Gary Archer: canoe coach and youth advocate

Everyone has a story. Former Islington Boat Club member, Gary Archer, talks about how his first experience paddling on the Regent’s Canal has led to a lifetime of paddle work and pleasure – a legacy he has already passed on to hundreds of kids. Interview by Nicola Baird. Note: Gary asked for generic photos to be used for this interview, which is why there are no portraits of him.

If you could have a perfect career, the ideal would surely be doing something you love. For Gary Archer, a canoe coach and youth advocate, who has done just that, it “all sprang out of being a member of Islington Boat Club. It’s where it all started and then Jubilee Waterside Centre at King’s Cross.” Now 55, Gary has five children – the youngest is seven and his eldest 31, have all followed his love of getting outdoors to play and explore. Gary is based in Hemel Hempstead, but you’ll often find him running British Canoeing courses as he’s a Level 3 White Water Coach and a 4* canoe and Sea Kayak  leader.

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So how did he get into water sports growing up in Crouch End and then Tottenham? In some ways it was inevitable as his Irish mum was a youth worker, so one school holidays she took him along to Islington Boat Club near the Angel.

“I remember the funny smell of old fibreglass boats, orange BAs (buoyancy aids), plimsolls and PE shorts! Back then paddling was in its infancy – it was before the likes of Palm equipment!”

“There was a lot of change in the inner city when I was growing up,” he says. “Around Islington Boat Club there were none of the tall buildings and it was still dockside warehouses. “The canals were not loved and had been not nice places. They’d been built in the start of 1800s as London expanded for bringing in building materials and taking out the horse manure and waste, but by the 1950s they were in serious decline and an unloved and forgotten link to our industrial past. In the 1980s a renaissance started with the development of inner cities, transitioning from industrial legacy to use as a leisure resource.”

In the old aluminium Grumman canoes and kayaks at Islington Boat Club, Gary loved the mix of fun and skills on offer. “We’d get to the top of the City Road Basin and there was the canal tunnel – a big dark scary space, so then we’d paddle to Laburnum Boat Club and play in the water cascading over the weir (by Acton’s Lock). It was the most exciting place. We’d get wet and had great fun. It’s so important for kids’ resilience to have space within a city. The canal is like a hideaway where nature thrives, and kids can connect with nature and water and they don’t have to worry about roads.”

Canal legend
He also remembers Dave Ruse. “He was a legendary figure in the paddling world and the way he’d turn an inner-city space like an unloved canal into an adventure playground. The games we played were published as Canoe & Kayak Games: 250 best paddlesport games.” https://www.amazon.co.uk/Canoe-Kayak-Games-Paddle-Sport/dp/0955061407

Hearing about the problems Islington Boat Club (IBC) has recently had with its lease (which led to it being shut throughout 2022, Gary nods. “You must work hard to preserve what you’ve got. IBC has a lot of history and if you put the word out, you’d be surprised by how many people will say that the club has made an impact on us and how it gave us adventures – teamwork makes you a better person, able to get along with others and gives you self-belief.  It helps us build stronger communities.”

Though Gary was never into football he quickly realised that, “paddling was something I was good at and I found lots of friends through it. Being involved with the cadets and paddling let me do things that were exciting that I couldn’t have done on the council estate which I grew up on. On the water you learn the value of looking after people, cleaning the canal up and respect for nature – it teaches you social responsibility. Paddling was a vehicle to learn wider social skills too as we had to rescue people who fell in the water!”

Those early games and paddling fun led to a career on the water, opening up a host of opportunities for Gary. “It’s taken me around the world – I’ve paddled and instructed in the Canadian Rockies, Bavarian Alps, France, America and Cyprus,” he says when I meet him working at Herts Young Mariners Base in Cheshunt, where he’s been involved since 1997.

As a long-established kayaker he also took part in the Thames Diamond Jubilee pageant which saw 670 boats process along the River Thames in 2012 as part of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations – a show that was watched by a million people from the banks of the Thames and just from the sheer number of crafts entered the Guinness Book of Records.

Gary’s interested in the way there is social hierarchy around boats. He’s gained knowledge and experience through community clubs who provide an economical and fun way to enter the world of paddlesport. “Some people believe getting into boats is expensive and out of financial reach for them. There are the elite rowing clubs at universities  and expensive yacht clubs and at the bottom of the pile are kayakers: a free-spirited and easy-going community of diverse travellers  along our waterways, ” he says pointing out that even if kayaking is cheap and cheerful it’s also a lot of fun.

London childhood
By the time Gary went to secondary school he was able to explore London. “My friend Jake and I would go from Turnpike Lane on the Red Rover buses to the West End. We’d go to museums and go round London. It was exciting to see things. One day we were going over this little bridge and saw kids having loads of fun near King’s Cross. We rang the bell and jumped off.  We then had to work out how to get down to the canal. York Way was so industrial then, filled with gas tanks and rubble. It was like a bomb site with just one single building that we later found out was Victorian (on Rosedale Way) repurposed as a youth centre. We managed to get on the tow path and get to this building, got chatting and asked, ‘Can we go on your boats?’. They said ‘yes’, but we’d have to have our parents’ consent and gave us two forms.”

The pair were back an hour later, with forms filled and ready to join.

Gary got to know the club well that summer with its settee, hand built tea bar, stacks of boats and kit drying on a makeshift wooden frame. “We had lots of adventures on lots of different boats. We’d paddle through Camden then go on past Pirates and go to the zoo, watch birds and have a picnic. Or we’d go the other way along the canal past the gasworks.

The experience also helped Gary decide to do a Youth & Community work diploma at Kingsway College. “At Kingsway we had a canoeing club. There were just two of us and the PE guide, he wasn’t a big fan of paddling at the start but luckily, we were so keen he grew to love it too!”

Coaching life
It wasn’t until Gary was around 30-years-old that he began coaching paddlesports.

“It helped me as a youngster, and I wanted to pass that on. You can make paddlesports very inclusive as it has something for everyone. There’s competing at one end and messing about at the other! It opens the world to you beyond your postcode and your street.” As a result, he’s a big advocate of paddlesports as a safe, outdoor activity and has helped more than 300 kids through their Duke of Edinburgh award.

“Paddling is for everybody. With my work I dealt with soldiers with complex trauma injuries. For them missing the excitement of being part of a team, or able to play football, was hard. But if we put them in a boat, they can get involved throwing the ball around, finding a wave to surf and play water polo. Then you take the spray deck off and you see they have lower limb injuries that reduce their mobility off the water. The independence on the water drives self-worth. With boats you can paddle on your own or with a partner, so can be partially sighted, and it is always great fun. Or you can let SEND kids enjoy the crew-based bell boat because it really is stable, allowing parents and carers to ride along side them. Paddling allows us to include everybody. It’s a lovely, positive experience.”

• Good news: the Islington Boat Club is due to open in May 2023
• Also try signing children up for taster sessions or club membership along the Regent’s Canal at Laburnum Boat Club (Haggerston in Hackney) and the Pirate Castle (Camden).
• HYMB in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire in the Lea Valley has many school groups visiting. It’s just by a YHA and the train station (take the overland train from Tottenham Hale)
• Castle Canoe Club and Regent’s Canoe Club both offer adults on Sunday mornings access to a variety of kayaks for fun, water polo at the West Reservoir. Castle Canoe Club also has access to paddleboards.
• The leisure centre Better offers all year round sailing courses, paddlesports and ‘wild water swimming’ at West Reservoir Centre on Green Lanes (nearest tube Manor House). Book in advance.
• Adults can paddle for free (in kayaks, paddleboards etc) if they join a Planet Patrol litter pick, must be booked in advance, see info on Planet Patrol website. Obviously anyone can pick up litter – we encourage you to do so if you are by islington’s biggest green space, the canal and City Road Basin.
• Angel Canal Festival is postponed for 2023, it’s usually the first Sunday in September.

Over to you
If you’d like to nominate someone to be interviewed who grew up, lives or works in Islington, or suggest yourself, please let me know, via nicolabaird dot green at gmail dot com. If you enjoyed this post you might like to look at the A-Z  index, or search by interviewee’s roles or Meet Islingtonians to find friends, neighbours and inspiration. Thanks for stopping by. Nicola