 | Book - Narrow Boat p/b Ref: 1891
by L.T.C. Rolt.First published in 1944 and now re-issued with a new section of black and white plates, this book has become a classic on the subject, and may be said to have started a revival of interest in the English waterways.It was in 1939 that L.T.C. Rolt first stepped aboard Cressy, and this book tells the engaging story of how he and his wife adapted and fitted out the boat as a home and recreates the journey of some 400 miles that they made along the waterways of the Midlands.Hard back, 212 pages, 13.9cms x 21.7cms.
Price: £9.99
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 | Book - The Clouded Mirror Ref: 2031
by L.T.C. Rolt.Rolt meditates on landscape, history, poetry, steam railways, vintage cars and the endless summer days of his childhood.He also recalls his many happy boating voyages on Britain's canals: the peace and tranquillity, the wildlife and people, the changing scenery as he travelled from county to county, and the role he played in preserving the waterways for future generations.Soft back. 94 pages. 11.1cms x 18cms approx.
Price: £4.99
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 | Book - Lock Keeper's Daughter Ref: 2037
by Pat Warner.Pat recalls her life spent in a lock cottage by the side of the Worcester & Birmingam Canal.Soft back. 138 pages. 14.9cms x 21.1cms approx. Illustrated with black & white photos and drawings.
Price: £8.95
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 | Book - Amateur Boatwomen Ref: 412
by Eily Gayford.Eily Gayford started boating during the Second World War, and went on to become the only trainer of the wartime all-women crews to write her memoirs. First published in 1973, this 2008 paperback edition contains extra text and illustrations.Soft back, 160 pages, 14.8cms x 21cms approx, black & white illustrations.
Price: £8.99
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 | Book - Idle Women Ref: 480
by Susan Woolfitt.This book describes in unadorned detail the life of a 'trainee' working on canal boats during the Second World War.Softback. 223 pages. 14.8cms x 21cms approx. Black and white photographs. 2008 edition.
Price: £8.99
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 | Book - Maidens' Trip (hardback) Ref: 2032
by Emma Smith.She describes her experiences of the war-time scheme under which women were recuited 'off the land' to crew canal boats. Only a teenager at the time, she captures how it felt to be young and working on the boats, sometimes with more enthusiasm than efficiency.Hard back. 227 pages. 14.3cms x 22.3cms approx.
Price: £14.99
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 | Book - Maidens' Trip Ref: 419
by Emma Smith.She describes her experiences of the war-time scheme under which women were recuited 'off the land' to crew canal boats. Only a teenager at the time, she captures how it felt to be young and working on the boats, sometimes with more enthusiasm than efficiency.Soft back, 208 pages, 14.8cms x 21cms approx. 2008 edition.
Price: £8.99
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 | Book - Troubled Waters Ref: 410
by Margaret Cornish.First published over 40 years after the war, it provides a balanced account of the war-time canal scheme, tackling aspects which no-one else raised. Predictably, those who volunteered were by no means run-of-the-mill; faint hearts were unlikely to apply, and certainly could not stick the privation and physical demands of the job.Soft back, 208 pages, 13.7cms x 21.1cms approx, 17 photos.
Price: £8.99
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 | Book - Hold On A Minute Ref: 474
by Tim Wilkinson.Re-published in the 'Working Waterways' series by M & M Baldwin, this book tells how the author and his wife hired a pair of boats from the Docks & Inland Waterways Executive in 1948, and spent a memorable year carrying cargoes on England's canals.Soft back. 192 pages. 13.7cms x 21.1cms approx. 16 b/w photographs.
Price: £8.99
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 | Book - Anderton For Orders Ref: 413
by Tom Foxon.This book describes the exciting and colourful life of a teenager who gave up office work in 1950 to crew a canal boat. His fascination with every aspect of life on the canals makes this a wonderfully evocative book, full of authentic detail about narrow-boat carrying.Soft back, 168 pages, 13.8cms x 21cms approx, 10 illustrations.
Price: £8.00
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 | Book - Number One Ref: 1260
by Tom Foxon.In this, the sequel to 'Anderton For Orders', Tom is demobbed from the RAF and sets himself up in business as an owner boatman or Number One. Before doing so he takes a memorable trip with a horse boat from Tardebigge to Cannock and back to Worcester.His first few trips are plagued by engine troubles but, after replacing his National engine with a Ruston he settles down to recouping his fortunes by a winter spent on local work around Birmingham before starting to carry coal to Oxford.Soft back. 136 pages. 14.8cms x 21cms approx. Illustrated with black and white pictures by Brian Collings.
Price: £8.99
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 | Book - Following The Trade Ref: 2214
by Tom Foxon.The third, and last, volume of Tom's boating trilogy finds him ranging widely over the waterways system as an owner boatman before selling up and working for British Waterways on the Birmingham Severn route. With the loss of this contract imminent, Tom goes to work on a general cargo barge trading between Bristol, Avonmouth, Lydney and the River Severn.Soft back. 138 pages. 14.8cms x 21cms approx. Black & white photos.
Price: £8.99
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 | Book - Windlass in my Belt Ref: 619
by John Thorpe.An autobiographical and evocative tale of a young boy's journey into manhood set against the background of the Midland canal system in the 1950s and '60sIt tells of his acceptance into the canal community and gives a vivid account of life on, and journeys in, a working boat.Soft back. 290 pages. 15cms x 23.7cms approx.
Price: £14.99
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 | Book - Dry Land Sailor Ref: 2039
by Fred Hobbs.This book not only gives a captivating insight into cargo carrying by narrowboat, but into the lives of the people who worked them.Fred was not born a boatman, but grew up in Leighton Buzzard. he got to know many of the boating families, and on leaving school in 1948 was invited to work with one of them. His story is one of discovery as he learns the ways of the boaters and the skills of handling a pair of narrowboats.Hard back. 112 pages. 14cms x 22.2cms approx.
Price: £12.99
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 | Book - Bread Upon The Waters Ref: 411
by David Blagrove.This book covers the late 1950s and early 60s. David Blagrove, after crewing a passenger boat on the Kennet, was employed by Willow Wren, carrying timber, hardboard, coal and cocoa residue. He was afloat when the great freeze of 1962/3 stopped the boats and virtually wiped out long-distance narrow boat traffic.. This book records in great detail life on the cut 35 years ago, and is a classic account of what the work was actually like.Soft back, 224 pages, 13.7cms x 21cms approx, 21 photos.
Price: £8.99
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 | Book - Quiet Waters By Ref: 414
by David Blagrove.This book describes the colourful experiences of a young man who worked as a Thames lock-keeper, while also running a narrow-boat carrying company. His recollections of the Thames Conservancy, Salters' Steamers, and taking the Skinners to the re-opening of the Stratford-on-Avon Canal vividly recapture the waterway scene in the early 1960s.Soft back, 248 pages, 13.6cms x 21cms approx, 19 photos.
Price: £8.00
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 | Book - Breeze For A Bargeman Ref: 1687
by Bob Roberts.Bob Roberts gives a vivid picture of the trials and tribulations of carrying cargo under sail in Thames sailing barges. He was also part owner of the last vessel to fish out of Ramsgate under sail, which was then sailed to Rio de Janeiro.Bob returned to England to the life of a bargeman trading under sail. He was to become Britain's last commercial sailing skipper.Paperback. 176 pages. 13.4cms x 21.4cms approx. Illustrated with black & white photos.
Price: £9.95
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 | Book - The May Flower Ref: 2033
by Nick Ardley.In this evocative story of his unusual upbringing on the May Flower, a Thames spritsail barge, Nick gives a colourful account of life on the water. He tells tales of places visited, techniques learned and characters met that combine to give a real sense of what sailing can teach us.Soft back. 256 pages. 17.2cms x 24.8cms approx. Illustrated with black & white photos.
Price: £16.99
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