I was on my way to Brighton with my bag on my back to go and share a room with a friend and find a job, I’d just graduated from my sociology degree, which just kind of catapulted me into the open world.  At university you live in this bubble – you have your loan, you have your money, you know what you’re doing with your time, you feel set up in where you’re at – then following that it was like what now?  I’ve got to find money to pay rent every month and figure out what I’m going to do with my life. On the way I visited a friend who lived on a boat and I fell in love with the way of life instantly.  It was like heaven at the time.  I didn’t know much about canals before, I just presumed if you wanted to live on the canal you’d have to have quite an expensive boat, I didn’t know that there were many options.  That day I was shown a boat for sale that was financially possible and I could pay in monthly instalments, I literally bought it two days later, I had my bag already with me and that was it, little gypsy boat became my home for just over a year.

This time really gave me a sense of community, which I really needed at that point in my life.  It gave me that space to really tune into what I wanted and it helped me to express myself and gave me a foundation.  You didn’t have to pay lots of rent so I didn’t have to work full time and I was able to nurture myself and my spirit.  It gave me confidence and connected me back with nature.  In a sense it actually gave me hope.  A hope that it is possible to find a community and connection, connection to each other, and connection to nature.  It’s definitely been a vital stepping-stone in my life to where I am now.

On the canal everyone comes together and everyone provides something different, we’ve all kind of stumbled across this and then we all add to it, we all participate.  I think it’s good that our community is colourful and distinctive; I think we should celebrate our diversity and how different our lifestyle is.

It’s wonderful, the whole boating life.  Here life is really simple.  People aren’t always rushing around.  I feel really secure, I know all of my neighbours and everyone is looking out for each other.  I have this lovely community, and I feel blessed I’ve made such good life choices.  I’m never bored because I’m surrounded by beauty – I can look out my window and watch the ravens courting or the barn owl hunting.  We make our own entertainment; we play music, we have fires, we forage, and it’s all absolutely free.  During lock down I wanted for nothing, I didn’t need to buy anything, or get anything, or change my life in any way.  I’ve realised that everything that actually makes me truly happy are the things we’ve evolved with, like sitting round a fire or having a swim in the river; being in a community, these make me feel satisfied in a way that money can’t.  I think we’re very lucky, here on the canal, that so many of us feel satisfied with comparatively little.

I grew up in a small flat in Paris where no trees grew and you're not allowed to walk on the grass. I then moved to London where everything goes very fast and gets out of hand. One day my Finnish friend invited me over to her boat. She lived on her boat with her partner and her little girl. I had never been on a canal boat before and as I stepped in the narrow door I just saw freedom unfolding before my eyes. The fast paced world of the city had slowed down. There were trees and the peaceful water. I was woken up by some ducks eating weeds off the gunnel. I couldn't believe that such a sanctuary existed in the midst of chaos. The canal has been my way out. Yes sometimes I look at bigger spaces or hot baths with envy. But I get bored after a day and want to go back to the water, the green, the mud and the people. I think what I missed before moving onto the water was time. I needed time to understand who I was and how I wanted to live my life. This has been the best thing I have ever done.

We have thought a bit about living in a house recently because we have started living the normal life so to speak, you know, school run, work, blah blah blah. We’d have space, but then it’s like ‘same place everyday’ you know what I mean, it’s the same, and it’s the community, isn’t it? We went to Toronto for a week and I just remember when we got back the walk from getting out the car to the boat, I don’t know how many people I saw, but it was like loads of just little chats – chit chat, chit chat – I enjoyed that little bit more than the previous week.

I love the change of seasons, I love it when it's changing, even in the winter when all of a sudden it starts snowing, when all of a sudden the sun comes out, or when all of a sudden there's a storm. I love the change of season when all of a sudden the leaves are falling or when the buds are coming out after winter, I love that.

I started going onto the canal just before my eighth birthday, there was an old corrugated boathouse just behind my parent's house and one day an old boy said, "What you staring at, you want something to do? Clean out the boats and you can have a free go of one at the end of the day." And then I was just totally hooked.

When I was 15 I joined the Royal Navy and when I left in the later part of the 70s I volunteered on a steam dredger. The best way to describe it in my view was as a 'snorting dragon', it was absolutely beautiful, the noise, the hissing, the steam, the chugging and banging. Then in '91 a job came up for a lock-keeper with a beautiful house in the middle of nowhere looking after the deep cut flight of 14 locks on the Basingstoke Canal, and I was there 21 years.

In 2012 it was decided that a lock-keeper was no longer needed so that's when I bought my boat, Grey Hare, and I've been on it ever since; and though the canal has been a part of my life most of my life, it's the first boat I've actually owned.

We’re the kind of people who see a railway carriage or whatever and say, ‘I could live in that’, whereas I’ve never really had that feeling with houses. Before the boat we’d been travelling overland in a double-decker bus as part of the band in a traveling circus, that took us from England to Bangladesh. We had friends who lived on the canal in Bath, it was always a nice place to be, and on our return it seemed like the obvious choice to make. There were only a few boats on the canal back in those days and it was a very unusual thing to do. That was back in 2004.

We had managed to save some money so we had the boat built; it was just a lined sailaway because that was all we could afford. Inside it had the engine, the portholes and the windows, and it was spray foamed and lined with marine ply, but it was just a huge space with no rooms. Tom had just been born and Maisy was four. We’d spent all our money so we lived in a dome-tent at one end, which is now our bedroom. We had a piano and the Rayburn and that was it.

Liveaboards are what really make this canal special for us. I love the people that have been attraced to the canal life; they’re amazing, very creative and friendly, sometimes strange, but always accepting. I can’t believe my luck mostly. It’s this uniqueness and individuality in people that make the world a more beautiful and colourful place. The countryside is beautiful, but I think it’s the people that make it. I’m really pleased and proud of being able to give my kids this upbringing, surrounded by good, vibrant people in a very positive community. I never felt scared for them on the canal no matter what the time. A lot of having a happy life depends on you’re neighbours, doesn’t it? It’s so nice, it’s a real special thing.

The idea of living on a boat wasn’t really on our minds before moving to Bath. We were renting a flat in the centre, yet neither of us felt comfortable in a town. We felt confined to this box with no garden. We’d just been travelling around Australia and India and missed the connection to nature, the freedom, harmony and fresh air that you get living in the countryside, where you can just walk out of your gate into a field or a forest. It’s not easy to find that space if you’re living in a town or suburb, yet the house prices to be close to nature are extortionate – it’s completely unaffordable, particularly for young people.

We’d taken a walk along the canal by Sydney Gardens and met a man called Simon who was a real character, he had some really nice things to say about the canal and it just felt like we’d landed. It was amazing to find somewhere affordable that we could live, surrounded by likeminded people, in nature. It was perfect, especially if you are already a traveller and you like that way of life – somewhere settled yet still able to move. There was something about the canal and the community here that we fell completely in love with.

It’s a beautiful part of the country with a very broad spectrum of people living on boats – something for everyone, someone for everyone. It’s nice to have a space that feels safe for the children to grow up in. On a boat you're always aware of your resources and where they come from; you know not to waste water, you know what happens to your toilets, you're aware of your electricity and you don't just take these things for granted. We’ve been on this canal 18 years and though we now have a permanent mooring, we still feel very connected to the community and feel we made the right choice moving onto the canal all those years ago.

I’m proud to be the coalman. How unique in this world is this daily experience? There are maybe 35 of us in the whole of England doing this job, and there’s only one of me on this canal. It’s a very magical and honourable thing to have all of these people trusting you. When you become a coalman you have a feeling that you are part of history, you are part of that tradition, you are part of the reason why the canals were built. On a busy run I can load six to eight tonnes of coal, that’s a lot of coal to a lot of people.

The coal boat’s 70ft, my cabin is 24ft and the rest is just cargo – coal, gas, diesel, kindling, etc. That’s it, I have somewhere to sleep, somewhere to sit, somewhere to clean myself and my clothes, and somewhere to cook, and they’re the fundamental things in accommodation, aren’t they? You need those and it’s home. My whole life is on this canal, there are few things I need from out there, here’s my reality. I open my back door and I’m at work, there’s no rush hour, there’s no hassle, there’s no shirt and tie, it’s just sun goes up sun goes down, I love it. Part of the responsibility of the coalman, I believe, is to be part of the community, have cups of tea with people, make friends, be nice, happy and chirpy; if there’s ice on the ground and someone’s fallen on hard times and can’t heat their boat let them have a bag or two of coal, I know that eventually I’ll get my money back, well, at least most of it! With the boat always in perpetual motion, how free you become. You’re not tied, and that’s lovely. Everyday is something different, there are so many privileges – I feel privileged and honoured to be able to do this job, to serve a community and hopefully succeed to a certain degree.