Pennine Pioneer - the story of the Huddersfield Rochdale Canal
Author: Keith Gibson
Ken Wright reviews yet another book by our very own Keith Gibson, published in softback by Tempus Publishing Ltd:
It is two years since I reviewed "Pennine Dreams", Keith's book about the history and restoration of the Huddersfield Narrow Canal. This time his subject is the Rochdale Canal and, whilst I waxed pretty lyrical on the earlier volume, I couldn't tackle this one with quite the same enthusiasm - or interest (I wasn't mentioned in it, for starters!)
How wrong I was. The Rochdale's tale is equally as fascinating as the Huddersfield's. Alright, they haven't a tunnel of any calibre to boast about nor is the top pound the longest, highest, deepest etc., but they do have the privilege of being the first and most successful of the trans-Pennine canals. And they do have a fascinating history of events, which Keith Gibson has drawn together in this thoroughly readable book.
The layout is very similar to the earlier work: history, problems and solutions all clearly laid out, meticulously researched and notated and accompanied by no less than 111 photographs and illustrations. And at 192 pages there is a lot to go at.
The book is not laid out in such a structured form as the earlier one but in ten chapters which, crazy though it may sound, are all titled from songs or films sung or made by the Rochdale skylark, Gracie Fields. As Keith says "they do have a relevance to the themes of the chapters", but I think he was stretching it a little to title one chapter "The Biggest Aspidistra in the World"! But being Rochdale-born myself, I thought it was a fitting tribute.
The importance of the Rochdale Canal Society in the whole restoration process (formed in June 1974 the Rochdale Society is like the younger of twins with our own Society - formed in April 1974) is adequately covered and, in a lot of respects, the whole story is similar to the Huddersfield Narrow's. During the Millennium bid period there was almost a race to keep in front and we made it first, largely because we didn't have the complication of a private owner. The place of the Rochdale Canal Company in their equation was at times thought to present an insurmountable problem, but one which was eventually solved by the intervention of British Waterways and the Waterways Trust. The financial complications were enormous but were overcome in time.
All this sounds pretty uninteresting but, in Keith's hands, it becomes a fascinating journey through a bureaucratic nightmare!
There is only one appendix in this volume, entitled "Restoring the Canal" which lists obstructions and notes on who carried out construction work, and when. This is a very useful archive and the result of exhaustive research. Keith acknowledges assistance from a whole pageful of people - writing the acknowledgement itself must have been a daunting task!
And once again, this book is about people. Dozens of them come to life in the pages - generally with a common aim, to open the canal to through traffic. Surprisingly, though, only about half the number similarly recorded in the Huddersfield Narrow book. But who's counting?
I will end with a short quotation from the book, which illustrates Keith Gibson's easy, readable style.
"It truly is astounding that so much change can come from one simple idea - that the canal could be brought back to life - and that all of this should have developed from the ideas of a few people who the rest of the world thought were well-meaning, but misguided cranks".
by Ken Wright