Summertime, and the rain is pouring

Which meant that towpaths would have been very soggy today- so I stayed at street level for a visit to Birmingham City Centre.

Not much to report, really - I had gone out with the intention of photographing a couple of headstones in Key Hill cemetery, but it was that wet that I couldn't identify where they were. It was part of a project to add to my flickr page - adding some pictures of public art, statues and memorials around here.

In the event the only one I was able to take a picture of was this one - the bull sculpture in the Bull Ring shopping centre, which now illiterately calls itself bullring. The Bull Ring name doesn't come from bull fights - but the area was the site of bull baiting; the bull would be tethered to an iron ring set in the ground. We are quite strong on bloodsports here - not far from me was the scene of the last legal cock fight in England; it was on one side or the other of Hockley Brook, which, until 1910, formed the boundary between Warwickshire and Staffordshire. Handsworth was moved into Birmingham - and hence Warwickshire - at that time. Handsworth Grammar School still has the Staffordshire Knot as part of its badge.

You can see a link to my flickr page on the left side of this blog. There you will also see a link to Chris's blog - which is well worth looking at. It's got plenty of photographs of canals around Birmingham, and some very interesting links, too; there's also a link to a map of the canals around here, done in the style of the London Underground map.


Tommy, our Mission Nutritionist, tells me after looking at a previous posting on this blog - the one that referred to West Brom's striker Jeff Astle, who died of a degenerative brain disease caused by heading heavy old footballs, that the same sad fate befell Stoke City's John Ritchie. Ritchie and Astle were both centre-forwards; they would have played against one another many times. John Ritchie's widow does fundraising for the fight against Alzheimer's Disease.

Cold Spaghetti

Just one long walk - and a few shorter, quicker ones - since my last blog entry.

The long walk - late last week - took me along most of the Tame Valley Canal, to Spaghetti Junction, and then down into Birmingham City Centre along the Birmingham & Fazeley Canal. I'd done that Birmingham - Spagehtti Junction and back walk a couple of weeks ago.

The journey started with a trip on the Metro to Wednesbury, then a short walk back to the Tame Valley Canal. I'd walked the other way on it a number of times, but this was the first time that I had walked eastwards on it.Going in the other direction - down towards the Birmingham Canal - the short stretch of the Tame Valley Canal passes through a grim, post-industrial landscape. Eastwards, though, it's noticeably different: a large part of the route was through suburban, even semi-rural, scenery. The canal was one of the last to be built in this part of the country, and it shows. It's wide, and straight; it's probably misleadingly named: while the Tame is near both ends of the canal, the river takes a far more roundabout route.

For the first stretch, you can see the river down to the left of the canal: it then passes through a cutting in which I took this picture. The picture was taken to show the derelict bridge, which you can see in the foreground. At a guess the bridge carried a railway, possibly built to serve the coal mines that used to exist in this area. I don't know how the strange lighting effect came about: it had been raining (look at the puddles!) and there was what you might call a watery sun shining at the time.


Before long the M6 comes into view, and the canal follows the route of the motorway for the rest of its length.
Here you can see the junction of the M6 and M5; if you've ever driven south on the M6 and turned onto the M5, the first bridge the motorway passes under carries the Tame Valley Canal, and it was from that bridge - acqueduct - that I took this photo. Slow moving traffic near the M5/M6 junction will be familiar to many of you.

From here the canal follows the M6 - perhaps that should be the other way round. It's a long, straight stretch: the photo here is taken from the junction with the Rushall Canal, looking back towards Wednesbury; a few yards behing me was the bridge which takes the other arm of the M5 - the arm that takes cars off the northbound M6 or on to the southbound - over the canal. The route of the canal remains very straight, going through two deep cuttings and over a long acqueduct, before reaching the top of a long flight of locks. Just thirteen of them, but they do go a long way down - the drop on each lock seems higher than it is for locks on the Birmingham Canal.

The flight ends close to Spaghetti Junction - and close, again, to the Tame, which passes under this elegant bridge - Salford Bridge, which is almost hidden my the vastness of Spaghetti Junction. This is the end of the Tame Valley Canal; here it meets the Birmingham and Fazeley
which I followed into the centre of Birmingham. And here, the Tame is joined by Hockley Brook. Hockley Brook rises close to the WBA football ground, but it's mostly underground now; it's of interest because James Watt built his first, water-powered factory using the brook to power it; later he moved his factory a few hundred yards up stream, and powered the new site - Soho Foundry - with steam. A large part of the brook was lowered and put into a culvert in the 1930s; the house I was raised in was built on land thus reclaimed. Here you can see Hockley Brook on the left, the River Tame in the foreground, and the Birmingham and Fazeley canal, on the right. It was that canal I followed all the way into Birmingham City Centre.

"Pain is temporary, pride is forever"

That's a mantra that was quoted to me by Susie Hewer, who was kind enough to add a comment to this blog a few days ago.

It's been particularly apposite this week. I've been going through a slight depression - for no particular reason; it just happens from time to time - I've had a general feeling of yeughness and, earlier in the week, I discovered a boil in a very inconvenient place.

The depression would have been worse had I not had this walk to prepare for - giving me the feeling that I am doing something worthwhile. And it would have got worse had I allowed it to. The yeughness was probably a result of the depression. And I've managed, thank goodness, to shuffle off my mortal boil. So, today, the longest walk for a while, though not the longest walk I've done. Bus to Dudley Port; up the canal to Coseley Tunnel; then back again, home, in time to watch the Cheltenham Gold Cup.

This is Dudley Port, where a viaduct carrying the West Coast Main Line - and on which Dudley Port Railway Station is situated -crosses the main road; you can see it here, in the foreground.

In the background is the Ryland Acqueduct - I'm not sure why it is named thus, but it carried the Birmingham Canal. Canal and railway line are never far apart. This is where I joined the canal today; my main task, though, was to take another look at one of the most difficult stretches of the canal, which is Coseley Tunnel.

It's strange that once I have made a journey, a repeat of it seems far shorter. Certainly the distance from Dudley to Coseley seemed to be far shorter than it was when I made the same trip, in the opposite direction,
the Saturday before last. That may, of course, have been a result of my being fresher today than I was then.

Much of the Birmingham Canal is designated as part of the National Cycle Network, but on the approach to the tunnel there's a sign diverting cyclists elsewhere - up and over, rather than through the tunnel. Some of them might not like the idea too much, and you can see why when you look at the steepness of the slope they would have to cycle up in order to avoid the tunnel. But once they, or anyone on foot, get into the tunnel, you can see why cyclists are recommended not to use it. It's over 300 yards long, and unlit.
It has, thank goodness, a handrail, but it's an unnerving experience walking through it, even when there's nobody coming in the opposite direction.
And that is what was happening today; you can just about see him in this picture. Not only was he coming in the opposite direction - he was riding a bicycle. It would have been completely impossible for us to pass one another in the tunnel. I'll give careful consideration to going "up and over" rather than through the tunnel when it comes to July 17th.



So from here, it was an about turn and back, first, to Tipton.
This is pretty much the half way point on the Birmingham Canal - though not on the whole walk. And there's a pub there! The only canalside pub on the Birmingham Canal, outside the centre of Birmingham.
Imagine my distress when I saw that I had got there a day too late to enjoy a 'glam rock evening!'

Here, the old main line and the new main line split. I followed the New Main Line, which is far shorter and, barring a flight of three locks immediately after this pub, has no locks at all, all the way to Birmingham.



The course of the canal from here is very straight - as you can see from this picture - and, frankly, a bit dull. The local council has designated this as an 'urban greenway' and it's certainly less depressing than the scenes of industrial decay nearer to Wolverhampton; there's also the benefit that a straight journey seems to get you to where you want to be far more quickly than a twisty one does.
The canal here has towpaths on both sides. The National Cycle Network signs recommend that cyclists use the towpath on the south side -that towpath is prperly built, while the one on the north side, which I used today, is covered with short grass and is very uneven, but it's perfectly passable in dry weather.




I was amused by this bit of graffiti one one of the bridges the canal passes over.

"Astle" is, as those of you from this part of the country - and many of you from elsewhere - will now, Jeff Astle. He was a forward for West Bromwich Albion and, occasionally, England in the 1960s and 1970s. Goodness knows how old the graffiti is - it may be fairly recent, dating from around the time of his death: Jeff Astle died in 2002, and believed his death was at the very least accelerated by brain injuries sustained by heading the ball so much. Footballs where then far more likely to absorb water than they are now.



From there on it was through increasingly familiar territory - the Galton Valley begins just after this straight stretch. I certainly felt a great deal better for doing the walk.

Bostin' Links

You've probably found that some of this blog has piqued your interest. If so, here are some links for you . . .


The Alzheimer's Research Trust is the charity we are raising money for. It funds research into the causes and treatment of Alzheimer's Disease.

Our Mission IT Expert, Sparkmaster, has set up this website for the walk itself. It's in early stages of development at the moment.

Plenty of people have walking as a hobby - few more so than Dave Cotton, whose website carries accounts of his walks in various places all over Britain, including one along the canal from Birmingham to Wolverhampton: there are plenty of others, all over the country.

And if you have ever walked along canal towpaths, you will have noticed that they are used by cyclists, too. Large parts of the National Cycle Network use towpaths; this is a video - the first in a series of nine - showing the Birmingham to Wolverhampton stretch of the walk, from a bicycle.

An Army Marches On Its Stomach

And the 4th Canal Infantry Regiment (Birmingham Battalion) - 4-Canal for short - wouldn’t be anywhere near battle-ready by July 17th were it not for the support from our one-man Catering Corps, and Mission Nutritionist, Tommy.

It was the death earlier this year of Tommy’s brother, who had contracted early onset Alzheimer’s, that inspired Sparky and me to do this walk in aid of the Alzheimer’s Research Trust.

I mentioned in an earlier blog entry that one of the reasons for my doing this walk – and the training for it – was to lose weight. I had, late last year, seen my weight rise to 15st 12lbs and, while that didn’t last long, I was still 15st 6lbs by the start of this campaign. Tommy told me that if I followed his dietary plan, the weight would soon start dropping off.

He was right. I’m a touch under 15 stone now; I can see my toes without bending at the hips; and my navel now points forwards, rather than downwards as it had previously done. Not long ago I put some mild symptoms I was suffering into one of those online diagnosis website. And how helpful that was. Apparently I was suffering from insomnia, all sorts of mental illnesses, every heart disease imaginable, cancer of almost everything, problems associated with the menopause, erectile dysfunction, whiplash, post-concussive syndrome, Asperger’s syndrome, anorexia, dyslexia, smoker’s face, alcohol withdrawal, berberi, shock – not surprising after discovering all the other ailments – and plague. The last probably explains why I haven’t found anyone willing to accompany me on the walk yet.

Tommy’s advice has been to eat more green vegetables; cook them in a steamer; eat less red meat; eat more chicken or fish; avoid potatoes as much as possible and, should I really need to eat them, do so at a different meal from when I’d have green vegetables. This, apparently, is because carbohydrates stimulate different digestive juices from proteins, and a mixture of both would reduce the benefits from either. It’s an idea from The Hay Diet – one of those ambiguously-named diets, almost as much so as The Diet of Worms, which Tommy certainly hasn’t recommended.

So, over the past couple of weeks, I’ve discovered the joys of steamed broccoli, steamed green beans, even steamed okra – though that is a bit of an acquired taste. I may even try steamed cabbage – not something I ever expected to consider after the awful way cabbage was cooked when I was a child. It’ll take a while before I work out just how long various things should go into the steamer: things can come out either beautifully crisp or hopelessly soggy.

Mentioning The Diet Of Worms leads me to this most palatable music, by the 16th century English composer Thomas Tallis. It's a setting, in English, of a passage from the Gospel of St John, written during the reign of the fervently Protestant Edward VI.

I heard what my body's sayin' to me . . .

. . . and it's sayin', "Is this really a good idea, Muntz?"

Or it was, this evening, after the longest walk yet in my preparation programme.

Wolverhampton, down to the Staffs & Worcs Canal, and then back, along the Birmingham Canal
and home. A walk of a little over fifteen miles, I think; by my estimation that's about 60% of the length of the July walk.

By the end of it I was more tired than I can remember being for years, and if I had had to walk the extra couple of miles into the centre of
O Birmingham, I really don't know would have been able to manage it. I suppose that if going all the way into Brum was the only way of completing the walk - as going to Penkridge will be in July - I'd have managed it. As it is I had to rely on what I'd posted about Susie Hewer a couple of days ago for inspiration: Susie is rapidly attaining mythic status for me!

This was the second walk I had done this week. The first was from Wednesbury, home. A total of about nine miles along very quiet towpaths: I met just a handful of people that day, one of whom, bizarrely, was riding a mobility scooter.

I had decided some time ago that I would need to walk the whole length of the walk - not necessarily on the same day - before July 17th just to identify where I might encounter problems. So that was what made me choose today's route. If you take a look at the Mappa Sparki, it started at the black spot that indicates Wolverhampton; west a couple of miles to the corner (which is where the Birmingham Canal meets the Staffs and Worcs) and then back east again, through Wolverhampton and almost all the way into Birmingham.

The trouble with that bit from Wolverhampton to the Staffs & Worcs is that it is a flight of locks. Twenty-one of them, in a little under two miles. All going up from the Staffs & Worcs. And it's not a gradual slope - the upslopes are alongside the locks themselves, or else the horses that used to tow barges on the canal wouldn't have been able to do what they needed to do.

At the canal junction, there was a couple who had clearly decided to hire a barge for 'leisure' and they were trying to manoeuvre their barge into the first lock. The trouble is that the space they had to do it in was barely longer than their barge. Goodness knows how long it took them to get up the first flight.


That stretch of canal is surprisingly rural: a country park on the north side, and Wolverhampton Racecourse (pictured) on the right.

It seemed strange to hear birdsong in a place so near home. We don't hear much of it in Birmingham.

I noticed that buds were appearing on the trees:
they will look noticeably greener when I do the walk again, which will be some time in the next couple of weeks.

The next few miles were through a depressing, post-industrial landscape and along a stretch of the canal that is pretty twisty - this was the original route, built by James Brindley.
Signs alongside the canal are confusing and contradictory, with one at Wolverhampton saying it's 14 miles to Birmingham, another three miles or so further on saying it's still 14 miles; and then yet another, half a mile later, giving the distance as 11 miles. There's a tunnel, too: 300 yards long - or a bit more - and unlit, though at least the towpaths have handrails and, today at least, there was nobody coming in the opposite direction.

At Tipton there's a canal junction - and you can take either branch to Birmingham, though the quicker one is the 'new main line'. There's a nice canalside pub, there, too. From there the route becomes straight, and dull: that's until arrival just south of West Bromwich and the Galton Valley. This is the new main line, and the newest part of the canal; hewed out of a ridge, by hand; and containing two elegant bridges, designed by Thomas Telford.

Before that, though, the old main line (which we last saw at Tipton) crosses the new line on an aqueduct, under the M5 motorway.
















The one on the left is the beautiful Galton Bridge, which carries a road - now closed to traffic - over the canal cutting. Note the resemblance to Telford's bridge at Ironbridge. The one on the right carries water from a reservoir a couple of miles away; this is used to fill the old main line - else the water would all drain out when the locks were used.

Not far from there, it's home.

The walk took me far longer than I had expected, but I'll certainly benefit from the exercise. I'd gone with a small amount of food - steamed chicken in pitta bread and a couple of sandwiches on
brown bread - plus a bottle of lucozade.

If you do this walk, make sure you use the new main line and not the old one: the old line is longer and, just after it crosses the new one at Galton Valley, there is a stretch on the summit where the towpath hasn't been maintained, though the canal bank has; the result is that the towpath is knee deep in mud, especially after cold or wet weather.

I'll leave with this. Nothing to do with the walk, I just like it.

The Pointer Sisters.

Though you're tired and weary, still journey on . . .

There will no doubt come times between now and July 17th - and in all probability on the day itself - when I will ask myself whether all this is worth the effort. The answer, of course, will be yes; my inspiration - and Sparky's - will come largely from our friend, referred to in the opening post in this blog; and from all our other cheerers-from-the-sidelines; and from people like the remarkable
Susie Hewer.

Susie is pictured on some of the ART's publicity material, running a marathon while knitting a scarf. She is a blogger, too; this is her inspirational blog. I'll read the passage she wrote after doing that marathon and remember parts of it when things get tough for me. On the day, of course, I'll be walking and not running; the walk will be - for me, at least - a little shorter than the length of a marathon; and I won't be knitting a scarf.

The Long March

The start of a new month, and a milestone, of sorts, in preparations for July's event.

I've been taking advice from our Mission Nutritionist who has suggested eating more green vegetables and, where possible, cooking my food in a steamer. It certainly seems to be better for me - I'm eating a little less, and I've made a noticeable weight loss, too. Overweight was one of the reasons I wanted to do this walk, and the training for it. Nonetheless I would most probably have given myself an excuse to fail, were it not for its being a joint effort, and a sponsored one, too.


Sponsorship, of course, is in aid of the Alzheimer's Research Trust, whose patron is the author, Terry Pratchett. He is pictured here outside No 10 Downing Street wearing a scarf - not just any old scarf, but one knitted by one of the Trust's more inventive supporters, Susie Hewer from East Sussex. Susie
knitted the scarf while running the London Marathon.

She is pictured on the front cover of the ART's fundraising booklet, which arrived in the post today - there are two other runners in the background, dressed as licquorice allsorts. I don't think that either Sparky or I will be quite as sartorially imaginative when we come to do our walk.

So this month's targets: I'll aim to do the Wolverhampton to Birmingham portion of the walk; and I'll aim to get my weight down below 15 stone - it's currently 15st 3lb which, while it's lower than it has been for some time, is still far too high for my height. The next longish walk I'll do will be Wednesbury to Birmingham; that will partly (though not wholly) coincide with our July route, and will - by my estimate - be about 30% the length of it.

Stay tuned.