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In The Wake Of The Barbara Bray

Bill Fulton
 

The now traditional sunny Morse weather duly arrived (on both days!) for the Saturday and Sunday excursions by minibus and narrowboat which Antony and Julie had organised to trace the scenes depicted in WENC. With remarkable foresight Antony had managed to get similar numbers of members on each day, consequently avoiding overcrowding both forms of transport and ‘setting a dangerous precedent’ adhered to the timetable with remarkable accuracy!

Lock Number Two where part of WENC was filmed

The Oxford canal had obviously so endeared itself to Antony and Julie during the planning stage (not to mention the hostelries visited en route) that they made the journey in both directions.(But not at the same time!) This report is of the Sunday (Braunston to Wolvercote) trip, although Antony may wish to add any non-libellous descriptions of Saturday exploits.

With Julie combining navigating and reading the relevant quotations from WENC we were reminded that neither Morse nor Oxford actually featured in the real murder, which took place at Rugeley in the mid 19th. century. However, a little artistic licence in the hands of Colin Dexter never comes amiss - although miss him we did when we passed by his home (researching the Millennium Morse, perhaps?)

Entrance to Braunston Marina. Just visible on the right is a plaque
commemorating the Bray family (a possible inspiration for the name of the
Barbara Bray)

After getting acclimatised to the views of canals and narrowboats from crossing a goodly number of bridges (and noting the location of several interesting ‘collectors’ cars’ for possible follow-up action by a certain Jaguar owner), we were given an expert demonstration of lock drill at Banbury by volunteer waterways helpers - I hope I can remember the advice if I am ever let loose with a narrowboat.