The picture Jay Saunders paints of life on the canal network, or ‘on the cut’, is a wonderfully romantic one.
His PTSD assistant dog Hawke and cat Terry have the run of the narrowboat and its nearby tow path. Saunders waves at those who pass by. The continuous cruiser community is an incredibly supportive one, especially if you’re in a canal-related pickle.
And there are a fair few hiccups that cruisers can come up against: getting stuck in a lock, running out of fuel, emptying the loo or the boat itself going haywire.
Saunders, 57, appears on the current series of Channel 4’s Narrow Escapes and happily admits that canal life isn’t for everyone. If you like to accumulate a vast array of things or enjoy being shielded from the cold and/or damp, best to give it a miss.
‘For those of us that live on the cut, that’s part of the life,’ says Saunders, speaking to Metro over the phone from his narrowboat. ‘If you’ve got that little bit of physical stamina, and you go, “there’s no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothes”, it’s absolutely stunning.
‘But it’s not a lifestyle for everybody. For me, my disability, my condition, it’s been life-changing and life-saving.’
A former Lieutenant Commander in the Navy, Saunders fell in love with naval warships as a child. He was the first in his family to get a university degree and then a commission.
He spent 18 years with the British Army, during which he was deployed to Sierra Leone as part of Operation Gritrock, the code name given to the effort to fight the Ebola virus epidemic.
The experience was harrowing. ‘There was no way they could train me to prepare for that,’ says Saunders. ‘They can train you for combat, they can train you for firefighting, but to watch a beautiful civilian population dissolve in front of you…
‘I came in direct contact with the virus on three separate occasions, and each time I thought I was going to die in such horrific terms. How I didn’t get infected, I’ve got no idea.’
He left Sierra Leone changed. But it was only when he got back home that he ‘realised something was wrong’. Saunders was medically discharged in 2019 due to complex PTSD.
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The Covid lockdowns exacerbated his symptoms. ‘Every day, I was reliving every single moment of it. Now, I was just a passenger rather than the commander in it, I felt powerless and sick and evil for letting people die,’ he recalls.
He ended up on the verge of homelessness, living on a ‘decrepit’ old yacht that couldn’t move and had no real insulation. ‘At least it was dry,’ says Saunders.
‘I was trying to find ways out of it. I was finding that my psychiatric health was getting worse, but I always had to think of myself as lucky because I’ve seen people living on the streets.’
Just going at four miles an hour…suddenly the pace of life becomes something you can tolerate.
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He reached out to Forces Veterans Afloat, which later provided him with a narrowboat. Since setting off on the canal networks, the frequency of his flashback episodes has ‘dropped dramatically’ and when they do come, he can now recover from them in a matter of hours, rather than days.
When one of the triggers for an episode is around, he has Hawke on hand to help. ‘If I do disassociate, which unfortunately is still happening, he will drag me to a place of safety until I reconnect with the world again.
‘He’s prevented three suicide attempts. Literally intervened, knocked pills off the table when I was thinking about doing that. Thankfully, I’ve not had a suicide attempt now in over three years.’
Saunders is now pursuing a career in comedy after a ‘why not’ Zoom course on stand-up. It gives him an impetus for where to go along the canal network, in search of a stage and a mic. He’s taking his show, which plumbs his PTSD diagnosis to find the humour in it, to the Edinburgh Fringe this summer.
He can’t take his narrowboat up there (the English and Scottish canal networks don’t connect, I learn), but a friend who also wants to become a continuous cruiser is set to mind it for him.
Who can blame them when Saunders describes it as he does?
‘The world wants you to travel at 300 miles an hour and make money and what have you,’ he says.
‘When you’re on the cut and moving, you can only do four miles an hour, and the rule is slow is safe, slow is cheap. So your brain slows down to the speed of the canal. It stops my brain from going into a spin of despair and self-hatred.
‘Just going at four miles an hour, slowly waving at people. Suddenly, the pace of life becomes something you can tolerate.’
Need support?
For emotional support, you can call the Samaritans 24-hour helpline on 116 123, email jo@samaritans.org, visit a Samaritans branch in person or go to the Samaritans website.
PAPYRUS offers specialised suicide prevention support for young people. Their HOPELINE247 is open every day of the year, 24 hours a day. You can call 0800 068 4141, text 88247 or email: pat@papyrus-uk.org.
Narrow Escapes continues weekdays at 4pm on Channel 4, with episodes available to stream after transmission.
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