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Thanks to the editor of the Shropshire Union Canal Society for permission to reprint this article which first appeared in "Cuttings" in 1969.
Pratts Bridge carries the main A34 road over the Wyrley and Essington Canal just about midway between Walsall and Bloxwich. In the early '30s it was rebuilt when the old tram lines were taken up. The plaque on the main girder says that it was built by Patent Shaft and Axletree Co. Wednesbury 1935.
I can just remember the old bridge, the parapets were the Staffordshire Blue Bricks that had been plastered with bill posters. There always seemed to be an advert for Birmingham Races pasted up, one of those unnatural print things, where all the horses had their forelegs and back legs at full stretch, which I am told is impossible for a horse to do. The present bridge was a much grander affair of heavy stone blocks and shaped column inserts, and no bills posted on it.
To one side of the bridge and under the side bridge was the basin and very busy dock belonging to Peter Keay, whilst on the other side of the bridge and about 200 yards towards Birchills Junction there was the equally busy yard of Joe Worsey and Sons.
Today however, a block of multi-storey flats occupies the site of the Keay's dock, but Ken Keay still operates successfully on the dock that used to belong to Joe Worsey and is one of the few places where traditional boat building is carried on. To look at Ken's ruddy complexion, and bearing in mind the heavy nature of his trade, one would scarcely imagine that he is a fine musician and an extremely talented church organist.
On the opposite side of the cut there used to be a flour mill, built orginally I believe by a man called Pratt, hence the name of the bridge. But I only knew it as Prices mill. The small cottage that we lived in, one of a long row, faced the mill and was only fifty yards from the cutside, and as kids the obvious place to make for was the canal itself. This is no doubt how my passion for the cut orginated.
All the grain for the Mill came by boat, until the late '40s Fellows, Morton & Clayton boats had tied up there. There was a wide winding hole, and as many as four pairs of boats would be moored. Then wheat was in two hundred weight sacks and was pulled by a chain, a sack at a time to the top of the four storey building. I watched it for hours till eventually I got a part-time job there and was allowed to pull up a bag or two.
The boaties were real canal folk, not like the boaties that worked the local coal boats but living on board. They invariably had large families and one always wondered how on earth they could all live in such a small cabin. All the menfolk wore clogs and the kids wore "babbies clogs", with the distinction of having a brass strip fastened round the toe. When a gang of them were together the clattering of their clogs could be heard a mile away.
Saturday night was the night to be apprehensive. If there were several boats tied up and the grown ups had been drinking, at least one fight was assured and sides were taken accordingly, some of the fights were brutal, even to those of us who were reared in a brutal environment, and quite often the women would join in. I was this sort of thing that got the boaties a bad name, this and the flow of bad language and abuse that was shouted about.
The grain was brought from Ellesmere Port along the Shroppie through Autherley Junction and Aldersley Junction, at the top of 'Ampton locks onto the top level of the Wyrley and Essington, then a free run through to Pratts Bridge. Best part of 100 miles by canal, what an exciting thought, how long would it take ? How could anyone find the way ? There were no signposts on the cut in those days !
Little did I realise at the time that the world of these boaties, many of them semi-literate, who used to sign the ticket at the mill with an "X", would become the much more sophisticated world of the pleasure cruiser and the canal societies.
It is strange how things remain in one's memory, but all the traffic that went under Pratts Bridge was uniform. It was always empty boats going towards Cannock and full boats coming back. This established fact has no significance whatsoever till I saw loaded FMC boats coming to the mill. It seemed so strange to see loaded boats going against the current as it were. This led me to wonder whether or not the Day Boat men would have been in difficulties had they had to take a loaded boat from Birchills Junction to Pelsall Junction. Just bear in mind that a man who had for years travelled this stretch and who had always gone in this diresction with an empty boat rubbing along the towpath, virtualy guided by the towpath, suddenly finds himself travelling the same direction with a loaded boat.
The Wyrley and Essington is very winding canal and the loops and bends would appear in a entirely different light. I'll lay odds that the majority of boaties would have been on the bottom enough times to make the 'oss driver look back and shout "What the------- hell am yo playin'at ?"
The mill has now disappeared, so too have the old cottages. On the site of the mill stands a petrol station, and in the winding hole several boats lie on the bottom. One of them is a Pottery boat distinguishable not only by the faded writing, but by the slightly longer cabin than either the day boats or the old "Severners". It is a goodly stretch from the Potteries to Pratts Bridge, especially to end up as a hulk lying on the bottom of the cut.
The inclined ramp down which old Nobby used to be led is stil there. But the side bridge that led to Keays dock has been demolished. The narrow buttressed walkway is still over the mill side, there were good roach to be caught there at one time. The grain that inevitably got into the water was said to encourage them, but as kids we used meal worms from the mill as bait.
It is impossible to estimate the numbers of boats that have passed under Pratts Bridge. The millions of tons of coal that have boated inexorably past the old mill are now naught but ashes, the trade has gone, the horses and the boaties have gone, the grain boats and joshers have gone, the horses and boaties have gone. Even the early morning clatter of clogs is heard no more. The only thing remaining to indicate that boats ever passed this way, is the bricked towpath under the bridge scarred by the iron shod hooves of the boat 'osses and the grooves cut into the iron wearing posts by the tow ropes.
It is naught but a memory now.