One of my earliest memories is of being taken around Hull docks on the crossbar of my father’s bike. I must have been less than five years old, because I got my first bicycle when I was five. There was essentially no security – the man on the gate was not bothered about a man and a child on a bicycle. When I was about seven years old we moved from Hull to Hedon, which was the main port on the Humber Estuary in the 12th and 13th centuries. The tiny river, Hedon Haven, was canalised around the town. The port fell out of use because ships became too large, and was replaced by Hull. The arm on the west side of the town, Fore Haven, was filled in but flooded to a depth of perhaps a foot during the winter, and we used to paddle around it in a tin horse trough. There was still a wharf on the Haven, with a derelict barge that we used to play on – which was of course strictly forbidden by our parents. This part of the Haven has now been filled in.

I used to cycle to Goole and stay with an aunt when I was a teenager. I wandered around the docks with the Tom Puddings and coal hoists. The Tom Puddings were tub boats which linked to each other to form a long barge carrying coal down the River Aire to be loaded onto colliers in Goole docks. One of the coal hoists, which picked up the individual tubs and dumped the coal down a chute into the collier, is preserved.

The Regent’s Canal was a favourite place for walking when I was a student in London in the early 1960s. It was very scruffy, an industrial wasteland, unlike today.

I moved from London to the University of Lancaster. The Physics Department had been in existence for one year. We often walked along the Lancaster Canal, which gave easy access to the surrounding countryside. It was also very run down, but was still very pleasant to walk along as most of it was rural.

The middle of the Peak District, where we have lived for more than fifty years, is not canal country. The nearest canals are the Peak Forest Canal to Bugsworth and Whaley Bridge, and the Cromford Canal. These were joined, over the top of the limestone plateau, by the Cromford & High Peak Railway. A canal was originally proposed as the link, and the C&HPR was built like a canal with flat stretches joined by steep inclines. Because of this history, I will include the C&HPR as an honorary canal.