When I first came to Nottingham I worked for a company which was located very close to the canal.
I remember walking down the canal during my lunch breaks and watching the ‘strange’ narrow boats, which I had never seen before.
At the beginning I thought that it is just a way British pensioners spend their holidays, but once I discovered the Nottingham Marina I realised that it is a way of life.
Because it was so different, it was also very fascinating and I wanted to find out why and how people live on boats.
The topic seems to be also quite relevant especially as in the South of England and in London more and more people decide to live on boats due to financial situation.
I was quite surprise to hear that currently there is also a queue in Nottingham Castle Marina and there are 38 people waiting for mooring.
The feature could be published in The Guardian, The Observer, The Conversation for the audiences which are interested in lifestyle, sustainability, ecology and are aware of problems with housing, waste and consumption.
The feature could be also published in German Zeit Magazine or Sueddeutsche Zeitung and due to the fact that is about a very different way of life a Polish magazine Wysokie Obcasy could be also interested.
The age of the readership could be between 20 to 60 plus, they could ABC and ABC1.
At the beginning I was supposed to have 3 interviewees, Matthew Symonds from Canal and River Trust and Dave Bicker and Nata White, who live on boats.
Two colleagues from my course Iain Robertson and Ben Clarke provided me with 2 contacts.
It seems that many of my friends knew someone who lives on a boat and was happy to talk to me.
I had a lot of the materials because it seems that my interviewees were very keen talkers, so it was quite difficult to fit everything in 1500 words.
Nevertheless I hope I managed to tell all the four stories the way they are, showing the similarities and differences between them.
In the first instance I wanted to find out why the person decided to live on a boat, and how the life on a boat looks like.
I tried to gather the advantages and disadvantages of this way of life as I think that it might be interesting for readers who maybe are in similar situations and think about moving afloat.
And even if they don’t, I think that my interviewees have wise and interesting stories to tell and the readers can draw conclusions in relation to their life, like e.g. wasting resources, buying only the things we really need.
The Canal and River Trust are publishing results of their surveys in relation to the boaters and the way people use the boats which provided me with interesting insight.
I only wish the word count would be bigger.
Photo by: Joanna Oleskow