Hello and welcome to the Water Rd Podcast.
And this episode comes from Market Drayton in Shropshire.
In fact, we're on the Shropshire Union Canal and we're here
because this weekend there's a floating market, so the canal is
lined by more than a dozen boats, all belonging to licenced
waterways traders and the locals are thronging to buy their
wares. I'm going to go and find out
more about it. So with Julie and you're on the
committee of the Roving Canal Traders Association.
Yes, I'm in charge of publicity. I do all the advertising for the
markets. So just tell me a bit about the
the RCTA. What does it do?
Who's a member? Well, it's for boat owners and
people who want to trade off their boats.
A lot of people live on their boats full time and we get
together, we do floating markets.
It's really nice because we we meet each other and then we part
to go different ways. Then we come back and we do
markets again and that's how people make their money and pay
for their boat licences so. Obviously sometimes you've got a
big market like this with loads of traders, but sometimes you
just trade on your on your own on the on the tow part.
Yes, sometimes a few of us get together and just do a little
market. We call it a pop up because it's
supposed to be done informally in a spur of the moment.
So what's the big thing about trading on from a boat, do you
think? It provides you with the money
to afford the boat. I mean, that's why I do it.
And also it's a nice social thing to do and it's a reason to
go to a certain direction because the markets are in in
certain places. So we all get together and we
all aim for the same destination.
So there's quite a few of them throughout the season, isn't
there? So do you sort of you you you're
doing a loop really. Yes, it's designed by the
committee to form a loop so people can all go off in the
same direction and. Just tell me about what you're
doing 'cause you're you're sat here painting.
Yes, well, I'm a canal artist. I paint.
I decorate boats and paint things for boats.
I've been doing it for 25 years. I enjoy it very much.
And the roses and castles, just tell me about those 'cause
they're really traditional, aren't they?
Yes, they are. The roses we believe came from
the Potteries, from Meashamwe. People in the factories realised
they could make money by offering to paint people's
boats. So they left the factories, went
on to the canal which runs through Meisham and they put
roses on boats. And the castles are an Eastern
European castle. We believe when the Eastern
Europeans came over they brought with them their images of
castles and to make their boats pretty, they put the castle
scenes on the castles they've seen on the way across Europe.
Because actually the the roses look quite complicated, but when
I see you people doing them, they're just a few strokes.
They are a few strokes, they're very simple, but you have to
know the formula, have to be taught.
It's quite difficult to grasp at first.
It's done with enamel paint, which is like thick nail
varnish, so it's a very special paint.
And you can tell people by their rose, the way they've painted
it. We've all got our own style and
I've taught roses and castles. I encourage people to develop
their own castle and their own rose, which is their special
rose. So we all be what we try to have
our own rose. And people sometimes bring me
work to identify and they've got something on their boat they
say, do I know who painted it? And quite often I like to think
I can't tell them who painted it.
And I imagine that sometimes you're going along and you see,
I don't know, teapot on a boat or something, and you say, oh,
that's one. Of mine.
I did that recently and the lady said to me, no, no, it's not
yours, it's mine. No, you don't understand.
I painted it. Could I?
Please have some beetroot, beetroot, some rhubarb and fig
and dams and chutney. Please, lovely.
It was a difficult choice. Thank you very much.
Right, so one of the traders here is my good friend Helen
from Wild Side. Just tell me about your
business. We started in 2012 with the
business launched, which was following on from an accident I
had in 2010, which meant my current career was no longer
going to work so I needed to look at something else and I
started foraging and making jams as a result of extended
convalescence. Following on from that, we
started the business because suddenly people kept buying
them. And how does the boat come into
that story then? Well, we have permission from
the Canal and Rivers Trust to forage on their land, which if
you're selling forage goods is really important.
And they're I think the large third largest landowner in the
country. It's true that most of their
land is underwater, but of the bits that aren't underwater,
there's a lot of fruit trees because a lot of lot keepers
used to have their own cottage gardens and they're now
abandoned. And there's a lot of wild
seedlings that have grown on the towpath.
And it's particularly useful when you're when you're on a
boat because you can reach bits of overhanging trees that you
wouldn't be able to from the ground.
So we're talking jams and chutneys and all that sort.
Of and marmalades. Now, we haven't actually found
the fruit trees for growing oranges and lemons yet on the
towpath, but what we do to try and make those have a foraged
element to them is that we add alcohols that we've infused with
foraged things. So we do, for instance, slow
whiskey, Seville marmalade, and other such things.
And how does a floating market like this work for you?
Well, we're part of the RCTA, they get together and organ do
all the organisations. So sort out all the insurance or
the safety certificates, all that kind of thing.
They organise for you and for a nominal fee we get together and
it's like an extended pop up of traders.
I think there are, we're in Market Drayton this weekend and
I think there are 18 other trade boats here.
And it always works well when you're trading in company
because it makes more of a spectacle and and in passersby
are more interested. So for us it's useful trading
with other people. So I just noticed that you seem
to have quite a few paper bags and you've obviously been buying
stuff. Yeah.
What have you been buying? I've got myself some jam and
some cheese and an embroidery kit as well for my daughter for
Christmas. So what brought you down to the
floating market? So I live on a boat and we're
currently moored up on the Llangothlin and I went to the no
saw one last weekend and I really enjoyed it and my in laws
are down and they want to go to one too.
So you're quite a a floating market addict then?
Yeah, yeah, I really like supporting the boaters because
obviously I live on a boat as well, so it it's just nice to be
able to support other boaters with making money so they can
carry on living on boats and things.
So yeah, and there's the Curry boats down there, and I'm quite
obsessed with the Curry boats. Ever thought about making stuff
on your boat and becoming a trader yourself?
I think there's too many hoops to jump through to trade from
your boat, to be perfectly honest, and I don't have
anywhere near the skill that a lot of these people do.
I do paint, I enjoy it, but I could never sell it.
I'm with Emma and I'm on your boat and you're a fine artist.
Yes, I've been painting all my adult life, but it wasn't until
I I bought the boat four years ago, I was still painting and
creating piles of artwork and I was thinking, what do I do with
all this art stacking up? So I found out about the Roving
Traders Association, joined up and now I can sell my art.
For the very first time in my life.
I'm selling what I'm producing, which is fantastic.
And does the canal give you plenty of things to paint?
So it's sometimes I'm overloaded with the amount of choice I have
to paint. Obviously very nature inspired
canal boats, canal scenes, but abstract art as well on on top
of that. But mostly canal work,
definitely. And I see you've got some
originals and you have prints made of some of your stuff as
well. Yes, I paint my original and my
husband, he prints what I paint and I sell as greeting cards,
prints, small framed prints. In fact, when he first bought
the printer onto the boat, when we bought the boat, I was really
quite cross because I thought, what on earth do we need that
for? Because I at the time I didn't
know that I was going to be selling my art.
Where on earth are we going to put this printer?
He was adamant he he was going to keep it.
He said, well, we might need it one day.
And thank goodness he did, because half of my art is
original and the rest is print, so we've got a little business
on the boat here. So is that an important part of
your life, actually having something to do?
Well, it was actually just a couple of days ago.
I said to my husband, what would we be doing if we weren't doing
this? Would I feel like I was just
floating aimlessly around with no purpose?
So this has given me a purpose. I'm obviously still being
creative, more creative than I've ever been.
But also, we've made so many friends on these voting markets.
We dip in, in and out of these markets and choose which ones we
want to go on. So sometimes I won't see someone
for weeks and weeks. It's like seeing an old friend
again. So yes, definitely it's a new
dimension to our boating life. And how much of your boat does
your workshop take up? Well, this is a bone of
contention because when I'm actually painting, I'm taking
over the whole dining area. I've got pots of paint and paint
brushes all over the boat and then of course we have to store
the frames so they are stacked in all areas.
In the summer, when we're very busy selling, we're quite often
tripping over them. Everything has its place, so we
can't really bring too much on board because we've got art that
takes precedence really. I'm Kate, I'm a stained glass
and I live aboard Bears the Flow narrow boat.
So just tell me about the, the sort of things that you make to
to sell on the on the boat. All sorts of things.
Favourites are 3D Dragons, but they're very hard to store on a
small space. So I make bears, letters,
angels, mushrooms, cows. And why is it a good thing to do
on a boat? Does it not take up much room?
Oh, it takes up room. At the back of the boat there's
a six foot workshop which we had specifically designed, laid out
and the Bale thruster locker is full of finished items.
And being glass, do you have to fire them somewhere then?
No, no, this, this is the Tiffany technique.
So you cut the glass, you surround it with copper, and
then you solder it together. I have previously done kiln
work, but kilns and boats? No, it's too big and I would be
afraid that when everything's molten, a boat would go past too
fast and rock the boat. I have trouble with soldiers.
I like to solder on the back deck because I can hear when the
other boats are coming in and I need to to stop for the moment
until they've gone past. And that's, of course, an
electric boat. Well, across the other side of
the canal there's a small grassy area with lots of people sitting
and eating and drinking because this is what you might call the
food court area. So on this side of the canal
we've got the Curry cruiser boat.
There's a boat that's a coffee shop and is also doing quite a
trade in ice creams. There's the crepe.
Boat. And right at the front is the
baked on board pizza boat where they've actually got a wood
fired pizza oven in the weldeck. I'm David.
I'm Lynn. And I noticed that you'd just
had your lunch from the Curry Cruiser.
What was it like? It was very, very good indeed.
A surprise that he can get that done on a boat up to restaurant
standard. Great value, cheery company.
Very, very good indeed. What did you actually have?
I had the samosa chat smashed smosa chat which never heard the
like of it before. That was good.
And yours? I had chicken tikka rat which
was delicious. The rat was homemade, which was
amazing. And it was, yeah, truly
stunning. And what brings you down to the
market today? Well, we live in Drayton so we
like to support whatever's going on and we're here to support
this, which is great. It's much bigger than it was
last year I think more, more people and more boats, which is
lovely to see. And are you regular canal users?
We don't have a boat, but we do walk along the canal a lot.
I'm with Paul from the Baked on Board Pizza Boat and thanks
first of all for taking the time because I know you've been
really busy today. You're very welcome.
Yes, we've had a very good day so far.
A bit more of the day to do, but yeah, so far so good.
So just tell me about the setup on your boat, because you seem
to have an enormous pizza oven on your, well, deck.
The oven and the deck that it was that was built for it to
stand on is about 3/4 of a tonne.
And it was manufactured by a company who make pizza ovens
specifically for mobile units. They put them into horse boxes
and trailers and things. And we said we're going to buy
an Arrow boat, can you put it on it?
And they, well, they didn't put it on, but they supplied it,
Yeah. So just tell me about your setup
then, because you've got a hatch where you're serving people and
you've got the the pizza oven right at the front.
Well, it's it's obviously like everybody's boat.
It's tight for space. As you can imagine.
It's it is it is my kitchen. So it's my home kitchen, but it
also serves as the pizza kitchen.
So the the oven sits right in the bow And then we've got
serving hatches on both sides. So depending on which way we're
facing, one side is this this way around is slightly better,
but either side we can serve from usually when on the market
to have one of my girls who comes and helps me.
So Tracy's with me today and we just, I make them and cook them
and she boxes them and sells them and takes the money and it
just works. I've been doing it for seven
years. It must take out quite a lot of
space in the boat. I mean, pizza boxes take up a
lot of space. In the summer, when it's at its
peak, which it is now, I live with tinned tomatoes under my
bed and pizza boxes all the way along the wall in my bedroom.
Because that's just the nature of the thing.
And we have adapted it this winter slightly so that my bed
now, instead of all the stuff that's in the kitchen, which
needs to come out the kitchen when we're serving, used to go
on the bed. And then you used to make pizza
boxes with the girls sat on the bed or whatever.
Now the the bed has been changed.
So the bed goes up against the wall, created some storage down
below. So you just you just we find our
way. But yeah, it's it's pretty
tight. And obviously you attend markets
like this. Do you sometimes just, you know,
go onto the towpath and and open up?
For very much so. So at the beginning of the
season in February, we look when the when the festivals are, when
the floated markets are, get the calendar out and plot things.
And then when I'm not doing these sorts of things, I've got
my own regular route where I go. I do Barbridge and Beeston and
Waverton and Tatton Hall, and I do Renbury and Whitchurch and
Northwich and Middlewich and Nantwich and Audlem.
So I try and get to all of those places 3 or 4 times during the
course of the season. So.
You get regular customers. Oh yeah, very much so.
Yeah. We have a loyalty card scheme
and we've got lots and lots of regular customers.
Lots of customers who are here today are regular customers of
mine who come to us pretty much wherever we go.
So as long as we're in the area. So yeah, it's, it's a, it's a
mix of the two. What you doing before?
I mean, how did you end up doing pizzas on a boat for?
I lived in Cornwall for Best Buy well over 30 years and worked in
pubs and then subsequently ran pubs and then myself, my ex.
We needed to get out of it. Pubs were about to get the
better of me all together because it the ones I was
running was it was a particularly big busy pub with
letting rooms and it was just it was too much and I was getting
older. So we started having narrow boat
holidays, fell in love with it completely, and then thought how
can we earn a business? So lots of different ideas came
and went, but eventually we settled on the Pizza Robin.
We'd researched it, other people were doing it, but not in this
part of the world. So Pizza Robin came and suddenly
the rest is history. And seven years later, here we
are. And that's all from this busy
floating market in Market Drayton.
And I have to say, the mushroom pizza from the Pizza Boat was
really good. The Water Rd is produced and
presented by Lee Adam Porter. In the next episode we'll be on
the Staffs and Worcester Canal hearing about the Bratch Locks
angling and what it's like to have a log by wash flowing
underneath your house. It's not as loud as you might
think, but it's actually quite comforting to hear the rustle of
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