Did you hear about the Brummie fisherman that caught a whale in the canal? He put it back as there were no spokes on it. It’s funny, that. Bicycle wheels seem either to come out of the canal spokeless, or with a near-servicable bicycle attached.

Yes, the weekend of March 20-21 once again saw an invasion of the Birmingham area by the redshirt troops as the BCN Clean-Up had its annual happening. More likely for political reasons than the state of the navigation – those who’d been to last year’s sub-Spaghetti Junction trash-o-thon would be severely disappointed with the, er, quality of the retrievals – this year’s exotic locale of choice was the Wyrley & Essington, in an area quite near to central Wolverhampton known as New Invention.

Does history record what it was? Answers, please, on a postcard. No, seriously, answers on a postcard (or perhaps a BBC Radio WM listener would be so kind as to ask Brummie historian Carl Chinn), as it seems not even Martin Ludgate knows!

Anyway, the accomm was in the ever-so-signposted Brownhills. Ever noticed just how signposted-from-everywhere Brownhills actually is? And when you get there? Yup, absolutely nothing to write home about. So just to add interest, we’d all been directed to the showers, which weren’t open Friday night. The accommodation was, but those that knew where it was were not those who had compiled the joining instructions. Silly me for booking on in advance.

The accomm was a vast Victorian or Edwardian crumbling community edifice with a pipe which pumped obnoxious looking liquid onto a pavement and worried Jude. All the loos went bubble-bubble whichever one you flushed and the heating stayed on all night. London WRG arrived with our intrepid leader Aileen on board and decamped straight into the pub, unaware that the rest of us had already twigged that it wasn’t worth it, so we had a wait a little while to see them and hear their verdict that the pub wasn’t worth it.

Saturday brought breakfast by the bucketload and wind by the skyload. The accomm being such a solid old pile, we didn’t realise until stepping outside that the wind was in fact howling a ruddy gale and by the time NJF spat me out onto the first site of the weekend, I had made a decision that the Aussie hat just wasn’t going to stay on (and let me tell you, it has to be howling for that hat not to stay on!) so it was on with the safety lid, along with the obligatory waterproof trousers, hooded hi-vis safety jacket, rubbery gloves and steelie wellies.

A lot of trawling brought up a lot of nothing, but we did hit a rich seam of scaffolding and eventually, a small and almost serviceable red child’s pushbike. This was followed by a cycleway sign (complete with pole) and thus was the Wolverhampton & District Sub-Aquatic Cycleway was born, at least, in the imaginations of Martin and Mk2. Coming soon to an IWA meeting near you…

I killed time by riding the bike around and cannoning down a slope towards the canal, proving just in time that the front brakes still worked, until it was time to head back to our base for the weekend, Wolverhampton’s Broad Street Basin, a wonderful inner city oasis of engineering brick, boats, smoke (what was being burned in Phoenix’s stove?!) BW blokes and sandwiches. I could not help but notice Wolverhampton Lower Level Station, still there, sitting since the ‘sixties unused and unloved but too listed for the BR merchants of doom to kill it completely like they did during the great scourges of the post-Beeching era, when even saved stations were either flattened or stripped of their fixtures and fittings in favour of bus shelters and plastic. It was too much for me. “I’m just going for a look at that station, Martin…”

I walked ‘round, talked my way in – the security guard was a very nice man who clearly understood that a bloke in a hard hat and hi-vis is probably aware of the H&S issues – and soon I was walking the platforms of quite possibly the biggest derelict station still extant, with the huge canopies rattling in the gale. The adverts on the walls were 40 years old, and the booking hall, oh, words cannot describe the combination of grandeur and dereliction and decay and potential! Whoever is in charge, please, please restore it!

The afternoon brought more wind, and a bridge ‘ole through which the wind blew so hard our faces were sandblasted as we pulled miscellaneous crap out of the cut. All the alarms – car, house, factory – were going off as things rocked in the wind. I succeeded in elevating myself to Grandmaster Anorak by identifying all the car parts that were retrieved. A MkI Manta rostyle wheel (rare!), a MkIV Cortina dash panel and an early XJ6 front seat were among the treasures, and a late afternoon tea break (with no hot water, as Sue’s camper van had run out) meant that I was able to identify the bonnet Andy R had pulled out. Later, at the accomm, Monsieur Floodgates said “we could have used you earlier; we found a car bonnet.”

“FIAT Panda,” said I. “You mean you’re able to tell just like that?!” I assured Martin that I had actually seen the piece in question…

Saturday night’s feast was beef in Guinness (and veggies in sauce for the veggies) followed by a superb choice of gungey puds. I chose trifle and it was, as ever, understatement of the year. Beer was beered, wine was wined and a thoroughly good time was had by all and all my chocolate was eaten by folks various. Thanks Ed for the port. Any port in a (wind) storm!

The next morning revealed that the wind had slightly calmed down so we set off for Broad Street to sign on and see if a fresh set of work sites might bring a slightly better class of crap. OK, so we were spoiled after Spaghetti Junction, but really! Things were much better once the group I was with positioned themselves at the end of a street where a recently-erected fence suggested that in the past, the fact that the street ran straight up to the cut meant it had functioned as the local rubbish tip. Out came all manner of things and as we moved up the canal the 1970s were here again. I will be restoring my trophy of the weekend, a perfect 1970s ‘Super Flyer’ skateboard, as a retro conversation piece!

A coffee break was held in the car park of a suburban food pub where we were allocated exactly two spaces as it was Mothering Sunday. Sal did exactly that by keeping us all in order, only for Vaughan to spoil it by parking RFB across three spaces. Those sat in GCW avoiding the rain were mysteriously spirited to another work site before they could protest and spent the afternoon pulling out a big mattress, some fencing, a bed frame and various bits of (ahem) a late-1980s Vauxhall Nova. I retrieved a shopping trolley for the third time during the weekend, after a group of teenagers pushed it back in (again) and watched as it came back on the end of a grappling hook. A tip here: local youths’ prediliction towards all-white outfits means that as soon as you arrive, filthy with a grappling hook and equally filthy rope, they will no longer be in your way…

Lunch beside the canal, a group pic on a bridge, and it was time to pack up the kit. The usual big discussion regarding van movements and who was going via Broad Street and we were off. Our van, GCW, was ably piloted by yer actual Sal, who at one point realised that a complete turn in the road was both necessary and possible. She was thwarted, bizarrely, by a completely random bollard, placed in the opposite pavement exactly where the front bumper of the Tranny wanted to be.

So, thanks Aileen for organisational derrings-do, thanks BW for the support-of-sorts, the Brownhills Community Centre for the accomm and absolutely no thanks to the weather for being a complete git. Six lorry loads of scrap (or something like that) were removed from the canal and once again the PR level of the BCN was raised to helicopter heights. No, seriously, we were watched from a helicopter at one point.

The BCN, as ever, bizarre. See you next year. Bring beer, chocolate, a Brum A-Z and windproof headgear. Oh, and a guide to New Inventions of the Industrial Age.

Mk2