Black Country trip down memory cut
The Walsall trolley buses had a good turn of speed, but you never heard them coming until there was a flash of royal blue and they passed you.
But it was the local canals and the boat people which had helped shape Josh Woodward's life.
And as he looked over the Green Lane canal bridge, with 10-year-old son Oliver for company, the waters were deserted, the wharfs by Birchills junction were overgrown, and whereas before the war he would have seen a boat every two or three minutes, now there was nothing.
The chimney stacks and cooling towers of Birchills power station were still belching smoke and steam, but there were no coal boats supplying fuel.
While Josh ran sad eyes over the desolate scene, Oliver began to ask questions, giving Josh a chance to take a trip down memory cut as they walked along the towpath of the Walsall branch canal.
Now Josh's story of the canals in and around the Black Country, the special people who worked on them, and that disappeared world before canals saw a modern revival of interest and regeneration for leisure purposes, has been told in a new book, called "A Kid Off The Bank," by Colin Sidaway.
Born in Lye in 1938, in the 1960s Colin became interested in industrial archaeology, and particularly the canal age.
