Pentargon is a 36ft narrowboat, built in 1973 by Sam Springer, an eccentric and wonderful innovator whose core business was in the fabrication of farm gates and domestic heating-oil tanks and live-in containers on stilts.
Sam's association with Market Harborough came about as a result of his father taking his family there from east London when Sam was ten year old. We will perhaps never know the reasons for the move but we do know a tyre business and garage was set up. We also know that in 1939 Sam was a 17yo too young to go to war but old enough to be sent for training as an apprentice in fabrication. Later we get a glimpse of Sam from a newspaper report in 1947 being nicked for having no lights on his bike. We also unearthed evidence that during his apprenticeship which stretched across all the war years he was invalided out as a result of an industrial mishap and another report showed him working in Corby and cycling to work there but we do not yet know whether he biked it every day (a 25ml round trip) or stayed there for the working week. In or about 1956 we find a Sam Springer with a breaker's yard and fabrication business in Walthamstow and then Sam turns up in 1959 opening a fabrication business in Mill Road Market Harborough and lodging or living close by. Soon we see small ads in the local rag advertising fabrication of oil tanks and gates . Back then every rural house with the wherewithal was installing central heating driven by oil stored in a steel tank in the garden. And if you had the heating in you also needed gates. For security and status.
FIND ME ON BLUESKY "Sam had arrived at Market Harborough in the late 50s, from London where he had worked as a steel fabricator in the dockyards of Poplar and the Greenwich Reach, but he had previous in Market Harborough. He had been shipped out of East London at the outbreak of the war to Market Harborough where he had finished his primary education before returning to London's docklands". This has been disproven and we are not allowed to let the story escape the truth
He went into narrowboats because his workshops were near a neglected canal terminal at the wrong end of a neglected canal spur which was re-opened and made famous by Lionel Thomas Caswall Rolt.
LTC Rolt was an engineer, an innovator, and a prolific and successful writer of fact and fiction.
LTC Rolt was a formidable organizer who liked to mess about on canals and started the Inland Waterways Association in 1947 so that he could indulge his eccentric interests. He was, famously, ejected from the IWA in 1951 probably for taking his hobby too seriously.
Sam's association with Market Harborough came about as a result of his father taking his family there from east London when Sam was ten year old. We will perhaps never know the reasons for the move but we do know a tyre business and garage was set up. We also know that in 1939 Sam was a 17yo too young to go to war but old enough to be sent for training as an apprentice in fabrication. Later we get a glimpse of Sam from a newspaper report in 1947 being nicked for having no lights on his bike. We also unearthed evidence that during his apprenticeship which stretched across all the war years he was invalided out as a result of an industrial mishap and another report showed him working in Corby and cycling to work there but we do not yet know whether he biked it every day (a 25ml round trip) or stayed there for the working week. In or about 1956 we find a Sam Springer with a breaker's yard and fabrication business in Walthamstow and then Sam turns up in 1959 opening a fabrication business in Mill Road Market Harborough and lodging or living close by. Soon we see small ads in the local rag advertising fabrication of oil tanks and gates . Back then every rural house with the wherewithal was installing central heating driven by oil stored in a steel tank in the garden. And if you had the heating in you also needed gates. For security and status.
FIND ME ON BLUESKY "Sam had arrived at Market Harborough in the late 50s, from London where he had worked as a steel fabricator in the dockyards of Poplar and the Greenwich Reach, but he had previous in Market Harborough. He had been shipped out of East London at the outbreak of the war to Market Harborough where he had finished his primary education before returning to London's docklands". This has been disproven and we are not allowed to let the story escape the truth
He went into narrowboats because his workshops were near a neglected canal terminal at the wrong end of a neglected canal spur which was re-opened and made famous by Lionel Thomas Caswall Rolt.
LTC Rolt was an engineer, an innovator, and a prolific and successful writer of fact and fiction.
LTC Rolt was a formidable organizer who liked to mess about on canals and started the Inland Waterways Association in 1947 so that he could indulge his eccentric interests. He was, famously, ejected from the IWA in 1951 probably for taking his hobby too seriously.
Can one develop a relationship with a boat? Over the years, I have developed an intense and special relationship with mine, learning her eccentricities, strengths and weaknesses and how to live in harmony with them.
Would you carry a relationship with a boat?
Do you bond with people or with things?
People bond with shoes, cars, i-phones
Do you bond with people or with things?
People bond with shoes, cars, i-phones
... and some believe in a spirit world ...
I rely on a spirit residing in timelessness
who guides my hand and often my head.
Her name is Sadbh. ... Say Sive as in Hive ...
you will probably hear more about her
as we sail together into a timeless future
Hyperlink escape system here
or hit the menu button or back button
I rely on a spirit residing in timelessness
who guides my hand and often my head.
Her name is Sadbh. ... Say Sive as in Hive ...
you will probably hear more about her
as we sail together into a timeless future
Hyperlink escape system here
or hit the menu button or back button
