My day at the Towpath Tidy 2007
It seems like two minutes since I took part in my first Towpath Tidy and I was looking forward to taking part a second time...
This year’s Towpath Tidy has taken place and was once again a great success. Each year, office and bank staff join forces to pick up litter, paint coping and remove graffiti from bridges and walls. For me, it was a great opportunity to see what the bank staff do...
I went on my first towpath tidy last year and was keen to have a go again this year. I chose to go to Batchworth Lock in Rickmansworth as it was a part of the canal system that I had not seen before. The plan for the day was to head along the canal with our bin liners and litter pickers and collect as much litter as we could.
I arrived at Batchworth Lock at about 9:15am and the weather was surprisingly warm and sunny – perfect. Before I had managed to park, I was offered a brew and, before I knew it, was greeted with a hot cup of coffee by maintenance operative Ian Final, just what I needed before I began.
After a safety briefing by team leader Dan Barnett, warning us to be careful of any possible trip and slip hazards etc, we were on our way.
It was great to be out of the office and get to know the bank staff in the area. I spoke to a colleague, Becky, about this after she had been to another Towpath Tidy day and she summed this up nicely. "Towpath tidy was good fun; I got out of the office for the day, met other BW people and got a taste of what our hard working bank staff do."
We headed along the canal, picking up so much litter from crisp packets and beer cans, to shoes and bike tyres! Everyone was enthusiastic from the start and this didn’t falter throughout the day. We were all tired by the time we stopped for lunch, but were still eager to continue in the afternoon (and the sun continued to shine throughout the day too).
The area we were tidying was home to some beautiful wildlife and just seeing so many swans and ducks whiling away the hours on the canal brought it home just how important it was to keep the towpaths clean and tidy. We passed many boaters along the way who were all encouraging about what we were doing and many boaters and towpath users also took part in the Towpath Tidy events around the network.
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