THE GOOD OLD DAYS

Robert Davies recalls childhood memories of a popular holiday destination and uncovers a reminder of the golden age of canals

- Robert Davies

A town means many things to many people, but Stourport – similar to only a handful of towns around the country, owes its very existence to the building of the inland waterways. To its 20,000 or so present day inhabitants, Stourport is the place where they live, work and shop. For many others from the West Midlands, with its scenic boat trips, and permanent fair, it is an excellent place for a day out. For me and my family, well, it was where we spent our summer holidays, in a caravan during the late Sixties. And it was during those delightful times that I fell in love with the place. Its leafy tree-lined walks, the cows drinking at the river edge, the smell of the vinegar factory as you came near the basins, and even the magnificent cathedral like frontage of the power station, with its faded World War Two camouflaged chimneys. Little did I understand however, that this was a pivotal point for the canal and its basins, indeed for most of the canal system. There had been plenty of narrowboat traffic on the Staffordshire and Worcestershire canal between the two word wars.

But from 1945 onward, the trend was only downhill, and by the 1960s when the railway took over the bulk of the coal traffic to the power station, the end seemed in sight. So how did Stourport come to be, and more importantly – did the canal and basins have a future after the 1960s?