IN a feature on the Yesterday Once More pages of The Press recently reader Beryl Pallister recalled long-ago days spent with her bargeman father Charles Rayner on the barges that plied the Rivers Ouse and Foss.

That piece (Wonderful days on the barges, August 18) prompted another reader and barge enthusiast, Malcolm Slater, to send us the photographs on these pages today of barges on the River Foss.

Malcolm, from Huntington, has taken many pictures of barges over the years, and has also bought slides and negatives to add to his collection. "People say I'm obsessed with barges, but I'm much keener than that!" the 68-year-old retired JCB driver says.

His interest in barges clearly goes way beyond collecting photographs: he knows his stuff, too.

In an email that accompanied his photographs, he wrote a history of several of the best-known barges that once worked on the Foss.

"How many readers I wonder will remember the Humber Keel Anne Maud which was berthed outside the Castle Museum's Raindale Mill on the banks of the Foss near Castle Mills Bridge?" he wrote.

The Anne Maud was built by Dunstans of Thorne in 1898, and was one of four wooden carvel-built barges owned by Rotherham millers Robinson Brothers. It was bought by Waddingtons of Swinton in 1937 and fitted with an engine.

But in 1971 its days as a working barge were over. It was sold into private ownership for restoration, Mr Slater wrote. "Agreement was reached for the keel to be berthed on the Foss adjacent to the Castle Museum's Raindale water mill."

At that time, the River Foss was prone to flooding. "There was no flood barrage in the 1970’s," Mr Slater wrote. During one flood, the barge drifted onto the towpath. It hadn't been properly moored, Mr Slater explained. "Poles should have been used instead of ropes which would have kept the barge in the main channel of the river and not allowed it to drift onto the bank."

As the floodwaters receded, the barge remained grounded. "The decision was made that it would be too expensive to get the barge back into the water and so scrapping was the only viable alternative."

The job of demolishing the Anne Maud was given to the crew of another barge, the Thomas H. The Anne Maude was demolished where she lay, Mr Slater wrote. "The wooden keel was cut up and the remains loaded into the York Corporation's hopper barge to be taken away for burning - something I hasten to add would never happen today to such an historic vessel."

As to the Thomas H - she was another Dunstan-built vessel who worked from Castle Mills lock.

Built in 1940, with a motor fitted from the start, she was 62.5 feet long and had an extra-wide beam of 15.5 feet.

She was built originally for Hodgsons Tannery in Beverley, but was later sold and converted to a workboat with a crane fitted. "The Thomas H is still about although now converted to live aboard and is in France," Mr Slater wrote.

The lock at Castle Mills bridge was unable to accommodate large craft. "The biggest barges coming up to York were those which came into the Foss below the lock to deliver gas oil to the then Redfern National Glass works," Mr Slater wrote.

Deliveries were made two or sometimes three times a week, often using the John Whitaker tanker, the 230 ton Jondor. "This tanker barge was the regular one used on this run but at times Whitaker's Blackbird and Humber Monarch were used - a treat for us photographers. Quite often several barges would be berthed awaiting passage up the Foss to the Rowntree warehouse with its limited berths."

Perhaps the most photographed barge operating, however, was J.H. Walker's sand dredger Reklaw. "As regular readers will know the name Reklaw is the barge owner's name spelt backwards," Mr Slater wrote.

"Reklaw used to travel the furthest up the Foss to the owner's then yard at Layerthorpe Bridge. However. sometimes the dredger would be hired by York Corporation and it was on one such occasion that the dredger travelled up the Foss to Huntington Road with the York Corporation’s hopper barge to clear obstructions. Just by luck a camera man was on hand to record the event."

• Malcolm Slater is keen to add to his collection of barge photographs. If you have any old photographs, prints or negatives of barges on the waterways in and around York that you would be willing to pass on, contact Stephen Lewis at The Press, 84-86 Walmgate, York YO1 9YN, and we will pass them on to Mr Slater.