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Richard Fairhurst, Waterways World


This month we caught up with Richard Fairhurst, editor of 'Waterways World' magazine.

Richard has worked as a waterways journalist since 1998 and became editor of 'Waterways World' in 2005. He lives in Oxfordshire with his wife Anna, and owns both a modern 40ft narrowboat and a one third share in a wooden Grand Union butty.

• Which five words best describe you?
Enthusiastic; eclectic; disorganised; needing coffee.

• What one thing would you take with you to a desert island?
I’d say "a boat" but it’d be cheating, and I do get terribly seasick. So a pipe organ, I think - it’d be a good chance to do some practice, and there’d be no neighbours to complain.

• What do you most enjoy about being the editor of Waterways World?
Being at the heart of the waterways – everything we do involves a canal or river in some way!

• What did you want to be when you 'grew up'?
When I was seven, I drew a map of our village, with the derelict waterway in the valley marked as unnavigable (spelled correctly, too) - so it must have been 'a canal cartographer'.

• What is the last book you read/film you saw?
Just finished The Girl at the Lion d’Or by Sebastian Faulks. Film - does a DVD history of the Tour de France count?

• What’s the best advice you’ve ever been given?
The order in which to open the paddles on the Trent & Mersey east of Burton.

• And the worst?
"You should buy that historic wooden boat - you’ll have it restored by Easter." Ten years later...

• When and where did you taste your all time favourite waterside pint?
At the tiny, middle-of-nowhere Anchor on the Shropshire Union, on a glorious summer day about four years ago - Westons cider, several bags of crisps, garden Jenga, frantically trying to stop the latter falling onto the immaculate flowerbeds. We were going to stop off for half an hour and ended up staying all day.

• Which three people (dead or alive) would you like to invite onto your narrowboat for the day?
Henry Rodolph de Salis, compiler of Bradshaw’s Canals & Navigable Rivers, as canal guide. Archbishop Rowan Williams for conversation and because I suspect he could tame the waters of the Trent. And Pierre Cochereau, a great French organist and improviser, on the organ in the saloon.

• Where would you most like to be right now?
The Star Inn on Talybont-on-Usk - with the Mon & Brec behind the beer garden, the Brecon Beacons beyond that, the Lon Las Cymru cycle route half a mile away, and an endless supply of good cider and excellent food.

Last updated: 09/06/2009