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Alan Platt (1945 – 2026)

Alan Platt died on 27th August 2026, aged 81, after battling with cancer for some months.  Representatives from the IWA Shrewsbury District and North Wales Branch and other IWA members were present at his funeral.

In the Autumn 2020 issue of Shroppie Fly Paper, Alan described how he fell for the waterways:

“The whole saga started back in the 1970’s. We saw an advertisement for a cut price offer of a holiday on the Broads, and with the benefit of hindsight I now know why it was cheap. The boat was like a CRT mud hopper but made out of plastic and had all the style and swim of a brick, but we had fun, didn’t drown either of the lads or totally wreck the boat, though I do remember my first, but not last, instance of looking at the bank to decide whether the boat or the current was winning. A second trip, in a better boat on the Broads a few years later was followed by a decision to try something not so flat, so we had a couple of holidays in a hire boat from Wrenbury (then English County Cruises). In the second of these the late lamented made the fateful comment that ‘hiring is very expensive, why don’t we try and buy one”.

Alan joined IWA in the 1980s and after the loss of his wife joined the branch committee in 2002, then throwing himself energetically into the IWA branch life.

Around this time, IWA was under pressure to respond to the establishment of the Welsh Assembly (despite the differences between the canals in North Wales and those in South Wales). Throughout his time on the branch committee Alan was its Welsh Representative, attending meetings of the Cross-Party Waterways Group in Cardiff and representing the branch on IWA’s Committee for Wales.

[The photo shows Alan in 2013, while North West Region chairman]

In April 2005 Alan became branch chairman for the then-customary three-year term. Four years later he became North West Region chairman, and so an IWA trustee, and remained so until September 2015 when he volunteered to help the current region chairman settle into the role by acting temporarily as region secretary, which lasted for four years! And, as if that wasn’t enough, Alan, a chartered accountant by training and by profession, still found time to serve as branch treasurer for 10 years from 2015 until 2025.

He was IWA Deputy National Chairman from 2014 until 2017, fondly remembered by then-National Chairman Les Etheridge at the funeral.

When CRT succeeded British Waterways in 2012 it set up local partnerships to match the regions it then operated.  Alan was a diligent, if sometimes questioning, member of the North Wales & Borders Partnership.  In 2020, Alan was awarded IWA North West Region’s Kenwin Trophy. Because of Covid restrictions there had to be a ‘virtual’ presentation, sprung on Alan at a region meeting on Zoom.  Shroppie Fly Paper reported that Alan “was taken by surprise, so had no opportunity to decline as he doesn’t really believe we should get pots for enjoying ourselves“.  The presentation itself had to be completed by the postman.

[The photo shows Alan Platt delivering one of his last branch treasurer’s reports]

Alan was a key contributor to the Montgomery Canal events in 2008/9. The early 2000s were lean years for the Montgomery: previously the Welshpool section had been opened between Arddleen and Berriew and in Shropshire boats could reach Queen’s Head. Discussions for the Conservation Management Strategy had taken years and it was to be more years before any new lengths were opened for navigation.

To maintain interest, the branch joined with the Friends of the Montgomery Canal and the Shropshire Union Canal Society with ‘Monty ’08’: a programme of events centred around canal weekends at Maesbury and Welshpool, the Welshpool event being that year’s IWA national campaign festival.

The following January, Alan was present as branch chairman when Sonia Rolt unveiled a plaque at Frankton Locks commemorating the original conversion there of the Shropshire Union narrowboat Cressy for pleasure use.

Alan was good company, with an irreverent sense of humour, and was a stalwart friend to the branch and its volunteers.  He contributed greatly to the branch, to IWA regionally and nationally and, though he did not like the word ‘campaign’, to the cause of the inland waterways.

[This article edited from a feature in IWA Shrewsbury District and North Wales Branch’s newsletter, Shroppie Flypaper, prepared by Michael Limbrey]

LOVE YOUR WATERWAYS

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