Charlie and the chocolate factory

For years, Knighton Wharf and the surrounding buildings were a vital cog in the Cadbury machine, used to process local milk into chocolate crumb, which was then transported by boat along the canal to their main site at Bournville, in Birmingham. Here, the crumb (a blend of cocoa, sugar and milk which gives Cadbury’s milk chocolate its distinctive taste) was mixed with cocoa butter to produce the company’s famous confectionary.

The canal journey from Knighton Wharf to Bournville was no easy feat, an arduous 14-hour trip winding through the heart of the Midlands, with no less than 50 locks to negotiate along the way. From 1948 to 1961, the trip was made by the narrowboat, Mendip, with skipper Charlie Atkins at the helm. Carrying a cargo of chocolate crumb, Charlie and Mendip made two round trips a week, becoming a regular feature on Midlands’ canals and earning the famous skipper the nickname, ‘Chocolate Charlie’. He was so named because legend has it that Charlie would often give out left-over chocolate crumb to children along his route.

Built after the Second World War by W J Yarwood & Sons of Northwich, Mendip was one of the last of her kind, the 70ft (21.3m) boat was constructed using a unique design that had barely changed since the 1880s. Mendip and her five sister ships were known as ‘Joshers’, after canal magnate, Joshua Fellows, who gave his name to the boats’ distinctively shaped ‘Josher’ hulls with their composite construction of riveted wrought iron sides and elm bottoms. Charlie took charge of Mendip in 1948, becoming her first master. It would be his home and workplace for the next 30 years.

Part of a proud boating family, Charlie Atkins spent his life living and working aboard. In his heyday, he was hauling 25 tonnes of chocolate crumb aboard Mendip, making the long trek from Knighton Wharf to Bournville and back again, and managing two round trips a week.

When the crumb trade ended in the early 1960s, Charlie continued working on Mendip, ferrying cotton, coal and other cargo along the canals. But with traffic dwindling and Charlie approaching his 72nd birthday, it was finally time to hang up his skipper’s cap. Charlie and Mendip carried their final load in 1974. Soon after, boat and skipper moored up at Preston Brook in Cheshire, to enjoy a well-earned retirement.

Charlie lived out his final years aboard Mendip, becoming somewhat of a local celebrity, as the revival of our canals kindled an interest in the dying breed of men, women and children who spent their lives working on our waterways. In 1981, Charlie sadly passed. But our story doesn’t end there.

In 2009, thanks to a generous donation from Cadbury, work began to restore Mendip at our boatyard at Ellesmere Port in Cheshire. Two years later, in 2011, a fully restored Mendip set out for Knighton Wharf once more, to honour Charlie’s memory and commemorate 50 years since the boat’s last journey to the famous chocolate factory. Fittingly, onboard Mendip that day, alongside those who had helped to restore her, was Charlie’s niece, Phyllis Johnson.

Today, Charlie’s beloved Mendip can be found at our National Waterways Museum at Ellesmere Port, having recently returned from further vital restoration work. So thankfully, the boat still remains as a powerful reminder of a bygone age and a testament to the life of one remarkable, indefatigable man.