For the special Cutweb Logowear go here.
For academic output go here.
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These are Chris's non-academic miscellaneous articles and letters, published in various publications. The list is not exhaustive (ie some are missing!) and is still being added to. |
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| Dec 2011, p76-8 | Waterways World | Article: The Nottingham Canal - part 2: Balloon Woods to Nottingham (& the Trent) |
| Nov 2011, p82-5 | Waterways World | Article: The Nottingham Canal - part 1: Langley Mill to Balloon Woods |
| Sept 2011 | Waterways World | Article: Boat Spotting 8: Further investigation; Sources & bibliography |
| July 2011, p100-1 | Waterways World | Article: Boat Spotting 7: The new historic narrowboats |
| June 2011, p95-7 | Waterways World | Article: Boat Spotting 6: Early pleasure boats |
| March 2011, p94-5 | Waterways World | Article: Boat Spotting5: Day Boats |
| February 2011, p94-5 | Waterways World | Article: Boat Spotting4: Stations, Railways and Cowburn & Cowpar |
| January 2011 | Waterways World | Article: Boat Spotting3: Rivers, Trees and Admirals... |
| December 2010, p102-4 | Waterways World | Article: Boat Spotting2: Fellows Morton and Clayton Ltd |
| November 2010, p100-1 | Waterways World | Article: Boat Spotting1: Introduction and the GUCCC |
| January 2010, | Waterways World Annual | Article: 20 Top Tips For Better Boating |
| July 2009, p98-9 | Waterways World | Article: Better Boating: Knots & Ropework 2 |
| June 2009, p94-5 | Waterways World | Article: Better Boating: Knots & Ropework 1 |
| April 2009, | Waterways World | Article: Better Boating: Breakdowns |
| March 2009, p92-3 | Waterways World | Article: Better Boating: Final Dos & Don'ts |
| February 2009, p90-1 | Waterways World | Article: Better Boating: More Dos & Don'ts; Flags & Canopies |
| January 2009, p & p72 | Waterways World |
Article: Better Boating: Safety Dos & Don'ts 2
Comment: 3 Chances to Save the Wateways - part 1 only |
| December 2008 | Waterways World | Article: Better Boating: Safety Do, Don'ts and Maybes |
| November 2008, p89-91 | Waterways World | Article: Better Boating: Tunnels |
| October 2008 | Waterways World | Article: Better Boating: Big Boats |
| September 2008 | Waterways World | Article: Better Boating: Big Locks |
| August 2008 | Waterways World | Article: Better Boating: How to Become Unstuck |
| July 2008 | Waterways World | Article: Better Boating: Mooring With Springs |
| May 2008 | Waterways World | Article: Better Boating: Lock Etiquette |
| April 2008 | Waterways World | Article: Better Boating: Reversing |
| February 2008 | Waterways World | Article: Better Boating: Staircase Locks |
| December 2007 | Waterways World | Article: Better Boating: Weirs & Sluices |
| October 2007 | Waterways World | Article: Better Boating: Swing Bridges |
| September 2007 | Waterways World | Article: Better Boating: Narrow Locks, Going Uphill 2 |
| August 2007 | Waterways World | Article: Better Boating: Narrow Locks, Going Uphill 1 |
| July 2007 | Waterways World | Article: Better Boating: Narrow Locks, Going Downhill 2 |
| June 2007 | Waterways World | Article: Better Boating: Narrow Locks, Going Downhill 1 |
| May 2007 | Waterways World | Article: Better Boating: Locking Uphill 3 |
| April 2007 | Waterways World | Article: Better Boating: Locking Uphill 2 |
| March 2007 | Waterways World | Article: Better Boating: Locking Uphill 1 |
| Feb 2007 | Waterways World | Article: Better Boating: Locking Down |
| Jan 2007 | Waterways World | Article: Better Boating: Bridge Hazards |
| Dec 2006 | Waterways World | Article: Better Boating: Turning a Boat Round Using the Engine |
| Nov 2006 | Waterways World | Article: Better Boating: Turning a boat round by hand |
| Oct 2006 | Waterways World | Article: Better Boating2: Mooring up |
| Sept 2006 | Waterways World | Article: Better Boating1: Setting off |
| June 2006 | Canal Boat & Inland Waterways |
Article: Waterways Science Group
Introduction to the concept p86 |
| 1998 | HNBOC newsletter | The former Wolfhampcote Loop of the Oxford Canal |
| 1997 | HNBOC newsletter | Horse Boating on the Worcester & Birmingham Canal 1997 |
| 1995? | HNBOC newsletter | High Tech versus Low Tech Development |
| 1995 | HNBOC newsletter | A Call to Arms... For education... |
| 1995 | HNBOC newsletter | Spindle Sizes and Paddle Gear |
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A Boater's Guide to Boating
Published by Chris N. Deuchar ISBN 978-09531512-0-2 |
This book
is
a revised, and much expanded, version of a series of articles which first
appeared in the newsletter of the Historic Narrow Boat Owners Club.
It is not a rewrite of that which appears in many other books on boating techniques, but seeks to carry on where they leave off. Nowhere before has anyone attempted to record, in any such detail, the special skills required to navigate the craft of our narrow canals, both historic and modern, along the waterways for which they were designed - and those for which they were not! Neither have so many hints and tips, derived directly from the ways and words of the former full time working boatmen, previously been collected in one place. Wherever possible, the author has shown how old techniques can be used directly in the present day, and elsewhere how they can be adapted for present day use. The pattern of waterway usage has changed from a purely commercial operation to the multi-functional system that exists today. This has presented for the first time, potential areas of conflict between users, which the author addresses and suggests how techniques can be modified to retain their historic precedent whilst not being lost forever. The author has more than thirty years of experience in handling boats, of all types from canoes to sailing craft, cruisers, narrow boats and barges, both for leisure and commerce, and in inland and coastal situations. The sum total of this wide range of practical and theoretical knowledge is accordingly deeply reflected in this publication. It is above all a practical book, and should therefore not merely be read by those with a historic interest in past navigators - for there is much of historical interest here - but also by anyone who has ever steered a boat along our inland waterways or who intend to do so in the future. There is much, in particular, which will benefit those who boat single handedly. It is a measure of the significance attributed to the original series of articles, that sections have (with the author's permission) been used more recently to provide instruction in boat handling for those involved in moving museum craft - such as the Friends of President and the Boat Museum at Ellesmere Port. Original Cover Price: £5.00 Note: "The Boater's Guide to Boating" is no longer available directly
from me. Please visit your usual bookseller or waterways outlet (and ask them to stock it if they don't!)
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Early Steam Power
Published by Chris N. Deuchar ISBN 978-09531512xxxx |
In course of preparation! From Hero of Alexandria to James Watt. This book was originally written in 1978 as a college dissertation but it provides easy reading of the chronological development of steam power up to the mid-nineteenth century. This fully revised and re-illustrated version will interest both steam enthusiasts and scholars as it provides a concise account of the driving force behind the industrial revolution and the principal players involved. |
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An early badge I designed for the Ashby Canal Association featuring their measham teapot logo |
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Another early badge for a neighbours trip boat operation using a standard piece of clipart |
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The first logo for the great internet boating community - otherwise known as the 'cutweb logo'. This was effectively designed 'by committee' internationally. The URL on this badge is now obsolete. For the full story go to https://www.canals.com/ |
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The badge for the offshoot of the above which formed its own AWCC afiliated boat club - The Cutweb Internet Boat Club |
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Another boat club badge: for the Nottingham Yacht Club - to their own design. It is a paraody (for a sheep roast) of their own 'phoenix from the flames' logo. |
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Another NYC parody - this time just the bottle was added! |
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Yet another boat club offshoot! |
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...and something a little more traditional for the Historic Narrow Boat Club |
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One for the local! |
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1994. One of an annual series for the
Dolphin Morris Men
organised Gate To Southwell.
This was a twenty mile charity procession/pub crawl from Nottingham
to the head of the diocese at Southwell Minster which took place every summer
in June. The procession originates with the founding of the minster and this
annual event started over 500 years ago.
This badge depicts the handing over of the 'Southwell Pence' which was a payment made from each of the Nottinghamshire parishes to pay for the minster's upkeep and which continues symbolically to this day. |
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1995. Morris dancers were known to have entertained the walkers as early as 1530 and are depicted in this badge. The characters are 'stolen' from the famous 'Betley Window' |
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1996. Another badge of entertainment en route - and more Betley window characters with the minster in the backgound. It isn't clear in this image but the black border contains a dotted white line to symbolise the roadway there |
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1997. A simple, but effective, design - the date is on the sign's post and some of the pubs visited en route are list around the border |
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1998. A 'happy chappy' morris dancing on his way to Southwell |
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1999. I can remember little of this year..... ...but I do remember that I had little time to spare and so a quick solution was used - ie monchrome printing onto green paper. We have the minster drawing once more, superimposed on a huge morris bell! |
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2000. A bit of a failure this one - serves me right for appropriating someone elses digital image. It shows the walkers and dancers from a previous year posing in front of the minster |
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2001. This one revived 1998's 'happy chappy' and shows him dancing toward the minster - symbolically appearing on a Stanley Kubrick style TMA1 from '2001 - A Space Odessey' - and with a stick (of course!) rather than handkerchiefs. |
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2002. The Green Man of Southwell. I was pleased with this. The image was originally very broad because this figure is carved beneath the bishop's seat in the minster choir (if memory serves me right). I therefore had to do a cylindrical distortion followed by a lens distortion to get the thing to look right. It took quite a lot of time to get the correct configuration |
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2003. I was very pleased with this badge, which proved very popular and features the minster's wonderful west window. The photo for this was taken on the 2002 Gate - in anticipation. |
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2004. This year I was at a bit of a loss for a subject. There had been two sad deaths among the Gate regulars and I was in something of a quandry as to how to deal with this. I finally chose a representation of the cross which is always carried as part of the procession and a simple design of more than usual religious significance. |
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2005. After 2004's sombre mood, I felt a complete change was in order. Looking
back at previous badges a blue/green theme predominated, so I decided on
orangey-brown - which some have interpreted as 'tooled leather'. :-)
A tankard also seemed appropriate to mirror the old quote from the 1530s about 'the ale - which was drunk at all times' during the procession. Lest this be seen as too irreligious I superimposed the Bramley Apple (ie the fruit - not just the pub) for which Southwell is famous. Therefore the sensitive may assume the tankard contains only apple juice :-) Curiously a cross has appeared in the intertwining of the apple leaf stalks. This does NOT appear in the original CAD drawing - it only manifests itself upon printing or processing. Spooky eh? |
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2006. This was the year that everybody who wanted to be anybody went out and bought a Sat Nav system for their car. The badge therefore showed the minster in a segment of the first Ordnance Survey map - to redress the balance! |
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2007. This was the year that Nottingham City Council rebuilt the Old Market Square at vast expense - turning it into the bleak wasteland (with spurty fountains!) that it now is. Putting an image of the council house on the badge therefore seemed appropriate |
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2008. I cribbed the basic design for this from an earlier badge I had produced for Dolphin's Ring Meeting in 2004. I added the Dolphin heraldic 'supporters' and the wording relates to the sides 40th anniversary this year. The devices in the quartering are charged to reflect items on the gate more accurately such as the minster, morris kit, the Bramley apple and beer! |
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2009. Inspiration often comes at the last minute - against all my best intentions! This year was no exception; so I thought a bit about what the procession was all about and the idea of indicating where the Southwell pence came from was born. The red dots are meant to indicate some of the major towns and parishes within Nottinghamshire (no its not a map of the Isle of Man - it really is Nottinghamshire!). I was struck for the first time just how close to the centre of the county that Southwell actually is. Previously I had thought of it stuck in the back of beyond over in the south-eastern corner - but its not, it really is quite central. |
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2010. Dolphin Morris Men's excellent archivist, Andy Padmore, sowed the seeds of the idea for this one and uses an image from the very first of the 'revived' Gates from 30 years before. The wording followed naturally from the film released earlier in the year 'Morris, A Life With Bells On' - telling the tale of the lifes, loves and tragedies of a fictional morris side - and sums up the Gate to Southwell succinctly (but it does miss out on the huge consumption of beer. Somehow the words 'A Pi$$ up with Bells On' didn't seem quite right for what is, after all, a religious occasion.) |
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2011. This was my last year as badge maker for this event for a variety of practical reasons. Accordingly we decided to make it a 'gud un' and Jan helped me out to produce what general opinion says is one of the best we have done. The initial letter 'G' is from the King James bible - which celebrated its 400th anniversary this year. It seemed only right to use this as the basis of the idea - especially given that the Minster had produced a special display to mark this occasion too. |
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The central drawing was used for a publicity campaign for the Cranfleet Lock Action Group - which attempted (so far unsuccessfully) to get a pair of flood gates on the Trent navigation replaced by a conventional lock. Their closure in this drawing is therefore highly symbolic! |
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This is not my design - merely my representation of an earlier design which I redrew and digitised for the Dolphin Morrismen |
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This was the third Great Internet Get-together for the internet boating community . I organised it at the Soar Boating Club in Nottinghamshire. The design incorporates the clubs pennant superimposed on the cutweb logo |
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The fourth GIG at Stafford Boat Club incorporates that clubs pennant - again on the cutweb logo |
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Returning to Stafford BC required something a bit more adventurous |
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Returning to the Soar BC required something even more adventurous The organiser wanted something "a bit 2001-ish" so and my previous variation on the TMA1 theme for the 'Gate to Southwell 2001' was adapted. |
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Yup, back to Stafford! They always make us welcome so I went for something a bit more canal-trad in colour but based upon one of the bridge number plates which are peculiar to that canal - but retaining the Staffordshire Knot. |
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These cartoons were originally published anonymously in the newsletter of the
Historic Narrow Boat Owners Club between 1994 and 1998 and represent an,
admittedly cynical - but
sadly all-too accurate, comment on the workings of British Waterways...
This first one was just to 'test the waters' and was just a minor modification from the lego original (to which company I am indebted for keeping my sons occupied during their early lives...)
The original caption was "BW Mega
LEGO
Man...
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The original caption was "BW Mega
LEGO
Man...
...puts the finishing touches to the first of a controversial new sanitary station design." This was a response to some of the wilder architectural excesses of the time - in particular to some of the newer sanitary station designs which were totally over the top for their function - including showers which turned out to be largely for the benefit of dog walkers! (Boaters tend to have their own showers/baths on board - naturally.) |
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The original caption was "BW Mega
LEGO
Man...
...ponders the real origins of the National Lottery Logo." At a time when the national lottery was a 'new thing' I happened to notice that the outline of the lottery logo was virtually identical to that of a Measham teapot. Coincidence? ...probably :-) |
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The original caption was "BW Mega
LEGO
Man...
...leaving no stone unturned in his quest for licence dodgers." There was a time when BW were desperate to apply a 'Section 8' notice (ie to get a boat removed from the water) to anything that didn't fit into their idea of what boats on the system should look like. Times have changed - or rather BW opinion has changed - but the old paranoia remains. |
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The original caption was "BW Mega
LEGO
Man...
...saves the day at 'Canals Alive' when the mooring bollard for the hot air balloon pulls out of the ground." With the sub-text... "...Phew! ...Maybe the NBOC are right about the strength of those things?" This was prompted, after a long series of moans, by the final realisation that BW engineers simply hadn't a clue how securely their dinky new bollards needed to be attached to the ground. The realisation that they were more than ornamental was obviously a surprise to someone and it took their own employees managing to uproot them for someone to understand that there actually was a problem. |
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The original caption was "BW Mega
LEGO
Man...
...compares virtual reality with the real thing." This period coincided with the birth of 'virtual reality' games and the large scale introduction of computers into everyday working lives. It also indicated just how divorced BW office staff were (and I am tempted to say still are) from understanding just what they have charge of. |
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The original caption was "BW Mega
LEGO
Man...
...making the new railings "towline friendly"." This followed on quite well from the previous cartoon in that the large-scale purchase by BW of heaps of 'bobble topped' railings - because someone thought they were nice/what was needed/what everyone else used or whatever. Failing to understand that waterside railings MUST be flat topped so as not to (potentially dangerously) impede tow ropes and so on (especially around locks) is just typical of a management style that has no understanding of 'original function' nor its implicatons for heritage, conservation and new builds. |
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The original caption was "BW Mega
LEGO
Man...
...has some time off at a Rosie & Jim weekend". OK, I admit it. I'm not a Rosie & Jim fan (hence the subjects in the stocks:-)). For once this wasn't a dig at BW and I actually did support their embracing of these children's tv dolls to get youngsters interested and involved in the waterways. |
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The original caption was "BW Mega
LEGO
Man...
...invites customer fedback on the Boat Safety Scheme... and is surprised by two differing views." The Boat Safety Scheme was/is a good idea in principle BUT (and that is a series of very large 'BUTs'!) the efforts and expenditure on this has been in total disproportion to the number of accidents that occur. No one doubts that such a scheme is necessary in some form but the costs and intrusion into privacy of the average boater are way in excess of those that would be tolerated in any other section of society. Unfortunately boaters are 'captive' audience with very little influence on how their world is administered. Hence the cross section of views varying from'head in the sand' to 'blasting BW'. |
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The original caption was "BW Mega
LEGO
Man...
...protects a conservation area. ...inspired by the revelation that someone counted 73 signs at Fradley." Not much needs explaining here - nothing really changes! |
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The original caption was "BW Mega
LEGO
Man...
...tries to prevent Birmingham area doing its own form of hertage conservation". Birmingham area (amongst others) has always been rather bad at conservation and prefers to knock down and build new rather than conserve the old and incorporate it in the new. I had the Fazeley offices in mind at the time (and the loss of a rather nice, plain, old warehouse and office). |
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The original caption was "BW Mega
LEGO
Man...
...takes a shot at waterway heritage". Birmingham area (again!) and this cartoon was prompted by a madcap scheme to put a pseudo-chinese junk in Gas Street Basin for letting out as offices. Ye Gods! |