Black Country trip down memory cut

But it was the local canals and the boat people which had helped shape Josh Woodward's life.

And as he looked over the Green Lane canal bridge, with 10-year-old son Oliver for company, the waters were deserted, the wharfs by Birchills junction were overgrown, and whereas before the war he would have seen a boat every two or three minutes, now there was nothing.

The chimney stacks and cooling towers of Birchills power station were still belching smoke and steam, but there were no coal boats supplying fuel.

While Josh ran sad eyes over the desolate scene, Oliver began to ask questions, giving Josh a chance to take a trip down memory cut as they walked along the towpath of the Walsall branch canal.

Now Josh's story of the canals in and around the Black Country, the special people who worked on them, and that disappeared world before canals saw a modern revival of interest and regeneration for leisure purposes, has been told in a new book, called "A Kid Off The Bank," by Colin Sidaway.

Born in Lye in 1938, in the 1960s Colin became interested in industrial archaeology, and particularly the canal age.

Yet while the book is an evocation of the working canals of yesteryear and their people, Josh was not a real person, and that nostalgic trip with his son is just a device to bring home the true story of those times in a vivid way.

"The whole book is fiction," says Colin, who lives these days in Harrogate.

"Josh Woodward, the storyteller, relates stories that I had picked up over the years from personal experience."

We join him on various journeys, taking fire bricks from the Stourbridge Canal to Stoke, and then back through the Netherton tunnel to Park Head, and on to the Round Oak steel works. Another details taking aluminium ingots from Ellesmere Port to Wolverhampton.

Then there was the trip where the John Peel started taking on water, which meant a stop at Joe Worsley's boatyard in Walsall.

Colin, who did detailed research to ensure the authenticity of the book, says: "Joe Worsley is the only real person in the book. I never met him, although I met people who had worked with him. He retired in about 1960."

In the story, the John Peel needs planks replacing, so the steam chest at Worsley's yard is pressed into action. It was like a coffin with open ends and used to steam the wooden planks so they could be bent into shape.

Colin's book includes a picture of it, and also various other images taken on the canal network, including Netherton tunnel, sunken boats at Walsall public wharf, the tip at Moxley, and Boatman's Church at Tipton factory locks.

"All the photographs come from my collection. They depict desperate times on the canal."

Colin already had the outlines of a canal book in his head when last year he went to a Birmingham Canal Navigations Society boat rally at Brownhills and met a lady called Julie King.

"Julie was born on the canal and wanted a story that people would read.What she doesn't know about the cut isn't worth knowing.

"A year on I found the list of characters and came up with the idea of the book. I sent a preview copy to Julie who recognised every picture in the book and would eventually read it."