Lettura e ascolto intermediate in inglese: The Chesterfield Canal Plug

Nell’agosto del 1978, una squadra di dragaggio della British Waterways prosciugò accidentalmente un tratto di 1,5 miglia del canale di Chesterfield vicino a Retford dopo aver rimosso un tappo di manutenzione in legno vecchio di 200 anni. La squadra, pensando che la catena attaccata fosse un detrito, rimosse il tappo, causando la fuoriuscita di milioni di litri d’acqua nel fiume Idle, lasciando le barche incagliate nel fango ed esponendo il fondo del canale.

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One day in the summer of 1978, a British Waterways dredging gang was given the job of stabilising a concrete wall in the Chesterfield Canal, near the Grove Mill in Retford. The team, made up of Kevin Bowskill, Mick Tweed and Jack Rothwell, was trying to put in shutter boards but was prevented from doing so by a heavy iron chain lying on the floor of the canal.

An initial attempt to pull the chain out of the canal by attaching it to a lorry was unsuccessful, but since the team was normally employed in dredging – dragging “mud and rusting bicycles, prams and fridges” out of canals – the foreman, Jack, decided to fetch the dredger. The chain was soon attached to the dredger and with one sharp tug, the obstruction was freed. The workmen then hauled the chain out of the canal, along with a large block of wood that was attached to the end of it, and knocked off for a tea-break.

While they were away, a passing policeman noticed an extraordinary whirlpool in the normally placid canal. He also noticed that the water level was falling. He rushed off to find the dredging gang but when they returned to the site, all the canal water had gone and all that was left were a number of grounded holiday boats, with their disgruntled owners, their own dredger stuck firmly on the muddy bottom, and a gaping plughole.

It was at this point that they realised that they had actually pulled the plug out of the floor of the canal and allowed millions of gallons of water to drain into the nearby River Idle.

The explanation for this totally unexpected event is actually quite simple. Chesterfield Canal, which opened on 4th June 1777, is one of the oldest canals in Britain, and at that time of its construction dredgers did not exist and excess silt had to be dug out by hand. In order to do this, or to carry out any other kind of maintenance work, the canal had to be drained and hence the need for the plug.

The fact that nobody knew about the plug is explained by Tim Harford:
“Whatever records there may have been, had been destroyed in the Blitz. The moral of the story: institutional memory is valuable, and if an organisation starts forgetting important matters (such as the existence of the plug) bad things happen.“

Apart from the story of the plug, the Chesterfield Canal also boasted an outstanding feature which was the Norwood Tunnel. At the time of its completion, it was the longest canal tunnel in the country at 2.8 kilometres and astonishingly, although it was dug with picks and shovels, it was possible to see straight from one end to the other.

The canal is also renowned for having been used to transport tens of thousands of tons of stone from the quarry in Anston to the river Trent. From there the stone was transported to London where it was used to rebuild the Palace of Westminster – more commonly known as the Houses of Parliament – which had burnt down in 1834.