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BOAT TRIPS FOR THE ADULTS OF TOMORROW
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community boat lancashire enterprise
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About Our project
We have had one aim for all the children that we have had the pleasure of helping over the years. We aim to bring the ‘child’ back into childhood.
No child should be the target of anyone’s anger or frustration. No child should have to endure bullying or abuse at the hands of another and no one should have the right to take a child’s childhood away. They have the right to follow in the footsteps of previous generations of children to play and to get messy without the fear of ridicule from people, both adults and children, who have forgotten what it is like to just have fun. The children of this generation are too serious; everything needs to have a reason. Ask yourself the question what is the reason for running through a muddy puddle? Answer It’s fun.
To the parents. Remember what it was like when you were younger? Swinging from trees, picking blackberries, walking for miles and seeing the countryside, trekking and all the things that have made you the adults of today. These are the things that help to make today’s children the adults of tomorrow.
Childhood stays with us until we want to let it go and we are the biggest kids of them all. If it rains we get wet if it’s muddy we get messy and if it’s sunny we get sunburned. All that the kids do, we do and it’s fun.
The children we take who have no emotional baggage benefit from the chance to meet children who carry their problems inside, hidden, but visible to those who take the trouble to look. They learn that the world is not always seen through rose tinted glasses and that a lot of children have to carry emotions that an adult would struggle with.
For a few short days we try to introduce children to something they have either forgotten or have never known………FUN.
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1991 - 2006
Over the years, 15 to be exact, we have taken so many children away on boat trips that it is impossible to estimate exactly how many.
Many have gone on weekend trips which consist of 3 days, others have gone on 4 day trips and were introduced to the Bingley Five Rise, which is a staircase of 5 locks and is considered to be one of the seven wonders of the waterways. We have taken 9 day trips, which have usually involved travelling to Leeds and giving the children a taste of city life, city shops and a visit to the Royal Armouries museum.
We have also taken 16 day trips which are the best trips ever.
Those trips opened up all of the Leeds and Liverpool canal and beyond.
We have been to historic York twice which is the most beautiful city, especially when seen from the river, yes, river. We abandoned the relative safety of the Leeds and Liverpool canal to go onto the Aire and Calder Navigation with it's 500 ton sand barges, 600 ton oil tanker "Humber Energy", and Tom Puddings delivering coal to Ferrybridge power station also the river Aire and the mighty tidal River Ouse. These are a lot wider and deeper than the canal but if shown the greatest respect can be as safe as the canal. Then to enter York city by river is the most mind blowing experience and I would recommend it to anyone.
The first time we went to York we took the children for a walk around the city walls. there is nothing better than walking around the walls, for 3 hours, on a hot summer day, take my word for it, the children who did it still talk about it with reserved affection. We also took them on the ghost walk, a trip around York, in the evening, with a guide, who told them all about the resident spooks (with their heads tucked underneath their arms the spooks that is, not the guide's) who frequently haunt the houses and streets of York. | ||||||||||||||||||||||