m/c Mary Poppins, Fosdyke & Witham Canal (?), May 1975
Two years of holidays hiring boats had given us the desire to own our own boat. We really didn't know what kind we wanted, or indeed whether we were into rivers or canals. Previously we had only boated on the Thames so our experience was limited. We had few funds available so there was little choice open to us. We liked Mary Poppins as soon as we saw her, she was a neat shape, had an aluminium hull which we felt would be better than a wooden craft. She had a huge outboard engine on, a 90hp, she had previously been used to get up and go.
Our first thing to do was to repaint and we had her chocked up out of the water at Trent bridge near the University Boat Club. We spent many weekends stripping the hull back to the metal and repainting. We also repainted the inside and Joan put in fresh blue and white curtains. She was 20ft and the cabin was tiny. But we all fitted in with a shoe horn, The children were small then.
Our maiden voyage was a joke. We set off – full of pride with lots of best wishes from bystanders. A quick trip down river to the next lock where we turned round and before getting back to the mooring we ran out of petrol. This 90hp 'Lark' needed to tow a petrol tanker! We came back - the subject of much hilarity being towed by a pedal boat!
We had many happy trips on Mary Poppins, The petrol guzzling outboard gave way to a 15hp Yamaha petrol/paraffin outboard which though it did cause some problems in the fuel change-over moment was, however a great improvement.
We realised the first time we tried to move from river to canal that Mary Poppins was a bit broad in the beam. She measured about 7ft 6” - just a few inches too wide to fit the canals. So we explored the rivers that were available to us from the Trent, including the Witham to Boston, but we became keen to explore the canals so Mary Poppins was taken to Speeds and put up for sale.