Keay's Boat Yard, Carl Street, Walsall
By an amazing coincidence I received two items regarding Ken Keay's Boatyard in the same week. The written word came from Colin Sidaway and the photo from Grant Gibson. I 've put them both together here for you to see and read.
I don't remember the first time I went to the boat yard off Carl Street but I had heard of it from a strange quarter. I brought my first boat, a 20ft plywood cruiser from Hanbury Wharf on the Worcester Birmingham. The guy who built the boat had worked at Worsey's yard in Walsall. He left there and set up a boat building business of his own at Hanbury Wharf. He met with a dramatic end, his wife allegedly murdered him.
The 'little' boat had quite a short but happy life with me and the second year, I kept the boat at Bumble Hole which was an introduction in the Black Country way of doing things. There was an Easter Narrow Boat Owners Club rally at Norbury and the southern group would be cruising the Wyrley in convey on the way there. I met up with Peter Freakley and we made the trip round the Wyrley into a Treasure Hunt, with all the clues being given out on the Rushall flight.
I was having trouble with the outboard on Sara Sue. A year later a large poster of me looking ruefully at the engine while locking up Rushall appeared on the IWA stand at the Birmingham National Rally. I made a note of not standing in front of Hugh McKnight when he had a camera in his hand.
Back to Peter, his boat 'James Loader' was built on Worsey's yard in the late 1940's. We chased around the Wyrley putting the quiz together and I must have passed the yard two or three times without paying too much attention. Being in a 'noddy' boat nobody at the yard paid any attention to me .That would have been Easter 1968.
In the following July, the BCNS was formed and I met up with the Walsall Youth Leaders Council and their brand new canal boat. Missed the launch and was honoured to be part of the official party when the boat was taken from Birmingham University in the IWA National Rally. I was also invited to take part in the first skippers course on the 'Truman' which I accepted along with Keith Eley.
I then went to Worsey's yard and met Ken Keay and the rest of the gang. We had a day on the boat, having instruction on steering and taking the boat up and down the Walsall 8. I didn't realise it until Selwyn Jorden told me that there was every type of paddle gear and gates that we were likely to find on the canal system. There were a few exceptions like the double top gates at Bosley or the guillotine locks - Kings Norton stop was still operational at the time.
Later of course, I took ownership of 'Christopher James' but not until 1973/4 did I spend time on the yard when major work on the boat was required. There were many times when I was up at the yard and eventually managed to call in Ken Keay's yard. Evidently, Peter Keay, Ken's father had a boat yard on the other side of Pratts Bridge. That was closed and they moved into Worsey's yard I think in the 1960's. It took ages for me to realise that Peter Keay's yard was Worsey's, and that Peter had been dead some considerable time leaving the business to Ken.
A lot has been written about the last working traditional wooden boat building yard and much has been documented. Edward Paget-Tomlinson produced a book of drawings which is an excellent record of the working practices. He brought 'Gifford' to the yard for docking which caused considerable interest, especially Tom 'Half Pint' Foster. Tom was one of the Fosters who worked boats around the Wyrley. The gang of four, Selwyn Jorden, Joe Leonard, Keith Eley and myself would spend bonfire night at the yard on fire watch duty. Seem to remember we drank a lot of beer and never saw a firework.
I began to realise that the yard was a community in its own right. In one corner, Bill Woolley had a corrugated shed where he had his rag and bone business and where he kept his piebald horse, also called Bill. Ken needed the horse on the dock for making up chalico. Sam Lomas called this mixture, hossmechanter. The dry horse manure was the key ingredient(sorry about the pun - no I'm not!) in chalico. This mixture of tar and manure that was heating over an oil drum used as a fire burning part of an old boat. Ken would shred the manure, by hand, into the drum containing the tar, constantly stirring until the mixture was right and then applied it to the ice plates before the plates were nailed to the boat hull. They said that if you had a cold putting your head under a sack would clear your head in a matter of minutes - that is if you survived!
The yard also had a cat. Didn't have a name just 'The Cat'. Kept the vermin at bay but it was full of fleas. The yard also had a corrugated shed which was used as a canteen, The hovel, for that was what it was, just had a dirt floor and no windows that you could see out of. In the centre was another one of those oil drums being used used as a means of keeping warm, making tea and generally getting rid of all the rubbish. Every now and again, Ken would get the cat and put it on his knee, facing the fire. Starting at the base of the cat's tail he would systematically move his fingers through the fur along its back. By the time,he had got to the cat's neck, fleas would start amassing on the cat's nose. Eventually, the fleas would take leap of faith and end up in the fire. Didn't waste money on flea powders.
Rainy days on the yard meant, lots of time in the hovel. Dick Broome would spend hours picking at a bale of oakum. He would sit smoking his pipe, with a piece of sacking on his knee teasing the oakum into a loose yarn which he coiled up beside him. When caulking a boat there would be four strands of oakum hammered into each seam. On a 70ft four plank boat that was a lot of oakum and a lot of hammering.
I knew that I had arrived when Eddie Reeves asked me if I would like a cup of tea. There was just one tap on the yard which was locked away in one of the storage hovels. Getting water, a stove that worked, and a kettle was problematic. No electricity, no gas, just one of these oil cans burning wood. So to be offered a cup of tea was a very rare occurrence. Well, a tin hollowware mug was wiped out with a bit of rag, the kettle taken off the fire and tea was poured. They made the tea in the kettle, tea, water sugar and milk all together. Absolutely wonderful. As Sam Lomas used to say once you have had tea made from canal water, you are addicted for life. Maybe there was truth in that.
A regular visitor to the yard was Jack Haddock. On his bike, with his camera bulging out from under his anorak. If it moved on rails, on the canal or under the wires - trams and trolley buses etc, Jack had a picture of it. I once asked for a photo of the Forest Aqueduct - he provided one with a steam engine coming under the aqueduct. He became the yard's unofficial photographer. Jack is still riding his bike, he is still taking photos although he donated several thousand slides to the Walsall Archive and is now writing books. A young 80 something but sadly won't share his wonderful stories other than the printed word - he dictates so when you read his books - it really is Jack talking.
When I was working in Tividale, one day I called in at the yard with my apprentice, Alf Ellis. We drove into the yard and he got out and was aghast. He said 'Well, I heard of things coming out of the Ark but I never thought I would find the place where it was built!'
A few years ago I once more retraced my steps down Carl Street. No more throngs of people witnessing the last Walsall Trolley bus; no more corrugated sheds; no more smell of chalico; no more hammering of oakum just a car park for the bus garage. They have even closed the Bridge pub. Just a reminder to pay Jack Haddock a visit and go to the Walsall Archive to go through his slides.
Colin Sideway
Photograph by Grant Gibson
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The below photograph was taken around 1979/80 at Ken Keay's yard at Pratt's Bridge Dock - Ken is on the left of the group of three by Ken's car, wearing glasses. The picture shows what Ken hoped would be the first of a 'production line' of wooden tugs. The bottoms are laid out on trestles, ready for the side strakes to be added and are of pine, elm being unavailable of course by then, what sort I do not know but Ken reckoned it would do perfectly well. The figure in bib and brace to the left of the trestles is Eddie, a long time employee at the yard.
Unfortunately events overtook the yard which closed before the tug was finished and I think the incomplete hull went to Canal Transport Services at Norton Canes but I have no idea what has happened to it in the meantime.
N.B. Copy of the photo in BP by scanning from the magazine.
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