Cut out and send to a canal magazine

Dear Sir

I have recently returned from our renovated château in France and have been disgusted and saddened by the state of our canals and some of its users.

After cleaning our brasses and touching up the paintwork on our new narrowboat we decided on a trip up the Ashby Canal. We here horrified to discover that most of the boats moored along the length of the canal were the same boats that were there before we left for our holiday. They were moored in different places but the same boats were still there with the same occupants. There was also evidence, if evidence were needed, that most of the were being lived on. These people are free loaders who do not pay into our society or our canals in the same way as we do. These free-loading scum pay no mooring fees or community charge and contribute nothing to the canals as most of the boats look like they do not have licences, safety certificates or insurance. I am sure that most of them do not even have a television licence.

These vermin use the facilities on the canals far and above what is reasonable, they fill their water tanks willy nilly, empty their Elsan without a care in the world, probably into the canal and fill up British Waterways refuse points with pee stained sofas and old carpets so there is little room left for the rest of us decent law abiding tax and licence payers to place our empty bottles of Chardonnay.

Their boats are unpainted, they inevitably sport a torn blue tarpaulin over the cruiser deck and are crewed by vest wearing, cigarette smoking, larger drinking louts. We need to clear these lice off the canals and take back what belongs to the respectable, Conservative, middle class, Daily Mail reading majority.

Yours faithfully

Bonkers of Hinckley