Over the summer I saw some huge barges cruising down the wide canals of the Ruhr in Germany.
I was stood on a bridge and it suddenly dawned on me that I used to make canal barges as a kid!
We made them from discarded date boxes!
The dates always seemed to hail from Morocco too!
Yes, it all came flooding back.We would get a small block of balsa and paint it like the bridge of a ship, glue it down on the base of the date box and away we went!
One date box gave you two barges!
Off we went to the nearest body of water - usually the bath - and cast our vessels into the deep blue sea.
I seem to recall doing this at school now I come to think of it. Did we put anything inside the box bases to make them water-tight? Dunno.
I can't recall if I put any toy cars in there too or maybe a few Airfix soldiers heading for shore leave!
Did you make date box barges readers?
Commercial Barge on the canal, Zum Yacht Hafen,
Recklinghausen, Germany
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