The River Trent The Great British Story: Regional Histories

It's 171 miles from source to sea - from the Staffordshire moorlands to

the Humber Estuary. As it meanders its way through the lowlands of the

East Midlands, it's a border and a boundary - dividing north from

south, county from county. For thousands of years, it has shaped

the people and the places of this region. Discover the River Trent

and you discover a remarkable chapter in our Great British Story.

I have lived much of my life at sea. I have written books about nautical

history and offshore navigation. But hey, this is Britain, the

tentacles of the sea penetrate right to the heart of our nation.

Today, I am tackling the navigable river Trent, and I am finding

living history all around me. had seen so many things disappear

in his lifetime, he knew this was going to go. Although it is a

lovely river, it has done a lot of damage. Seeing as we do not have a

museum to put the boat in, we are For miles and miles, the Trent is

truly wild - a boundary to boats with waters too shallow. But from

the village of Shardlow in Derbyshire until it reaches the

Humber and spills into the North Sea, vessels can set sail and have

done so for centuries. My journey is just shy of 100 miles along a

watery highway that's formed and fashioned the villages and towns

along its course. During my journey I'll be catching a lift on variety

of vessels. I start on foot, walking through Shardlow, once an

important inland port. Here, canal and river run side by side, and the

start of the navigable Trent begins, and I catch my first lift. Are you

Barry Argent? Yes. I am very pleased to meet you. The word is

that your dad operated a boat like this on the canal. Oh, yes. Look,

the navigable River Trent is just around the corner, so, any chance

of having a ride down there? Yes, of course you can. Barry Argent has

got boating in his blood. His mother was born on a boat. His

parents discovered romance on this river and met and married while

working the Trent. As a boat builder, Barry still has a strong

connection to the waterway. I'm joining him on his boat Perch -

like the fish - for my first leg, and a trip down memory lane. Here

we are, this is for Trent, this is where the navigable bit starts.

That's the Derwent, that's the Trent. That comes from Derbyshire,

that comes from Staffordshire. is like summer holidays today, but

I bet it was not always like this. Just banging up and down here all

the time, carrying cargo, it must have been a tough life. When my mum

and dad worked together, it was hard work, very hard work. They

used to work 18 hours a day, that was typical. They might tie up

Sunday dinner, have a bit of a treat. They would do 18 hours a day,

six days a week, you know what I mean? They started the engine at 5

o'clock in the morning, and it would be stopped by 10 o'clock at

night. That was it. It was moving. While there were moving, they were

making money. If they were stood still, they were not making

anything. We're just about to go under the M1. It is like a spectral,

horrible thing. Here we are in this natural, nice mode of transport,

and up there, there are trucks thundering by. What did it do to

the community, all of these nice people living together? Well, that

was basically when it packed up, that was it. All the general

purpose cargo, it stopped, it went on to the road. You cannot stop

time, can you? No. It is not always a good thing. No. Barry's father

was an amateur movie maker and his cine footage gives us an insight

into what life was like on this working river. I will tell you

something, your dad, from where I am the king, he is a remarkable

character. Not only was he a skipper at the age of 16, and a

remarkable man of the water, but he is also a film-maker. How come he

was able to do this? I do not really know. I think he had seen so

many things disappear in his lifetime, and he knew this was

probably going to go, and so he thought, well, I might as well get

it on film. It is just something to remember. I am dead chuffed that

you have brought me back to this remarkable cinema. I will be able

to tell my grandchildren about it. I have got to show off, because the

lads are down at the lock, so I have got to go and hop on another

ride. It has been an absolute privilege, mate. As we travel

downstream, we reach Beeston, Nottinghamshire. It's here the

river became tricky to navigate. Big boats would run aground and

during hot, dry summers, the river became impassable. The Nottingham-

Beeston cut was once part of a much longer canal. Even today, it still

provides a vital link for boaters on The Trent. I'm catching my next

lift with Bob Appleby. Bob possibly knows this stretch better than any

other. He has lived "on the cut" for the last quarter of a century.

So, we are really getting into the city here, Bob. Yes, we're getting

very close into the city. Welcome to Nottingham! Let's do a fast

rewind to 1818. That was the year Mary sherry published a horror

story about Frankenstein. But the real horror story was going on

right here. They used to ship barrels of gunpowder up to

Derbyshire to blow the lead out of the mines. One of the kegs started

to leak onto the deck of abode. The boys thought they would have a bit

of fun and drop a hot: to wit to see what happened. They found out

real quick and they got a lot more than they bargained for. -- a hot

coal. Instead of the small spark he had expected, the whole lot went up,

killing eight men and two boys,and demolishing dozens of properties

between here and the market place. Accidents and deaths were not

uncommon on this waterway, but this was one of the worst. Travelling

through Nottingham you can still see the British Waterways building,

formerly a warehouse - and a fine building it is, too. Could you to

getting my head about this business of the waterway. It seems to me,

what we have got is essentially a navigable river, which has done a

great job, allowing commerce since the Bronze Age. But as boats got

bigger and cities started to develop, you have got a situation

whereby you have got to get the boats into the city, and the canal

like this does both jobs, really. As we head out of the city we, re-

join the river and it's here I'm visiting some super-sized derelict

structures. Chris Matthews is a local historian who is an expert on

this part of the Trent. On a scale of 1 to 10, for spookiness, this

place scores pretty high in my book. Whatever was it for? It is hard to

find out exactly what it was for. But I was searching the archives

and I found a booklet that was printed by the Corporation of

Nottingham, which today we call the city council. It was designed to

show off what the city had to offer in terms of industry and transport.

There are pictures of the council house, pictures of the war memorial,

which had just been built. And in the middle of this booklet is a

picture of the depot. The City was saying, this is what we have got to

offer in terms of transport and distribution. You have got to

remember, around that time, in the 1930s, Nottingham's lace trade was

a little bit in decline. It knew that in order to continue

successfully, it had to diversify its economy, with things like

pharmaceuticals and tobacco. What were they actually bringing up the

river? Looking at the finance records, we know it was things like

rain, food products, lots of timber, lots of metal. -- grain. And we

know there were some big clients involved, including Shell Oil, and,

in 1939, Cadbury limited of Bournville, it says in the records,

was using the top three floors of a second warehouse, that one over

there, for the storage of cocoa which is coming down the River

Trent on its way to Cadbury. If you fancy time-travelling along the

Trent, Chris organises riverside heritage walks around Nottingham.

His Internet search words are... Christopher Paul Matthews -

Nottingham. In 1936, nearly a quarter of a million tonnes of

cargo were carried up the Trent and into Nottingham. Quite an

achievement for a landlocked city. But ultimately, poor maintenance of

the river and the creation of the motorways led to the depot's demise.

After the Nottinghamshire village of Gunthorpe, I reach the outskirts

of Newark. It is here that I'm meeting a man with a mission. I am

dropping downstream on a relic of the river. This old boat spent her

working life pulling other boats about. But it is another boat and

interested in, a bigger one, and I suspect that's the man behind this

curious project. Had a good trip? Delightful. By his own confession,

Les Reid has given his life to boats. As a retired marine mechanic,

he's sailed the seven seas. But he stays closer to home these days -

and it's a project at the bottom of his garden which now keeps him busy.

It is a fantastic space when you're in here. You forget how big the

hull of a ship is. What exactly are you doing in here? The idea is that

since we do not have anybody on the Trent recording history for

posterity, and because it is being done everywhere else, on at every

big river navigation in the country, there are loads of museums, but

nothing about the Trent. My 50 years of being seduced by this

river, and falling in love with it as a young boy, being taken on the

boats by a lot of the old boatman, who were such amazing blokes, has

led me to be here today, left with the job of recording the history

for posterity. And since we do not have a museum to put the boat in,

we are putting the museum in the boat. What is tremendous, Les, I

think, is your vision to bring this down to the centre of Newark, where

everybody can come to see what's going on. Everybody can share in

the vision that you have had. People love a boat. They do. Newark

has got a living history, and we want to keep it alive. Les Reid is

the driving force behind this project, and I know that he will

make a good job of it. Les's enthusiasm is infectious. If you

fancy helping out or want to discover more, the Newark Heritage

Barge has a website. As for me, I'm moving on and I'm getting a lift

into Newark. Hundreds of families relied on this river for work.

Wages were paid, men were hired and fired and boats were built in the

town. And there's one man who shaped this river more than any

other. William Jessop was an English engineer, arguably as

successful as Brunel, but he was not such a self-publicist. He had

completed the Caledonian Canal in Scotland amongst other great

achievements, before he was appointed to be the chief engineer

of the River Trent. He was the first person to complete a detailed

survey of the river. His goal, get bigger and bigger boats up the

Trent. A family firm of solicitors in Newark was in charge of all the

legal documents and still holds a copy of his historic survey. The

amazing document shows how painstaking he was. He identified

67 possible trouble spots on the river. He did not want to solve the

problem with locks, because of the expense, so he ordered a huge

dredging problem, -- programme, which almost did the trick. But in

some places, locks it had to be. Locks have not changed much since

just a's time, and there are a variety on our rivers and canals,

but they all do the same job. But they all do the same job. They make

rivers easier to navigate and allow man-made canals to take a direct

route across land that's not level. This model will show everybody how

they work. Right, the boat will be travelling down the river, it will

come into the loch, the lock gates will be closed. The water level

will then go down when these are opened up. It is just a flat in the

bottom of the gate. So, the water is coming out into the river down

below. A lock has got three parts, it has got a watertight chamber,

gates at each end and a means of transferring water from one level

to another, with the gates shut. Yes, it is very simple, basic, but

it does the trick. Fantastic. So, the water levels inside and outside

of the lock are now the same. So, the gates open easily because there

is no pressure keeping them shut. It is a fingertip job. The boat can

go off down the river, on its merry way. If you want to see some

impressive lock systems for yourself, Foxton near Market

Harbough boasts 10 in a row, and Fradley Junction near Burton-on-

Trent has six. Right along the Trent Valley, the landscape is

scarred by quarrying. And the reason why, river gravel. This is a

precious commodity which is dug, traded and transported across the

UK and The Branford's claim to be the oldest barge operators not just

on this river, but in the whole of Britain. I'm joining the father and

son team at Besthorpe, where they're loading up. The reason why

there is so much gravel around here is the huge flood plain of the

Trent. Back in the Ice Age, this meandering river was a whole lot

bigger than it is now, and torrents of meltwater came rushing down from

the Peak District and from the Pennines, bringing with them huge

deposits. Men made a good living shifting it from where it ended up

to where it had to go. John, you have loaded coal for the steel

works, fine sand for the glassworks, and now it is sharp sand for the

building trade. This has been going on for 50 years, you must know the

Trent better than anybody alive. Yes, well I do. I have been in it

all my life. I knew that I was coming on to the boats from when I

was this high. I was captain of my own boat at 15. I paid �450 for my

first barge. My sweetheart, she was supposed to be getting married with

me, she fell out with me because of that. I am now 67, and I have been

on here quite a while, and seeing a lot of changes. We are now coming

to the place where I came with my first load when I was 12. There

would have been 15 or 20 barges waiting in those days. In those

days, there was a lot more moved by water than what there is now.

have been working this river, you and your grandparents, for five

generations, and your dad was telling me that you were a captain

when he one 19 of 300 tons - that must be the youngest captain in the

Western world these days. I think I was one of the youngest persons in

the country to get a captain's licence, through grandfather rights,

so I believe. I remember that, essentially that means that you

have been doing it, your parents have been doing it, you know how to

do it. Who is going to teach you how to do this job? That's

basically it, isn't it? That's basically it, yes. I was taught

through my father. About you have got a deck chair out the back. You

will probably sit back with your shades on and have a little beach

party. You have found by secret! I do actually do that, but don't tell

my dad. In a way, you're boating royalty, you come from a long

dynasty of boaters. Your son is working with you now on the barge.

What about your grandchildren? How do you see the future? There's a

lot more work coming onto the water, but there is no body lobbying for

us in government. John, I have got a meeting in Gainsborough. It is

all very well, but are we don't have enough water to float us up

there? Definitely, you're in safe hands, we will make it. I will put

the engine on, we will make it, I'm sure. Heading north on John's barge

we cruise past the start of England's oldest canal still in use

and originally built by the Romans. The Fossdyke is a waterway joining

Lincoln and the River Witham with the Trent. You can see its

beginnings with huge locks keeping out the turbulent waters of this

tidal river. A stone's throw away stand the ruins of a castle. It was

never really a castle, more a fortified manor house. It floods

almost every high water these days. In those days, the manor had a

right to levy a towel on every vessel which came past. That is

probably why it was built there, a commercial decision. I expected was

a good idea at the time, but in the end, it spelt the doom of the whole

place. If you walk, cycle, or boat the Trent, you can see notched

marks on bridges, walls and even on the side of houses. Engraved are

historic high-water levels - the most prominent year is 1947. Back

then, the country was still shocked by the aftermath of war.

Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire, like the rest of the country, were

gripped by an iron winter with the biggest snowfall anyone could

remember. Then, in early March, the great thaw began. The water-filled

the reverse. The Trent reached its high-water mark and kept on coming

at a terrifying rate of 1ft per hour. The low-lying town of

Gainsborough was entirely at its mercy. I am here to meeting the

people who remember that fateful day. You're 91, so you must have

been mid-20s when this happened? What are your memories of it?

remember that in the morning, I looked out of the bedroom window,

and the water was coming across from the River Trent, running down

the hill like a river, down the street. It kept coming down, and

then by teatime, we had 4ft 6 of water in the house. We put the

furniture upstairs, but we stayed upstairs. We managed, we had quite

enough food, as it happened, to carry on. But the house was no good

any more. It was damp and all that. There were people who lost

everything? Yes. They lost everything. The compensation they

got, it was a pittance. How much of the town was really affected by

this? Well, most of it. In those days, there were no houses, very

few, up the hill. Today, it is like another town in Gainsborough. We

have got a lot of people living up the hill. In those days, there were

loads and loads of little yards and squares, and those properties did

not come down until the 1960s. They were very old properties, and they

all got flooded. The alleyways, or running down to the river. So it

did affect, I would say, about half the town. It makes you think that

towns like Gainsborough and Newark and some of the others have been

entirely at the mercy of this river. That's right. Although it is a

lovely river, it has done a lot of damage as well, it has. Since the

inundation of 1947, this town has got its flood defences and they've

been tried and tested. From here, the Trent is wide and brown, coiled

with currents and intimidating for the pleasure boater. Keadby road

and rail bridge is a Lincolnshire landmark. When it opened in 1916, a

200ftswinging section was raised and lowered, allowing sailing

barges to pass without lowering their mast. Problems with machinery

led to the arm being permanently fixed during the '50s. All along

the Trent, there are heritage groups enjoying this river's local

history. But the people of the village of Burton-upon-Stather, the

last on the banks of the Trent before we reach its river mouth,

are arguably the most enthusiastic - and dare I say eccentric! This

village is home to their World War II tank run, which was used mostly

for testing amphibious craft, many of them prototypes, all of them

secret. They reckon they chose this part of the Trent because the banks

are muddy, and there is a swirling tide ill-effect, and it was very

similar to the rivers on the continent, such as the river Rhine,

where our tanks were going to have to fight their way ashore. As you

can see, we have got a military escort to take us through the rough

stuff, down to the real location. I have just spent a week on the river,

and it is so good to get ashore, and see all of these guys dressed

up, and these wonderful vehicles. But it is all about this bit of

concrete! This is the 10th round, as it is affectionately known

locally. It was built in 1944 by the 79th Armoured Division,

essentially for testing amphibious tanks and other vehicles in

preparation for crossing the River Rhine. So, it really did make that

river? It did. It is a big, wide river, with muddy banks. They would

go down, then turn around and come back, try to climb out of the Trent.

They would fire a rocket and a chain over to the other side to try

to pull themselves across. A lot of these things did not work, but some

did. I can see some photos out of the corner of my eye. Yes, we have

managed to find some contemporary photographs from the 1940s. What I

really wanted to show you is, we have managed to pull up some

archive film footage. It is amazing, to think that's happening right

here where we are standing. Absolutely, here's one coming up

the ramp where we are stood now. This was secret film from the time.

Am I right in thinking that one of these tanks actually came back

here? As part of our research, we found a guy from Wolverhampton who

had restored a Valentine tank, and not only that, he told us that it

was actually based here. So, the next thing we did was to get it

here, and we have what we called a tank day last year. Here it is

actually coming down on to the ramp, and there it is, actually stood

here as it would have done in 1944. What a wonderful noise it must have

made. That is the icing on the cake for me. It is really great, I am so

glad we came ashore here. Thank you very much. So, from tanks on the

tidal Trent to the men who still make money from working this river.

The Trent is an understated waterway. It's not got the glamour

of the Thames or the dimensions of the Severn, but it is darn right

impressive. And all along its course, you'll find living history

to explore for yourself. Well, I have reached the end of my journey.

This is where the Trent pours out into the Humber, and it is a