Lived on-board Hadar

Daisypath Vacation tickers

Thursday, May 07, 2009

Reuters gives Hadar a mention.

As we are sitting in Paddington Basin I thought I would do a trawl through my favourite blogs and I saw that Andrew on Granny Buttons did a write up about Reuters, who did a piece on the Little Venice Cavalcade, which quoted us in their write up. Thanks Andrew for drawing my attention to the write up.
Whilst at the Cavalcade, Keith and I must have chatted to hundreds of people over the three day's, including Rebekah Curtis from Reuters who has written a piece about the Canalway Cavalcade. London's canal boat dwellers live in city oasis. The piece she has written whilst giving good publicity for the event, has misquoted us a little. Firstly Rebekah writes ""We're continual cruisers, we keep moving 24/7," said 47-year-old Jo Lodge, who travels all year round with her husband Keith selling coal from their boat to the canal community in Leicester". We are Continual Cruisers, who sell coal from our working boat, but we have not yet begun our coal run on the Leicester. That begins in October, having been given permission by British Waterways to trade on this section of the Grand Union. Rebekah then writes "Her husband Keith is one of many boat-dwellers whose family has worked on boats for generations, and is deeply rooted in the floating community in which some boaters were even born aboard". This is not correct. Keith worked on Pisces for a few years in the late 60's, his family did not work on the boats. The only family member he knows of who worked on the boats was his Grandfather who was a lighterman on the Thames, so unfortunately Rebekah did not quite get the facts right. It is hardly surprising when you consider how hectic it was on the Saturday when she spoke to Keith and I. Rebekah then rang me up a couple of days later asking me a question about something she had written in her note book, because she was unable to read her own writing LOL. It may have been a good idea if she had run this piece past us first before publishing it. I told her, she should have been a doctor if she has writing that she cannot read, which made her laugh. I do wish that the press would get their facts correct before going to print, as there is nothing worse than being mis-quoted.

Since posting, I contacted Rebekah via e-mail. Rebekah has replied promptly apologising profusely for the misunderstanding, which we have accepted. We wish Rebekah well with her reporting career.

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