I admire people who can write, drawing on the workings of their mind, as I cannot. I have to see and feel and smell the things I describe, and I’ll often research situations, locations and characters.



One such piece of research found me dressed as a Goth, in a feather-trimmed purple dress and a black wig in a small village in Yorkshire. I had an idea for a character, and I wanted to see how people reacted, to better understand the mind-set of my character. As it has turned out I was side tracked and this character’s story is yet to be written.

For no particular reason I found myself heading down to the canal, where I came across a rather odd raft. This misshapen floating pile of sticks had such an impact on me that I had to investigate. The man on board told me he was delivering a piano down to London, on the raft, but he seemed to have no real plan or reason for doing what he was doing - he just seemed to have this vague idea of floating down to London to deliver the remains of a pretty waterlogged and disintegrating piano. I asked who he was delivering the instrument to, thinking that by the time he got to the capital city there was very little chance that whoever the person was would still want it. But it seemed that he had no real recipient for the unplayable instrument. His story was jumbled, but I slowly gathered that he was a performance artist and that he planned to create a puppet theatre on the raft, among other things. I left him to his world but the story of the piano raft had already formed almost in its entirety in my head before I got back to my car, where I pulled off my black wig and wiped away the last traces of my deep purple lipstick. The Goth research would have to wait for another time - I was all fired up with this new story.

Back in my jeans and T shirt I spent the rest of the day walking along the tow path, and later I followed the path further afield on Google maps (Oh bless Google maps!). But what I really needed to know was, what is it like to float for days, live at the pace that the canal flows? How does that affect you?

It is often the way when I have ideas like this, that fate seems to co-ordinate to al-low them to happen. In this case a person I had only recently become friends with happened to mention that she needed to go and visit her mother for a few days, and did I want to stay on her canal boat in central London whilst she was away? I think she was a bit taken aback at the eagerness of my response.

Her vessel was short in length but wider in beam than the standard narrow-boats, and I was thrilled when she handed me the keys and I waved her off as she strode away to catch her train ‘home’.

Initially I was so excited I could hardly stay still inside the craft so I used my energy outside, exploring a wood right there on the other side of the tow path, right in the centre of London! Here I found a pile of fallen branches. Nipping back to the boat I found a saw and I hewed the branches on the spot and carried the logs back to the boat. Most of the houses I have lived in in the past have had real fires and so it was with ease that I stoked the wood burner until it blazed. What I was not used to was the small space on the boat and within half an hour I had all the doors and windows open - it was so hot!

As I got used to living on board I felt myself slow down and I spent a lot of time just watching the way the weather affected the surface of the water, the breeze, the sun, the rain, all stirring the surface in a different way. With no internet and no TV I was in bed at sunset and up again at dawn. Tucked up in my bed I would pull the blinds back just enough so I could watch, unseen, the early morning commuters, legs pumping on bikes, arms swinging as they ran, the early birds keen to get to work, fired up by the pace of London. As the morning passed the attitude changed until, by around ten o’clock all haste had gone and no one was in a hurry. They now walked with a lazy air, looking around them, breathing in the day. As for me there was no need to jump out of bed, because this lifestyle on the boat had no speed to it. When I did gather myself together to go for water, for example, it was a gentle chug along the waterway to the tap at the nearest lock.

As for making any progress in any direction I found that canal boats have a top speed of around 3mph, which is about the same as a leisurely walk. I also found that after putting the engine into neutral on one such trip it took quite a while to slow down if I did not use reverse gear. The weight of the thing kept the momentum going for some considerable time. There was no option but to slow down and go with the flow. I also loved that I could not have many possessions with me - there was room enough for essentials and that was it. Life seems so much simpler without a lot of stuff around you, and there was little, if anything, that I missed.

I was concerned at first about managing the locks, but I needn’t have worried. Everything is easy when you know how, and the canal boaters are a friendly and helpful bunch who are always ready with a wave or an offer of help. People use the canal for a variety of reasons, but with a commonality that draws them together. I became very familiar with the birds in the local area, as well as some of our shyer land mammals. It amazed me how the boat was absorbed into the landscape after mooring in some lonely section for the night, and if I awoke gently and peeped through windows I was rewarded by sights of inquisitive animals and equally unafraid birds.

It was not a shock to learn that there is no speeding life up on a canal boat. There are no short cuts to anything and whether you want to or not the way of life requires you to be in the present moment. I found the slowing down process very seductive, I found the immediacy of nature very alluring. If I was cold then sawing the logs got me warm even before I burnt them. I no longer put on makeup; I borrowed a massive misshapen jumper from my absent host’s wardrobe and in all I was very, very happy.

My stay on board lasted longer than I originally planned, and when the day came to leave I found I just wasn’t ready. I stayed another day and then another. In fact I stayed on a few days after my new friend returned. She announced that she was going to move on with her life and sell the boat, and naturally I was interested and even checked my bank account. But it seems that all things do not conspire to help me all the time. Could she possibly wait until the spring, so I could save up, get a loan, sell my right arm? It was only a few weeks later that she sold my beloved little boat to another seeker of the slow way of life who, unlike me, had done their running into work early every morning for enough days to have a stack of cold hard cash.

My time on board made writing The Piano Raft such a joy! I felt I was reliving my time on the water and meeting some of the lovely people I met all over again.

I feel sure I’ll spend time on the canals in the future, and it’s an experience I would recommend to anyone!

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