For 4 years between 2012 and 2016, Ian acted as a voluntary member of the Manchester and Pennine Waterways Partnership (M&PWP) which advises and supports the work of the Canal & River Trust’s (CRT) team for the canals between Kidsgrove, Huddersfield and Sowerby Bridge, and passing through Greater Manchester. The M&PWP was chaired then by the late, great sustainability champion Water Menzies who sadly passed in 2019. It was Ian’s great pleasure to work under Walter during that time.

Whilst with the M&PWP, Ian also volunteered as an Honorary Advisor for the national Arts on the Waterfront panel for Canal and River Trust.

Artist commissions brokered on behalf of CRT included poet Jean Sprackland being curateded in 2016 to produce a collection of 12 poems called Lock Songs in collaboration with the Manchester Literature Festival (MLF). Jean presented a new sequence of poems commissioned jointly by MLF and CRT, which was inspired by a boating weekend spent cruising the Peak Forest Canal from Whaley Bridge to Castlefield – whilst slowly passing through magnificent countryside and into post-industrial Manchester. Click on the Soundcloud link below to hear Lock Songs being performed for MLF.

Lock Songs

by Jean Sprackland

Two directions

There are only two directions,

that’s what I’d like.

South towards one town,

north to another.

To drift like that,

a few weeks one way,

a few weeks back,

and to make no plans.

I want to lie in my bunk

and feel the heart’s long strides,

the creak of my breath

stiff with winter.

The water would keep its own counsel.

I’d let things twitch the line

but if I fished one out

I’d always flick it back.

I’d cut the towpath weeds

for food instead. No one

would think of looking for me here.

I’d make a fire with all my maps,

watch east and west go up in smoke.

This is the life, I’d tell myself,

the sky unrolling

star by remembered star.