THE news last week the popular party cruiser “The Earl” had sunk in Worcester’s Diglis Basin was hardly the first time a boat had come to grief there.

Not withstanding the problems the Vikings encountered when they came raiding up the river, a quartet of fellow journalists almost sank without trace 38 years ago.

They were from Belgium not Worcester, which might explain their lack of navigational skills on the Severn, but having said that I cannot think of four local hacks, ever, I would trust with a boat in a bath let alone on a swift-flowing waterway.

The tourists got into trouble in early November, 1980 as they tried to turn near Diglis island and the current swept them over the nearby weir.

Fortunately help was at hand in the shape of tugboat workers (where would they be now?) who pulled them to safety from the stricken vessel called the Romsey.

It ended up sinking, but was re-floated in most ingenious fashion. Divers forced a giant balloon into the cabin and this was inflated using a high pressure pump and the boat rose with it. Ta-daa!

Diglis, of course, is where the Worcester-Birmingham canal meets the Severn and has been an important location for centuries.

It was originally conceived as a major inland commercial port for Worcester and it was the forward-looking city council of 1890 which first proposed the construction of Diglis Lock.

At the time the Cardiff Dock Authorities actively supported the scheme as a means of cutting their costs by sending goods to the Midlands by water instead of by rail.

But the crafty Welshmen used the proposed project as a negotiating weapon to win reduced rail haulage tariffs and then backed out of the Diglis scheme.

Even so, the city council pressed ahead with it in 1892 and the dock measuring 318ft by 115ft was completed in 1894. For decades it was a huge “white elephant”, but it came dramatically to life in the 1930s and the war years when there was a boom in river haulage.

One person who knew the basin in its heyday was Denis Watton who lived in the toll-keeper’s house beside the outer canal basin for 26 years before retiring as toll clerk in 1960.

During his 54 years working on canals and rivers, Denis saved 24 people from drowning, but sadly he had gone two decades before the lads from Brussels had their spot of bother.