Letter: Labour of love

Sir: Your otherwise excellent report "There's a canal in there somewhere" (20 November) describing the volunteers' efforts to revive the Herefordshire and Gloucestershire Canal, contained one minor error.

Far from being "paid pounds 8 a day and travelling expenses" for a weekend of mud, sweat and tears and a chance to doss on a school floor, the 130 volunteers at the Waterway Recovery Group reunion weekend actually paid pounds 8 plus their travelling expenses for this dubious privilege. And those willing to pay pounds 35 can enjoy a whole week of this, on one of next year's 22 Canal Camps, working on waterways all over the country.

But as Mike Palmer says, without the WRG's "idiots wading around in the clay" the canal would have been lost for ever. Which we regard as ample payment for our efforts.

MARTIN LUDGATE

Editor, "Navvies", magazine of the Waterway Recovery Group

London SE22