to go down to the cellar to pour from the barrel. Perfect end to a perfect day.
On another occasion, my daughter Jill dropped her ring into the canal as she was helping to moor us up outside The Crawford Arms at Red Rock, which is Standish/Blackrod way. She was upset and wanted me to get into the water and find it. It was November, it was cold, and the canal is not the cleanest around there. It was obvious that I should at least try, but what, seriously, were the odds of finding a small ring in the canal? I once knocked the boat’s chimney off on a low bridge on the Llangollen canal and it was hard enough finding that. I remember standing in the canal for almost an hour searching for that chimney whilst other boats chugged past. There I was, chest-high in water, trying to appear nonchalant.
When Jill’s ring fell in, Kay suggested that I get into a bin liner before entering the icy water (I’m pretty sure she didn’t do physics at school as she seemed to understand little about water pressure). To please her, I got in the bin bag and lowered myself in the canal. The bin bag, of course, collapsed immediately, and I discarded it as I stood in the murky water.
We tried to calculate where the ring had fallen, but this was difficult because there’s a lot of toing and froing during mooring. I had taken my shoes and socks off, risking listeria in order to feel around on the bottom of the canal – urghhhhh, there is so much shit in here – but I found the ring straight away! How the hell did that happen? Unbelievable. It was a sign of our good fortune during those years – some of the happiest of my life.
Spikey and Sykey
An ‘INTAGLIO’ is the opposite of a ‘cameo’. It was also the name of the vocal duo that Sean and Harry put together after the success of the Laser Train Revue, in order to write and perform their own compositions. They were, in time, very good indeed and released a couple of excellent CDs. However, in those early days, they didn’t have enough material to perform a full evening’s entertainment, so they asked me and Rick if we fancied supporting them with some comedy sketches – and we did!
First things first, though: we needed a name for our comedy pairing for the posters and tickets. As people sometimes called me ‘Spikey’ (because of my hair) and because Rick’s surname was ‘Sykes’ (and he was a bit mad), we came up with ‘Spikey and Sykey’.
We wrote a routine about two Government Humour Inspectors who had travelled north to undertake a survey of Northern folk and their innate sense of humour, with the aim of getting to the bottom of how they kept smiling and laughing – no matter what shit Thatcher’s government dumped on them. In the South, people were worrying about whether your glass was half full or empty, whereas in the North we just assumed your glass was too big. Get a smaller glass. We dressed in trench coats and wore dark glasses and were very much like Hale and Pace, without ever having seen the jolly fat blokes. We carried clipboards and ran through the various categories of humour in a very straight-faced, deadpan manner, ticking off the audience response to our presentation of slapstick, jokes, funny songs, observations, etc.
It sort of worked with the right audience. It wasn’t a bad routine at all for the time, and quite a departure from the usual comedy double acts working in the North in that era. We also wrote a routine about two children’s TV presenters reading a Dr Seuss-like poem to children, which was packed with innuendo about a bear in the forest having shit stuck to his fur every time he went to the toilet (or ‘pit’, as it was – which rhymes with ‘shit’, obviously).
Another sketch was about ‘Mr Memory’ (Rick), the man who never forgets, and his new routine, which involved his escape from the ‘Trunk of Death’ (which – ha, ha! – of course he’d forgotten to get in). As I revealed the trunk with a flourish and gave his escape the big build-up, banging on the sides and shouting, ‘Mr Memory? Are you ready?’ Rick wandered on behind me without his trousers, announcing himself as ‘Mr Memory, the man who never …’ You get the picture. I asked him why he wasn’t in the trunk, ‘What trunk?’ he replied, and on it went. You’ll have to take my word that it was very funny. Rick was an excellent comedian and looked the part, very tall and thin, with great delivery.
There were two gigs with Intaglio; the second was at Golcar British Legion Club. Golcar is a small town near Huddersfield, Yorkshire, which boasts not only a British Legion Club, but also a collection of radio masts on the tallest hill in the area. I mention this because quite often the PA system in the club picked up random transmissions, which was very unsettling. If you can imagine Spikey and Sykey wowing the audience as stern Government Comedy Inspectors … interrupted regularly by taxi transmissions: ‘Anyone mobile in Halifax?’
Both gigs went remarkably well and we were encouraged to continue. We sought advice from a theatrical agency in Westhoughton, near Bolton, which was called ‘Chance Promotions’ because it was managed by husband-and-wife team Trevor and Brenda. (I personally wasn’t convinced that this was a great name for an agency, as I imagined the slogan: ‘Need an act? Take a Chance.’) They came to see us and saw some promise: they suggested we perform at a club agents’ showcase night and also arranged for us to do an open spot at the Comedy Store in London!
We did the audition showcase for Creeme Entertainments, the largest bookers for working men’s and social clubs in the N
orth of England, at Breightmet Labour Club a few weeks later – and we died on our arses. This wasn’t the comedy of the local clubs. Where were the gags? Didn’t we have a fat mother-in-law? Didn’t either of us know a dumb Irishman? Had a bloke with a crocodile never walked into our pub? I think Creeme appreciated what we were trying to do, but they absolutely could not book us into the clubs.
Ah well, fair enough, it doesn’t matter anyway – because we’re off to London on Saturday to perform at the world-famous Comedy Store! (Believe it or not, this made the local paper: ‘Bolton Duo Make the Big Time’ or something like.)
We travelled down to London with a few friends and family, and had also arranged for friends who lived in and around London to get down there to witness the birth of a contemporary Morecambe and Wise. Lambs to the slaughter. We had no idea of the world of ‘alternative’ comedy; we didn’t have our fingers on the pulse of contemporary comedy; in fact, we couldn’t find a pulse in Bolton in 1986.
We got to the ‘Store’ on Leicester Square early on Saturday afternoon – way too early, obviously, but in our excitement we hadn’t really established what might be required of us, when we would be performing, how a comedy club worked, etc. Kim Kinney, the manager and a lovely fella, let us put our Government Inspector ‘costumes’ in the dressing room and informed us that we wouldn’t be appearing until the very end of the late show.
We were puzzled: ‘late’ show; there were two shows? We had seen the show advertised at 8 p.m. and assumed that not only would we be on that show, but that we’d also be performing early as we were the new boys. Idiots! Rule number one – do your homework. Here we were, excited, apprehensive and ready to go at three o’clock in the afternoon … and we would be onstage at what time approximately, Kim? Two a.m? That’s a joke, right? Nope, no joke: we had eleven hours to wait; eleven hours in which to conserve our nervous excitement and evacuate our bowels completely.