There's summat about a boot on a lock beam. Not many placements give you the shoe, the drop, and the water all in the one frame, and Lock 42E at the Marsden end of the Huddersfield Narrow gave me exactly that on the fourth of March. Right boot, black, heavy, steel toe by the look of the wear on it — the book is careful to say 'by the look of', because I didn't handle it, I never do — and the laces frayed. A work boot, I'd say, and the book says the same, and neither of us goes past that.
Frost first thing, gone by nine, which is March doing what March does. Flask conditions very good. I sat on the beam opposite with the tea and kept it company a while, and the notebook records that nobody came through the lock the whole time — no boats, no walkers, just me and it and the water going over the gate somewhere below. I remember the sound of that, or I think I do. Lock water has a particular sound and once you've sat with it you carry it about.
One photograph, decent. Reading the entry back now, it's one of the quiet good ones — no incident, no milestone, nowt you'd tell anybody about, but a proper morning's work done proper. The register has its famous entries and then it has its Lock 42Es, and if I'm honest the Lock 42Es are what the whole thing is made of. The boot went in the book as number 238 and I drove home for me tea.
Written up August 2026, from the notebook.