Bonzer Words!: Summer Camp At Little Venice
Rodney Gacoyne tells of summer fun on the canals of London.
Rodney writes for Bonzer! magazine. Please visit www.bonzer.org.au
One 70s summer in London, I joined a holiday play scheme run by Westminster City Council. Camps were set up on existing sites and a few new ones. Most of them were what were then called 'adventure playgrounds' and were aimed mainly at younger children less than teen age. On these open sites resembling a flat building site, they amassed plenty of wood, tyres, ropes and all sorts of tools and building supplies. The objective was to supervise the kids as they built structures on which to play. Thus swings, slides, rope climbs, walkways and cabins and clubhouses got constructed all over the site. Adults were there to help and prevent injuries or mishaps but the main ideas came from the kids themselves.
The one I co-ran was different. It was a water based site on the Grand Union Canal at Little Venice in central London, called Beauchamp Lodge, just around the corner from the club I had worked at for some years. A large barge was used as a clubhouse and we had an assortment of canoes and other boats for the kids to play with. Our site was aimed at older kids as they also needed to prove they could swim adequately if they used the boats. Others could just stay on the barge and use the art facilities we had inside that the other guy looked after. I worked the boating side and we opened from 9 in the morning till about 6 at night. The Council ran some day trips by minibus for all sites and some of our kids went to a Safari Park one day and a few other trips around London.
That summer was unusually very warm and sunny, which made our site a popular one for the local youngsters, some of whom I already knew from the club. We ran some local trips ourselves on the water. We also had access to a large open motorboat that we used to run group trips for about 25 kids, on the canals, including going through a long, dark tunnel and round to Regents Park and the London Zoo, which straddle the canal. Other times we went the other way and past the back of factories stretching along the Harrow Road that used to be serviced from the canal boats of years past.
A few times I took a group of better canoeists on long paddles along the canal towards the big basins at the back of Paddington Station or round Little Venice and along the main canals. Otherwise, we spent our time in a tight stretch of water on either side of the barge where I could supervise everyone from the barge decks. It was a great time and a wonderful experience for me and not just the kids. We managed only a few scratches and no serious injuries all summer long. The boats were looked after and repaired as we went along, with the kids supplying a lot of the labour and energy. This still remains as one of the best lazy, sunny, hot summer holidays in all my memories
© Rodney Gascoyne
