The Narrowboat – Part 1: Lock Gate

"You've left a paddle up," said the man on the towpath.

Wendy, standing in the stern of her brand-new narrowboat, stared at the great black lock gate rising above her, the water churning and sucking at the hull. She was sixty, a retired headmistress from Leicester, in a new waterproof and a straw hat, gripping the tiller as if it were a live animal. It was her first day on the canal.

"Which paddle?"

"The one at the bottom. Left side. It's letting the water out."

"How do I close it?"

"Wind it down. The windlass."

"What is a windlass?"

He held up a long steel handle. "This."

He was sixty-five, tall and lean, with white hair, a gentle moustache and a weathered green jersey, strolling along the towpath with a rolled-up newspaper. Alan. He lived on the next mooring, he said, and had watched the whole thing with horror, then fascination, then compassion.

Together, in an hour, they got the boat through. He worked the paddles and the gates. She held the tiller, white-knuckled, steering as he directed. When the great gate swung wide and the boat slid out into the sunlit canal, she let out a gasp and laughed aloud.

"I've done it!"

"You have."

"I've done a lock!"

"You've done a lock."

"How many are there?"

"Today? Twenty-two."

She laughed so hard she had to sit down on the roof. Alan sat on a bollard, looking pleased with himself, hat tilted back, while a pair of ducks paddled past in a little line.

"Can I ask you something?" said Wendy.

"Yes."

"Would you like a cup of tea?"

"I would."

"Do I make it before the next lock or after?"

"Green?" said Alan, a canal light.

"Green," said Wendy. "Very green. After."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Summit Pound.