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Post by bargemast on Mar 12, 2017 11:00:05 GMT
Watching some "youtube" video's, now that I have a very good wi-fi signal for a couple of days while visiting my sister for a few days for her 72nd birthday, I came across the series of "Barging Through Europe" where I saw some of my own history that you can see if you watch this video of the 7th episode between 2.30 and 4.30 where I'm repairing their rudder (see my beautiful Citroen CX Break Ambulance parked next to "Leontyne"), and going with them through the first lock after the repair, and later another 10 seconds between 8.40 and 8.50 in a photo of a newspaper article with a photo of me when I did the welding on their rudder :
linkhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwJ_dSgvQdg
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2017 12:49:20 GMT
I watched some of the youtube clips a while ago. He seemed like a proper old fashioned English eccentric. I like eccentrics  Didn't know you were on it Peter - will have a look. |
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Post by JohnV on Mar 12, 2017 13:13:56 GMT
That was interesting Peter.... thanks for posting it ...... My what a magnificent beard you had then !!! I had not seen any of the film of the Leontyne although I have (and have read) the book. Some years after her trip the tug Leo was split from the barge again. I believe that the barge is in the Greenland dock in London as a houseboat. The Leo (still with the dual name Leontyne painted on her bow) ended up without an engine on the Lee backwaters, near Old Ford. I was crewing for Bill Blaik and we towed it across to the Medway with the little dock tug Charlight.  Untitled by mudlarker2, on Flickr  Leontyne by mudlarker2, on Flickr  Leontyne book by mudlarker2, on Flickr |
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Post by bargemast on Mar 12, 2017 13:25:59 GMT
I watched some of the youtube clips a while ago. He seemed like a proper old fashioned English eccentric. I like eccentrics Didn't know you were on it Peter - will have a look. He wrote some terrible crappy lies in his book, of which one is obvious, as in the book he said that they gave the Dutchman a lift back to his barges, which as you can see on the video wasn't true.
They were very worried that they would damage the rudder again in the next sloping sided lock they'd have to go through, and so I offered them to come along to show them how to do these locks without any danger for their rudder and prop, and I went back to my barges to exchance my CX Ambulance for a bicycle that I could bring on their barge to cycle back after the lock.
I the book they sad also something about me looking for a woman that would only speak when she was asked to speak, which was of course total rubbish, I told them that I would love to find a woman that was interested in the barge live and was a non-smoking vegetarian and preferebly alcohol free like me, and that I knew that was quite a lot to ask, that's all.
In the book he wrote that I asked the local press to come along, which was completely wrong too, as that was done by the owner of the yard who wanted some publicity for his place.
I don't mind eccentrics at all, but this guy had something about him that made clear that he was very happy with himself, and he didn't show much respect for a lot of the very nice people they encountered on their way, which you can hear several times by the way he comments.
In my eyes they were very bad boatman, even his "Professional" Ray, as when "Leontyne" went back in the water after the welding job, I asked if the ratteling noice was normal, that made them laugh, as their beautiful overhauled Gardner didn't rattle, so it was impossible that I could hear something, and they wanted to continue. Only after my moaning about the rattle I went down with Ray to have a look, just to reassure me, as there was nothing wrong, it worked out that the rattle was caused by 4 of the 6 bolts had fallen out of the flanges between gearbox and propshaft, number 5 didn't have a nut on anymore and numbers 6 nut was only 2 turns still on.
So we drifted along, as there wasn't much flow, while I fished the missing nuts and bolts out of the bilge and fitted the lot again real tight this time, but of course there wasn't even 1 word about that in the book.
Peter.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2017 13:55:46 GMT
I got the impression the bloke may have had loads of money. Obviously this would make doing eccentric type activities much easier as there is no need to be going to work.
Might be totally wrong though !
I expect the thing about him being pleased with himself may be that he was autistic (I don't know this I'm just guessing). Aloofness is a common part of the condition.
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Post by bargemast on Mar 12, 2017 14:00:04 GMT
That was interesting Peter.... thanks for posting it ...... My what a magnificent beard you had then !!! I had not seen any of the film of the Leontyne although I have (and have read) the book. Some years after her trip the tug Leo was split from the barge again. I believe that the barge is in the Greenland dock in London as a houseboat. The Leo (still with the dual name Leontyne painted on her bow) ended up without an engine on the Lee backwaters, near Old Ford. I was crewing for Bill Blaik and we towed it across to the Medway with the little dock tug Charlight. Hi John, hope you don't mind I didn't leave the photos on that you posted, just to not overfill the posts so close to each other with the same photos.
I must have been too much in a hurry writing, as I wrote the name of "Leontyne" wrongly, I could edit that in my postings, but not in the topic title.
Because you are the (Lucky) owner of the book, you can see that what he wrote about me in the book isn't the same as on the video.
They even made me come back on the barge in the lock after I'd jumped off with my bicycle, as that had to be filmed too.
It's a while ago now, but I won't forget it.
Peter.
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Post by JohnV on Mar 12, 2017 14:02:16 GMT
Reading between the lines in the book and listening to the comments of a shipwright that used to work in Faversham, I didn't end up with a particularly favourable view of him.
In his book he does come across as very full of himself. You have a much better right to comment than I, as you have actually met him ..... everything I know is second or third hand.
However, the trip was certainly quite an undertaking for such an unlikely coupling of tug and tow.
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Post by JohnV on Mar 12, 2017 14:07:37 GMT
That was interesting Peter.... thanks for posting it ...... My what a magnificent beard you had then !!! I had not seen any of the film of the Leontyne although I have (and have read) the book. Some years after her trip the tug Leo was split from the barge again. I believe that the barge is in the Greenland dock in London as a houseboat. The Leo (still with the dual name Leontyne painted on her bow) ended up without an engine on the Lee backwaters, near Old Ford. I was crewing for Bill Blaik and we towed it across to the Medway with the little dock tug Charlight. Hi John, hope you don't mind I didn't leave the photos on that you posted, just to not overfill the posts so close to each other with the same photos.
I usually do the same Peter ..... it makes a thread hard to read if everything is repeated |
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Post by bargemast on Mar 12, 2017 14:07:40 GMT
I got the impression the bloke may have had loads of money. Obviously this would make doing eccentric type activities much easier as there is no need to be going to work. Might be totally wrong though ! I expect the thing about him being pleased with himself may be that he was autistic (I don't know this I'm just guessing). Aloofness is a common part of the condition. I'm sure the man had no lack of money, he was supposedly a well known film Producer, he wasn't autistic, he just wanted to show his belonging to the"upperclass".
For him it must have been a very well paid extended Holiday, as BBC paid for everything they did, the video series of "Barging Through Europe" was sold to many countries US included, as I heard from friends all over the place that they'd seen me on TV, and I knew nothing about these films at the time.
Peter.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2017 14:19:35 GMT
If you met me you would not believe I am autistic but I was diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome by the UK's leading expert in the field 15 years ago. Not all autistic people stop in the middle of the road when the traffic light says "don't walk" like rain man did I reckon the Leontyne bloke was diagnosable. The older you get the easier it is to "hide the symptoms" but it never goes away. Different type of brain. |
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Post by bargemast on Mar 12, 2017 14:33:23 GMT
If you met me you would not believe I am autistic but I was diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome by the UK's leading expert in the field 15 years ago. Not all autistic people stop in the middle of the road when the traffic light says "don't walk" like rain man did I reckon the Leontyne bloke was diagnosable. The older you get the easier it is to "hide the symptoms" but it never goes away. Different type of brain. I can't say anything about you, as I've never met you (yet), but in this case it has probably more to do with him being a well known man, who wants to be admired by everyone because of everything he has done.
There's no problem with admiring him for his work, the films he's made, but it's not because of that that he shouldn't respect less successful people a bit more.
We can't all be "upperclass".
If you want to know a bit more about the man, and his possible reasons for feeling Superior to the others, there's some interesting writing here :
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_B_Goodwin
Peter.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2017 15:12:37 GMT
Just out of interest - the software on this forum does allow you to edit the title if you make an spelling error or anything like that. Go to your initial post and click edit post and it will include the title in the editable text. Then you can replace the i with an e |
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Post by bargemast on Mar 12, 2017 16:25:21 GMT
Just out of interest - the software on this forum does allow you to edit the title if you make an spelling error or anything like that. Go to your initial post and click edit post and it will include the title in the editable text. Then you can replace the i with an e Thank you very much for this info magnetman, I've changed it as soon as I saw your useful instruction.
I'm very bad with computers, but with info like this, I may get better at it (very slowly).
Peter.
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Post by bargemast on Mar 13, 2017 10:57:30 GMT
That was interesting Peter.... thanks for posting it ...... My what a magnificent beard you had then !!! How about this one then John, that was a good 15 years earlier in my "wild" days (well not so wild really, more peace and lots of love)
Peter.
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Post by kris on Mar 13, 2017 11:01:47 GMT
Thanks for starting this thread Peter. It's all very interesting. I must admit I have thought about having a tug and a dumb barge set up.
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