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SOLD DOWN THE RIVER

HOW I SEE IT

Robert Hardman

[Daily Mail-January 4, 2007]

For 500 years THE WATERMEN have been masters of Britain's greatest river, taking everything from corpses to the CROWN JEWELS up and down the THAMES.

NOW their LIVELIHOODS are under THREAT and guess who's to BLAME

ROBERT PRENTICE is only 27 but he could already write an old seadog's guide to the fine art of chugging up and down the Thames. 'See that stone work over there,' he says, pointing at the base of Westminster bridge. 'Well, if the water touches the steelwork, we won't get under that bridge.

As he calmly turns the 100ft, £1.4million sightseeing boat, Sarpedon, and her cargo of a dozen tourists 'See that huge chain hanging along the wall below County Hall? If that's in the water, we can go no further.

You won't find these words of navigational wisdom on any admiralty chart, of course. Robert has simply absorbed them through time-honoured training programme which goes back nearly 500 years.

Anyone can fly a plane or drive a juggernaut within a few months. But it's always been a different story when it comes to captaining a boat on the Thames.

Until this week, if you wanted to drive a tug or passenger vehicle between Teddington Lock and the North Sea, you had to a five- year apprenticeship with four written exams, 750 days on the water and an endorsement from six professionals.

ONLY THEN could you join the 600-strong Worshipful Company of Watermen and Lightermen (watermen move people - lightermen move goods.)

That not only meant a licence to work on the Thames, but membership of a maritime elite whose history stretches back through Normandy landings and Dunkirk to the oldest boat race in existence and beyond.

INDEED, such is the respect commanded by the Watermen that to this day, the QUEEN entrusts them with the task of delivering her CROWN JEWELS to and from PARLIAMENT whenever she opens it.

It is a system which has worked very well since 1555 -until this week [January 4-2007]

NOW

-thanks to a NEW DIRECTIVE from the dear old

EUROPEAN UNION

-the Thames faces an international free-for-all.

YOU NO LONGER HAVE TO SPEND FIVE YEARS TRAINING FOR A LICENCE-YOU CAN DO IT IN TWO.

And ,as of Monday January 8-2007 a skipper from anywhere in the European Union can turn up and down vast stretches of the Thames without a minutes training.

HE WILL only need a permit on the central stretch between Woolwich and Putney. And that will no longer require two year's experience, let alone five.

From now on, a European skipper can get the paperwork after just 60 days spent on the river in a six-month period.

No wonder the relatives of the 51 young people killed in the 1989 Marchioness disaster are appalled. The disco boat was mown down in the early hours of the morning by a dredger skippered by a man

WHO WAS NOT A WATERMAN AT ALL.

That summer is still etched in the minds of the Watermen who picked up the pieces.

'The authorities stopped looking for bodies after a couple of days but the bodies kept coming up and we found them- young people, all of them,' says Bob Cadman, a veteran of the Thames. 'It's utter madness to start relaxing the rules. There's no river in Europe with tides and bridges like the Thames.'

Bob has been working on the river for his entire adult life. He ferried the QUEEN on the Royal Barge and remembers watching the dockers' cranes bowing their jibs to salute

Sir Winston Churchill's

-coffin on it's final journey in 1965.

'The silence was unbelieveable.' he recalls.

Bob's expertise dates back to another era when some goods were moved by sheer hard graft and the current. After leaving school in 1958, he became an apprentice lighterman and would routinely take a barge containing 50 tonnes of tin and timber a staggering 12 miles up the river from Albert Docks to Pimlico with only the tide and a pair of oars as power. he would then have a cup of tea, wait for the tide to turn and heave the thing back again - all for £2.50 a week.

'There would just be two of us, me on the oars doing the work and an old bloke about 80 and we called him The Talking Fish. It was like working with Long John Silver the way he talked. But I learned a lot from him.

'The worst moment was when we got hit by a collier in 1959. I thought it was curtains but he stayed calm, he told me to lie flat and he never dropped the cigarette between his lips.'

These days, Bob runs the Woolwich ferry and he knows the perils of the Thames better than anyone. In 1995 he dived into it to save a young woman who'd thrown herself in. 'People are odd. All she said afterwards was: "Have you seen my cigarettes?"'

He insists that he is not being melodramatic when he warns: Under the new legislation, the question is not if - but when something bad happens

His chums all agree. I have been joined on the Sarpedon by three other skippers, all of them qualified both as Watermen and as Lightermen and none of them had the new Licence.

'It's ridiculous. All our licences became invalid on January1-2007 under the new rules but no one's been sent a new one.' says Tony Maynard, 39, who runs a small fleet of sightseeing boats.

[To be continued shortly]

* * *

[Font Altered-Bolding &Underling Used- Comments in Brackets.]

JANUARY/07

*

THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN-IS THE EU COMMISSION LISTENING?

*

Ditch the EU TREATY after IRISH REJECTION

SAY VOTERS

by

Daniel Martin

Political Reporter

[Daily Mail-Wednesday, June 18,2008]

MORE THAN HALF of voters believe Britain should drop the controversial European Treaty in the wake of its rejection in last week's

IRISH REFERENDUM'

The poll comes as the Tories launch a last-ditch bid in the

HOUSE of LORDS

today to delay the

RATIFICATION OF THE TREATY.

And

10,000 people

have signed a

PETITION

on the

DOWNING STREET- WEBSITE

within the past few days

JUNE16-2008

, calling on the

GOVERNMENT

NOT TO RATIFY THE BILL

[WHY DON'T YOU?]

Downing Street website is

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Abandon-Lisbon/

*

JUNE 18-2008

13th October,2007

So You Want Out Of The EU

THEN WHY NOT SIGN THE

RENUNCIATION of EU CITIZENSHIP

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Optout

Details from petition creator

With the signing of the Maastricht Treaty the people of Britain were given

DUAL CITIZENSHIP

-both

EUROPEAN and BRITISH

The extra tier of citizenship was thrust upon the people without their consent -and in many cases knowledge.

The PEOPLE of GREAT BRITAIN should be allowed the option of opting out of the EUROPEAN CITIZENSHIP if they so wish. The GOVERNMENT will then be able to provide those who have opted out with

BRITISH DOCUMENTATION

-only such as British (not EU) passports, driving licences and other national documents.

EU laws will also NOT APPLY to those who

HAVE OPTED OUT OF EUROPEAN CITIZENSHIP

[PETITION OPEN UNTIL OCTOBER 08]

Let the people speak!

www.makeitanissue.org.uk

www.noliberties.com

[Latest Addition - June07]

www.eutruth.org.uk

www.thewestminsternews.co.uk

www.speakout.co.uk

Daniel Hannan - Forming an OPPOSITION to the EU

www.telegraph.co.uk.blogs

GORDON BROWN WANTS TRUST-BUT WHY WON'T HE TRUST YOU?

HELL ON EARTH IN IRAQ