The Liberal MP Dr Michael Winstanley makes the case for canals

At Foxton yesterday I bought a fistful of Inland Waterways Association (IWA) bulletins from the 1960s and 70s at the canal museum there, reasoning they would provide some interesting snippets for this blog.

I did not expect to find a Liberal MP quoted and photographed in them, but I did.

Here is Dr Michael Winstanley (in the centre of the photograph above) at the IWA's 1970 conference Waterways in the Urban Scene:

The second day began with a session on 'Amenity Uses', introduce by Dr Michael Winstanley, M.P., who explained his involvement with canals as triple one: From a personal boating interest; as a medical man anxious to increase the use of water-based recreation and the relaxing open air atmosphere of canals; and politically, where waterways were part of a national heritage that every politician ought to cherish. "It is our duty to get people off the roads."

Michael Winstanley was MP for Cheadle between 1964-66 and for Hazel Grove between February and October 1974.

The Cheadle seat he represented took in much the same area as the Hazel Grove we know today.