Chichester Canal commemorates a key volunteer

On a very wet and sad day, more than 50 Chichester Canal volunteers assembled at the Canal Basin to say their farewells to Malcolm Maddison, who died aged 77 on Saturday, June 13, following a very short illness. The funeral cortège slowly passed the canal before proceeding to the crematorium for a private funeral service. Malcolm had been a volunteer at the canal for the past ten years latterly as Chair of the Canal Trading Board. A family statement read: “He worked tirelessly — often every day of the week — welcoming visitors, supporting volunteers and planning future activities at the canal. Twice a week he would coordinate work parties repairing the banks, cutting hedges and maintaining the boats. Weekends would find him as skipper on the cruise boat Kingfisher.” Andrew Gibson, a fellow trading director, said Malcolm ‘was the person to whom everyone went to for guidance, instructions and advice’. He added: “His workload was prodigious — it is now taking three of us to divide his activities.” Due to Covid-19 restrictions, boat trips along the canal have been closed since March but things are slowly getting back to ‘near normal’. The family statement added: “Malcolm would have been thrilled that the café reopened the day after his funeral.”