Waterway Recovery Group (WRG) Report of the 2005 IWA National Waterways Festival at Preston Brook
by Valerie Greenall

Having been dragged to numerous waterways festivals throughout my life from being a toddler, I never imagined I would volunteer to be even more involved in the activities of the IWA than my parents, Colin and Cynthia Greenall. However, after deciding to carry on with my Gold Duke of Edinburgh's award, the opportunity arose for me to do a camp of this sort for one of the sections of the award and I decided that I rather liked the idea of being a Red Shirt (that's me, left, on the day I got my T shirt), as they seemed to have a lot of fun at Nationals, riding round on golf buggies, helping out with the WOW activities and amusing the public in the car parks by showing off crazy new car park dance moves (oh hold on a minute...that was us!). I have to say I don't think I have ever had as much fun!

The camp took place over 9 days with the show itself occurring over the bank holiday weekend in the middle. In the 5 days leading up to the show our job was to make sure the site was safe and secure and to rig up any other bits and pieces the blue shirts (IWA authorities) asked us to do. This involved jobs like: mending broken bridges, cordoning off anything that would be dangerous to the public and filling in ruts in the field with woodchip (a substance which seems to be WRG's answer to everything!)

The biggest and most time-consuming job was securing the whole site with fencing, and just to give the fencing team even more to do, a night fence had to be erected which would split the site in half securing the exhibitor's stands from the drunks falling out of the bar tent at night. Guess who was lucky enough to land herself in that team...? Yes me of course. I'm not complaining though. When I was assigned to Moose's team I had no idea that fencing was his speciality and although I got nasty scratches from spiky fence panels and heavy blocks dropped on my feet (luckily I had listened to my dad and decided that wearing steel toe capped boots was probably a sensible idea), I discovered fencing wasn't as bad as everyone made out and in fact had a great laugh with my team.

Before the show had even started we had our first casualty carted off to A+E...me! Something of the bug variety was finding me very tasty and I had 15 bites on my legs. Ignoring them in the hope they might go away was not the best solution as they became infected and one look from the medic saw me packed off in Mike Palmer's van to Warrington General to seek antibiotics. Phoning my parents on site, I expected hysterics from my mother but all I got was "oh good, I'm glad they've taken you in hand". I nearly fell off my seat in shock.

I was glad though, when on the 1st day of the show I was sent to assist with the Vintage car display (right) instead of helping Moose and the team take down the entire night fence, which would be put up and taken down every day of the show.

During the show itself we were allowed time off to do our own thing but we were generally expected to help out with certain jobs like emptying the bins with Wheelie Bin Bob; supervising the children on the WOW stand where they had decorate a brick and lay it on an increasingly unstable wall in order to earn a sticker for their WOW passports, washing up for 120 and litter picking.

My main job during the show was car park duty. Quite beyond popular belief this was great fun! Once we had mastered the art of directing three lanes of traffic with only two arms, we were on a roll and came up with many exuberant moves to make the signals more interesting. This made the job fun for us, but also seemed to be appreciated by the public who all seemed to enjoy our dancing, laughing and waving as they drove past us. Even the Mayor was laughing after I, not realising it was the Mayor's car, directed a long line of cars out of the car park while making his car wait. It was only when he passed me waving that I realised what I'd done, I was so embarrassed.

As we had so much fun in the car park on the 1 st day, we volunteered to be the official car park team for the rest of the show. Something we later regretted as the weather got progressively worse - so that on the Monday we had to push cars out of the mud as the car park at this point resembled more of a mud bath than anything else. The show ended with us rushing around trying to take down as much of the site as we could manage in a few hours before we were able to relax in the beer tent with an exceptional Beatles tribute band for entertainment. Some of us even found the energy to join the older generation in a good old jive!

Halton water tower dominates the scene viewed from above the London-Glasgow railway line.

The final full day of camp saw the show ground disappear at an alarming rate as we dismantled staging, took down signs, collected chairs and tables and took down the fencing (which I had now been roped back into helping with). After much persuasion Moose finally showed me how to drive a Bradshaw (golf buggy) and then left me and a couple of the other WRGies to take tools and other bits here and there to tidy up. Once all the jobs had been completed we went back to the accommodation to get ready for our big Alice in Wonderland themed party to which many of the WRGies and the blue shirts, who had all been invited came dressed as characters from the book. The party was a big success with a fantastic buffet and a very generous donation (of the liquid variety) from the bar. There was much drinking, dancing and, of course, karaoke to see the night through to the early hours where a select few of us were determined to see the sunrise but unfortunately we didn't quite manage it and went to bed at 5am.

There was no breakfast made on the final day of camp so we were allowed to stay in bed in order to give some of us chance to recover from the night before We still had a bit of work to do mainly involving clearing up our compound and taking down more fencing from around it. By lunchtime most people were ready for leaving and after receiving a very good report in my D of E record book from Al (camp leader), I said my goodbyes which were very hard as I had met some really great people. I am hoping to join everyone down in Newport for the Reunion Bonfire Bash in November and I'm especially looking forward to next year's National down in Beale Park (I just hope I don't wind up with a leg full of infected bites again!).

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