Gyles Brandreth and Sheila Hancock are narrowboat novices - so how did they cope with finding their way round London's waterways?
CLAIRE WEBB - 14 October 2020
GYLES BRANDRETH HAD never been on a narrowboat before he set sail on one as the co-presenter of the new series of Great Canal Journeys. The writer and broadcaster and his Celebrity Gogglebox partner and friend of 40 years, actor Sheila Hancock, have taken over the tiller from Timothy West and Prunella Scales, who hung up their windlass last year. "I understood my place immediately," says Brandreth. "Sheila was captain; I was cabin boy, chief cook and bottle washer. She had my signa-ture dish many times - baked beans on toast." Brandreth admits that he had reservations about replacing West and Scales, who are life-long canal enthusiasts and captured viewers' hearts, partly thanks to their candour about Pru's dementia. "Sheila and I don't know anything about canals and Tim and Pm were old hands. Initially I thought we shouldn't do it, because we're not them and everyone loves them. But I wrote a book a few years ago about the secrets of being happy and one of them was to embrace change, do different things, challenge yourself - I decided this certainly would be challenging, as I don't know one end of a narrowboat from another." He soon discovered that pootling down water-ways at 4mph isn't as relaxing as Tim and Pru made it look. At first it was a little bit frighten-ing, to be honest. Although you're not going very fast, it seems fast.
"I found the steering very difficult because I don't stop talking and I can't do two things at once. When I'm in the car, I have to turn down the sound on the radio if I want to turn left or right. And also because you push the steering wheel to the right if you want to go to the left, which Sheila found terribly easy. "When they edited the first episode, they cut out me crashing because it happened so often. So it was quite traumatic and Sheila did most of the steering. I did the locks, which is heavy work, and we managed the tying up and the mooring between us. There was a lot of shaking of heads from the lock-keepers when I turned up and tried to moon" Nevertheless, by the time they embarked on their final trip, along the picturesque Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal, Brandreth had mastered the tiller and could enjoy the scenery. "We really did learn and that's one of the reasons for doing it: I'm in my 70s, Sheila's in her 80s, and we both learned a great deal about canals, boating, the British Isles and each other. It was truly a journey of discovery, more than I ever anticipated. You saw a side of England that you wouldn't otherwise see. Canals were the roads of our country during the Industrial Revolution. We learnt how hard life was for people on the canals, and how tough they were:'
FILMING WAS INTERRUPTED by lockdown and Hancock and Brandreth had to form a "bubble" to shoot the rest of the series. Both lifelong ; Londoners, they begin by exploring the capital's waterways: sailing from the Thames's verdant ; upper reaches to Windsor Castle; and down the Lee Navigation, from rural Hertfordshire to the heart of the East End. They also take a trip down memory lane, making a detour to the Theatre Royal Stratford East, where Hancock got her big break at the age of 26. "Sheila hadn't been back since 1959 and had no idea that I had not only been at one of . her performances, but was so taken with it that I'd written to the playwright to ask for the script," says Brandreth. "Sixty years later, I turned up at the theatre with Sheila, the programme and my memories of being there as a little boy." Another highlight of the London trip was swapping their narrowboat for a 100-year-old sailing barge and gliding up the Thames to Tower Bridge, which opened in their honour. "We didn't know that was going to happen. The producers had phoned the people at Tower Bridge to get permission for filming and they wanted to give us a surprise salute. We thought we were going to go under Tower Bridge, but as we approached, it parted just for us. There were tears stream-ing from our eyes. It was a dream come true." So is Brandreth now planning to take his wife on a boating holiday? "I don't know that my wife could cope with me in the way that Sheila did. In some ways, it's easier not being married to the captain. "No, I hope I shall be taking Sheila Hancock on more trips, and I'll be taking my wife to a Relate meeting to discover why she isn't more like Sheila Hancock."
GYLES BRANDRETH HAD never been on a narrowboat before he set sail on one as the co-presenter of the new series of Great Canal Journeys. The writer and broadcaster and his Celebrity Gogglebox partner and friend of 40 years, actor Sheila Hancock, have taken over the tiller from Timothy West and Prunella Scales, who hung up their windlass last year. "I understood my place immediately," says Brandreth. "Sheila was captain; I was cabin boy, chief cook and bottle washer. She had my signa-ture dish many times - baked beans on toast." Brandreth admits that he had reservations about replacing West and Scales, who are life-long canal enthusiasts and captured viewers' hearts, partly thanks to their candour about Pru's dementia. "Sheila and I don't know anything about canals and Tim and Pm were old hands. Initially I thought we shouldn't do it, because we're not them and everyone loves them. But I wrote a book a few years ago about the secrets of being happy and one of them was to embrace change, do different things, challenge yourself - I decided this certainly would be challenging, as I don't know one end of a narrowboat from another." He soon discovered that pootling down water-ways at 4mph isn't as relaxing as Tim and Pru made it look. At first it was a little bit frighten-ing, to be honest. Although you're not going very fast, it seems fast.
"I found the steering very difficult because I don't stop talking and I can't do two things at once. When I'm in the car, I have to turn down the sound on the radio if I want to turn left or right. And also because you push the steering wheel to the right if you want to go to the left, which Sheila found terribly easy. "When they edited the first episode, they cut out me crashing because it happened so often. So it was quite traumatic and Sheila did most of the steering. I did the locks, which is heavy work, and we managed the tying up and the mooring between us. There was a lot of shaking of heads from the lock-keepers when I turned up and tried to moon" Nevertheless, by the time they embarked on their final trip, along the picturesque Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal, Brandreth had mastered the tiller and could enjoy the scenery. "We really did learn and that's one of the reasons for doing it: I'm in my 70s, Sheila's in her 80s, and we both learned a great deal about canals, boating, the British Isles and each other. It was truly a journey of discovery, more than I ever anticipated. You saw a side of England that you wouldn't otherwise see. Canals were the roads of our country during the Industrial Revolution. We learnt how hard life was for people on the canals, and how tough they were:'