Confidential ruin a barge

If dry can mean alcohol free then Dry Barge on the Manchester Confidential heroes night earlier this year had the wrong name. It was the Sodden Barge. This was down to the Sales Manager who translated a request for enough drink for fifty to mean ‘enough for five hundred’. There was more liquid in the boat than in the canal.

Then again you could do what Confidential did and give your guests loads of booze, good food, lots of tunes, a short fun quiz and some cracking prizes. The boat, called Bohemia, perhaps lends itself to this use – a Bohemian lifestyle and all that.

But that was all right because everyone had, as my Rochdalian grandmother said, “a reet good laugh.”

Not that it has to be that way. Much more sober activities can be part of the Dry Barge Company experience.

You can hire their large sixty capacity boat for any number of purposes and serenely glide down the Bridgewater Canal doing whatever you wish. The options are numerous. Although maybe not swinger’s clubs night out, unless we’re talking the largest water-filled swing bridge in the world at Barton.

Still, given the way Britain’s previously hard-worked canals were once choked with the waste of industry it’s surprising how quickly things have spruced up. There’s now a whole range of wildlife to keep you occupied both on the banks of the canal and in the water - if that’s your thing - from herons and kingfishers to silver birch and orchids.

The waterborne history is as rich as it gets as well.

Dry Barge rules the Bridgewater Canal, the oldest of Britain’s Industrial Revolution waterways dating from the 1760s. This means that from spectacular Castlefield where the Manchester story began with the Romans, via Manchester United’s Old Trafford stadium, and on to either Dunham Massey stately home just south of Altrincham or to Worsley with its freakish orange canal water due to iron leaching, there’s always something to grab the attention.

Then again you could do what Confidential did and give your guests loads of booze, good food, lots of tunes, a short fun quiz and some cracking prizes. The boat, called Bohemia, perhaps lends itself to this use – a Bohemian lifestyle and all that. It’s also easy to get hold of, being available seven days and nights a week, all year round.

Last fact: The Bridgewater Canal is the fastest canal in the world. Why? Because the forty mile waterway has no locks. Engineers John Gilbert and James Brindley designed it to follow the contours of the countryside. Thus if you hire it, you’re not stopping every few minutes to go through complicated lock systems that take ages. This means that the party or tour can go on uninterrupted.