The Impossible Dream - the story of the Huddersfield Narrow Canal
VHS Video
Former Restoration Chairman, Keith Gibson, reviews this video.:
After watching the BBC2 programme of the same name that used some of this video footage, I watched this with some trepidation, afraid that it would present restoration of the canal in the same simplistic way. You might remember that, if the BBC's version of the story was to be believed, the canal was restored by volunteers, who realised that they couldn't do everything and were then rescued by British Waterways who actually restored the canal. The intervening 15 or so years were completely airbrushed out. HCS and the local authorities had not apparently restored sixty odd locks, dredged and repaired the canal between them and rebuilt road bridges to allow for navigation.
This new video naturally concentrates on the work of the last few years. That's when filming took place, and it was originally commissioned by the Huddersfield Canal Company to tell the story of the Millennium work, but the emphasis is completely changed from the BBC version. There is no rewriting of history. The script and the editing make it quite clear that HCS and the local authorities were in partnership with BW to complete restoration of the canal, and that without you - the members of the Society - the canal would not have been restored. Although I would have liked to see more to explain what happened in the years missing from the BBC version, that never was what this video was about, but the script now gives credit where credit is due.
Having got that off my chest, should you buy it? After all that's what a review is about. The short answer is "yes!" The video tells the story of the last years of restoration work very well, and allows the engineers to tell their own story - Pete Rawson and Lee Holland (Tameside), Freda Rashdi and Joanna Heap (Oldham), Andy Wheeler and Jon Walsh (Kirklees) are interviewed as are John Hallam and Mike Marshall from BW. HCS is represented by David Sumner who is clearly speaking from the heart at the end, and the producers had a bit of luck meeting Bob Dewey and Derek Walker in Stalybridge to talk about the early days (complete with Derek's wonderful T-shirt!) There are interviews with Mike Lucas and Sue Day, and - a stroke of genius on someone's part - with Keith Willis, who, as Engineer and Surveyor to the Urban District Council, completed the filling in of the canal through Slaithwaite. An essentially honest and decent man, he cannot hide his jealousy of the later engineers who had the opportunity to re-open the canal.
I know from this experience how difficult it is to squeeze the events of years into a few words, and that Ken Stephinson could not have included everyone, or everything we might have liked to see. He has, though, succeeded in producing a very watchable programme, that gives a fair impression of what happened in the last few years; the photography is good and the script, spoken so well by Timothy West, is fair and mainly accurate.
Buy it. It's the best there is - at least until HCS decides to commission its own up to date video. But, would you like to decide who is in that, and who is left out?
by Keith Gibson
Order this video from the Society.
A limited number of the Society's original video 'The Impossible Restoration', produced in 1993, are also available; from the Society offices.