00:00I've come here to Cardiff today in the guise of Thomas Stadford Jr who's from a famous family of canal engineers back in the pioneering days of when they very first built the canals throughout the British Isles including here in Wales and Thomas Stadford came to the Midlands to plan and build and design the Mummershire Canal including the Crumlin arm of the canal as well with the 14 locks and he was an amazing engineer able to use his skills for the locks
00:29for the embankments at Gillworm for the aqueduct at Brinnock and for the length of the canals it's quite a feat of engineering because it's basically a contour canal that hooks the side of the hill or literally a mountain but aside from that from a personal point of view I have a canal boat myself and it's been in the family since 1979 when my parents had it and the older you get the more you appreciate the canal and its benefits for health and well-being and real
00:58relaxation it really is a resource that should be preserved and looked after and from Thomas Stadford's point of view of course he would just turn in his grave to be thought because this canal was under threat now with all the work and effort he put in
01:13in fact so much work and effort he put in that he died a young man in his 40s from sheer exhaustion with the man-hours that he put into that canal literally by hand
01:22because they didn't because they didn't have any of these gated bees and diggers that we have now
01:27no that's right blood, sweat and tears but for another thing the canal is so much more than that
01:34it's a place for cycling, it's a place for walkers, it's a place for wildlife
01:40I'm dressed as a 19th century barge woman and you mustn't forget that the canal is still a source of livelihood for people
01:51it was an important source of livelihood then and it has got lots of tour boat companies on the canal
01:59and they bring in tourists to the world which are massively important for the world
02:04and people coming from all over the world
02:07the canal open is likely to meet Australians and Americans and South Africans
02:11and they love this canal as much as the local people do
