You Cant Stop Here!!!

View of the Gherkin from Hertford Union C

Monday 19th March 2012


We left the Filter Beds  bright and early apx 7.45am and headed off into the mist of the morning.  Our aim today was to get to Battlebridge Basin, as we had booked a mooring outside the London Canal Museum.  The cost was just £8 and we thought it was worth it for the security and facilities etc.  But as you will find out all did not go to plan. 

The day started beautifully, bright and sunny, no wind and no locks till the Hertford Union.  We decided that when we got there , I would jump on the bike and cycle forward to set them up ready for us.  This worked really well.  Yogi spotted a little shop at the second lock so I stocked up on bread and milk whilst he waited for the lock to fill.  Which took ages because the lock gates were leaking badly (BW are aware).  By 10am the third lock was done and we were at the junction with the Regents where we  turned right to head towards towards Old Ford Lock.

Canal alongside Victoria Park

I thought the area here was very pretty and well looked after.  There were rubbish, elson and water facilities there and Victoria Park stretched out behind the buildings, so it made it quite picturesque.  We passed Victoria Park and all the boats moored along the towpath there and made our way towards Actons Lock.  This is where things started to go awry…….

On our approach to the lock we could see a policeman standing just in front of the mooring point, and some police tape blocking off the towpath, the policeman was directing people off of the towpath up onto the road.  As the lock was against us, we carried on our approach to the mooring point  where a couple of suited people were offering each other chewing gum. 

Police at Actons Loc

They looked visibly shocked to see 66 foot of narrowboat heading straight towards them getting ready to moor up.  Apparently, waving of arms, pointing and shouting  ‘You cant stop here!!’ Was their way to communicate to us that we shouldn't be using the mooring point as it was a crime scene they hadn't had a chance to tape off yet!!!

It is quite difficult to explain to a policeman why your boat cannot stop immediately when instructed to, but Yogi made a very controlled effort and explained that 20 tonnes of boat doesn’t just stop when you tell it to, and no, we can’t turn around as we were too long. And why was there no warning further up the river that this was going on?  ‘Ah’ they said ‘Fair point, you had better tie up against these railings then’ which we did.  Once we were secure, Yogi went outside and spent a while having a chat with the policeman who was standing directly outside our kitchen window.  

Unfortunately, one of the BW workers had spotted a severed arm which was suspected to have belonged to the late Gemma McCluskie who had been murdered and decapitated.   Her torso had been found in this area a couple of weeks before and her brother had been arrested on suspicion of the crime.  It is a terrible story,  and her mother is very ill.  I truly feel for her and the rest of her family. 

Not long after we arrived, a lot of police appeared at the lock, divers and people wearing different coloured protective suits.  We wondered why each person had on a different colour and watched the grizzly scene unfolding in front of us.

So, we had managed to accidentally cruise into a crime scene.  The police took our details and advised us we had to stay there for the moment.  And stay there we did, all day. If we had arrived 30 minutes earlier, we would have got through.