At the heart of the waterways.Five Northamptonshire writers.

At the heart of the English waterway system, Northamptonshire has been the home for several writers of the canal scene. I think that none of them can claim to have been born in the county but they have all in their separate ways been influenced by,  or come to reside in, the county because of the Grand Union canal.

DAVID BLAGROVE.
There can be few people who enjoy reading canal books who will not be familiar with this author. Residing beside the canal at Stoke Bruerne David has for many years been a lover and passionate advocate for the canal world and its way of life. Diametrically opposed  to some modern authors who seem to see a canal as little more than a linear pleasure park, David Blagrove has always had the true interests of the canal and its boat population at heart. A man with his heart in the right place. A sentiment that is true I think of all the five authors chosen.
Of his many books ‘The Quiet Waters By’ tells of his early involvement with Narrow Boats & of his time on the Kennett & Avon canal & River Thames. ‘Bread upon the Waters’ (1998) moves the story on to an early life spent carrying cargo on the Grand Union Canal. He has also written interestingly about Northamptonshire's Waterways (1990) and about the canal and his home village (1972)and also that of the canalside village of Braunston amongst others – ‘At The Heart of The Waterways’ (2002).
All these books are readily available.
GEORGE SMITH.

Our Canal Population – A Cry from the Boat Cabins with Remedy.1879.
Another man from another era but with the same campaigning zeal published his first pleas for a reformation of the boat peoples living conditions in the early 1870’s. By the time the second edition of his book was published in 1879 his parliamentary act had been passed but it had taken nearly 10 years and wrecked his health and impoverished him in the process. He was a resident of Welton a village close to the canal and near Daventry.
First or second editions in various conditions can usually be found (£50 - £150) or a facsimile copy was published in the mid 1970’s.
WINIFRED FINLAY.

‘Canal Holiday’ (1957).                     ‘Cruise of The Susan’ (1958)
Already an extremely successful children's writer with many titles to her credit, Winifred Finlay moved to a village just outside Northampton in the mid 1950’s. She e seems to have immersed herself in the canal world immediately absorbing all the influences that she would need for her next two books. Canal Holiday follows the adventures of children on a Narrow Boat voyage from Northampton to Banbury & cannot be faulted for authentic detail. Likewise for The Cruise of the Susan which is again a narrow boat adventure set on the Nene.
Such is the demand from collectors for these two books that neither of them is found easily and are consequently quite pricey. They were never republished so £50 - £75 can be the price for good copies.
MARGARET CORNISH.

First Edition copies of ‘Still Waters’1982 & ‘Troubled Waters’ 1987.
Margaret Cornish worked as a bus ‘clippie’ in Oxford during the second world war before leaving to join the war time women trainees of the Grand Union canal carrying fleet. She wrote her memoir of this time ‘Troubled Waters’  whilst she was living on the converted butty Alphons on the Grand Union Canal at Stowe Hill, Northants.
Margaret Cornish will be remembered for two very authentic and readable books which are still available & which can still be found in first editions with dust jackets for the very modest price of £10 - £15.
JOHN THORPE.

Last but not least and published in 2002 is  John Thorpe’s account of his early years accompanying working boats and their families on their journeys  around the system. A Northampton schoolboy, his parents had bought a canalside cottage at Stoke Bruerne and it was in this close proximity to the boats that he got to know the boatpeople.
Authentic and very readable – Published by ‘Warerways World’ and still I think in print.

EARLY CANAL BOOK DUSTJACKETS.

The Dust Jacket as we know it today is a relatively new idea, first appearing in the late 19th century. Prior to this some books had been issued with a plain wrapper in order to protect often ornate bindings. Later the first true wrappers simply stated the name of the book with no other adornment. With the advent of cheap colour printing in the 1880s/90s however publishers soon realised the value of a medium which could give some visual idea of the enclosed books contents and price. Within a very few years and realising the advertising value of a wrapper. publishers expanded the idea to print  not only a precis of the books contents  and its price but also to advertise lists of other books in their ‘stable’ and of forthcoming titles as well.



The First? English Canal Book Wrapper. C.J.Aubertin’s A Caravan Afloat c1916.

Cary John Aubertin’s classic travelogue of a converted horse drawn pontoon’s journey along English canals was not the first English canal book to describe such a journey but it seems to have been one of the first to use photographic illustrations taken by the author and to be issued with a plain printed wrapper (no price & no advertising yet).

 

‘My Holidays on Inland Waterways’ by Percy Bonthron. First edition 1916.

Published in the same year ‘My Holidays on Inland Waterways’ takes advertising a little further with the books price printed on both the wrapper’s spine & cover, the latter also giving some idea of the contents of the book in written form and by means of 2 colour illustrations.

‘The Flower of Gloucester’  Third Edition. 1918.

Publishers found too, that sales of cheap unillustrated editions of best selling  books could be further enhanced if the otherwise plain volume which gave no idea of the books contents was issued with a colourful wrapper. So with canal books we find that by 1918 the publishers Chapman & Hall had progressed to using a 3 or 4 colour wrapper on their cheap unillustrated edition of Temple Thurston’s classic.

Copies of most editions of Bonthron & Temple Thurston’s books can be readily found in 1st & later editions. A Caravan Afloat is harder but not impossible to find in its first and only edition, although a facsimile paperback was issued in 1981 by Shepperton Swan.

Unfortunately the same cannot be said for copies with dust wrappers. My Holidays……. occasionally turns up with the battered remnants of a wrapper.clinging to it. Thurston’s book in first edition (1911) has a green cloth binding with a beautiful illustration of a narrow boat stamped in gilt on the cover.The second edition in a grey cloth binding has the same illustration in black on the cover but I have never seen either of these editions with a wrapper, so can only assume that they were issued without. It is the third cheap edition that has the wrapper but it is uncommon.

Rarer still and in over 40 years of collecting and buying and selling Aubertin’s book I have only ever come across it once on the copy in my own collection. In conclusion – Please let me know if you have earlier canal books with a  wrapper or indeed if you have any of the above editions with wrappers. My comments are obviously based on my own collecting history and observations and I would love to be proved wrong.

When it comes to Children’s canal literature – the first wrapper that I have found is on a 1933 copy of Theodora Wilson’s ‘Jims Children –A tale of Town, Country & Canal ’  which was first published in 1912 and set on the Lancaster canal. Intriguingly this fairly drab single colour wrapper covers a colourful 2 or 3 colour embossed Illustrated cover.

Childrens book wrapper & embossed illustrated cover from 1933.

Title page & frontispiece.



Also from 1933 Mark Harborough’s  ‘Fossil the Scout’  is probably the first children’s canal book published in the UK  to have a wrapper.on its first edition.



Wrapper & one of the lllustrations from the book.

Blogging on old canal books.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have not blogged for a few months. The summer months have been so busy with repairs to an old Dutch Tjalk and boating with family and friends on estuary & canal which together with other external activities mean I rarely have time to sit & blog.
One or two interesting items appeared at auction during the summer months.

31 late Victorian photographs of the Upper Thames & the North Wilts canal made £143 at auction.

A 22 page booklet promoting the proposed Western Union Canal together with a sizeable map  (37x18cm)  was a bargain at £33 on EBay.The canal which was to run from the Thames at Maidenhead to Cowley was promoted in 1820.

Another large map, this time of the proposed Basingstoke Canal dated 1790 fetched £89.                                                                                                                         
Three documents & 3 large maps of the proposed Berkshire & Hampshire Junction canal  & dated 1826 made  £124.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    
Two large maps (70x27 & 61x32cm) and dated 1783 &1784 of the proposed Thames & Severn canal together with a public notice promoting the canal made £112.                                                                                                      
Finally a copy of the 1918 edition of this famous canal classic together with its rarely seen dust wrapper appeared recently at auction. For those interested in the publication history of this book & its many editions  I am republishing a revised and updated earlier blog of mine. (See the following bl.)og

Dig Out Your Windlass’s (More Canal Collectable Auction Results).

 

Neales No2 Windlass. (£75)

You might consider cashing your old windlass in if your short of a few bob as rare collectable windlass’s have been achieving some surprising auction prices on EBay recently. The ones to look out for are all single eye with the mark of a canal carrying company eg FMC or canal company eg GJC. Also highly prized are the windlass’s that were produced by canal side blacksmiths eg Neale or Cooke who worked alongside the cut at Wheelock (T&M canal).

Selwyn Jordan at Keays dock windlass. (£80).

Grand Union Canal Wartime Enamelled Badge (£76).

Very rare and seldom seen, this enamelled badge was given to the employees of the Grand Union Canal Co during the war. They were all individually numbered (This one No22) and reads ‘Grand Union Canal Carrying Co Ltd, On National Service).

Fellows Morton & Clayton coal bucket. (£99).

Another rare survivor this bucket is inscribed ‘F M C & Co. CANAL NAV’n.OLDBURY. 1921. I certainly have never seen its like before and it could possibly be unique.

 

‘Canal Boat’  wood engraving No 66 of a limited edition of 70 by John O’Connor  c early 1960’s.

This lovely period print was good value at £36. John O’Connor is famed in  art circles for his unique wood engravings & in the canal book collecting world for his unique book  Canals Barges & People published in 1950. O’Connor visited the old Fellows Morton & Clayton dry dock at Uxbridge and fell in love with the people and boats of the cut, He included many of his engravings in the book in black & white and in conjunction with overprinting with lino cuts, – in colour, a revolutionary technique at the time. Because of the difficulties that the printers had in producing this book it was issued in an edition of only 1,000 which because of its appeal to both the art & canal worlds means that it is now a highly prized book commonly fetching  £100 and more. The print above was one of several that did not appear in the book and was printed later in the 1960’s. Look out for these as they can only increase in value. The book too is worth acquiring for both its art work and its intimate descriptions of the canal folk and their world. Prose that could only have been produced from personal experience.

 Ernest Thomas Windlass.

Finally a totally unique windlass changed hands recently for what must be a record price of £236. The windlass in question came from Ernie Thomas the well known BCN canal carrier. I feel privileged to be able to remember seeing one of his horse drawn boats in action in the 1960’s. Ernie was in the habit of having Windlass’s chrome plated and presenting them to friends and acquaintances. This one was presented to the landlord of the Boat Inn at Gnosall and lived over the bar for many years.   It is inscribed ‘To Stan Marshall with the compliments of Ernest Thomas of (Walsall) Ltd.’

 

So as I say ‘Dig em out’.

Mr Burt’s Unique Canoe Trip in 1906.

‘A Unique Canoe Trip’  Published in Frys Magazine,July & August 1906.

The late Nineteenth century saw the first tentative explorations for pleasure of the UK’s Inland Waterway network. With the emergence of a new middle class with money and the leisure to enjoy it, spare time was often spent ‘messing about in boats’. The Thames became enormously popular for boating excursions and gradually the more adventurous travelled further afield sometimes either camping alongside or on their boat or alternatively staying at waterside inns overnight.

Londoners intent on recording their trips for posterity the route –Thames – Thames and Severn Canal & back via the Kennet & Avon was very popular and this was the route that Burt took. A variation on this was to travel – Thames – Oxford Canal – Warwick & Worcester Canals – R Severn & then back via the Thames & Severn Canals. This latter canal & the Kennet & Avon were of course scenically very attractive, had little traffic and were in close proximity to the great metropolis. The Grand Junction Canal on the other hand although nearer to London had the disadvantage of still being comparatively busy commercially and for the fair eyes of these early voyagers  the countryside it passed through was not so memorable.

One of the earliest magazine accounts of one of these round voyages that included the Thames & Severn Canal was ‘The Strange Adventures of a Houseboat’  by William Black which although a work of fiction was obviously based on a first hand knowledge of these canals. This was first published as a series in The Illustrated London News in 1886.

William Bliss canoed these routes several times in the 1880-90 period and the author Temple Thurston did an identical journey in his well known book ‘The Flower of Gloster’  in 1911.

So we can see that unfortunately Mr Burt’s trip was far from unique. Yet in another sense it was’  for the account is illustrated with over 50 small thumb nail photographs. This must be something of a record and shows also a pioneering use of photography. In fact I cannot recall another British canal book before this time that used photographic illustration.

Mr Burt and crew of one chose to stay in waterside inns during their 350 mile trip. On arrival at Inglesham they found the entrance lock to the Thames & Severn to be closed forcing them to carry on up the shallow Thames to Cricklade where they portaged across to the Canal. They carried round all the locks in the Golden Valley as these were all closed for repair too (a not unusual event on this canal). On reaching Sharpness they managed to have their canoe taken downriver on a dumb barge towed by a tug. Frighteningly they nearly missed the mouth of the Bristol Avon when cast off from the Tug at 5am in very rough conditions and being swept up river with the tide.

Of the Kennet & Avon the author readily attests to its beauty and its semi disuse at this time can be judged when he states that they only passed one boat during their journey from Bath.

To The West Of England by Canal (1912).

Those who like myself love and collect old waterway books will be pleased to see that Steve Parkin has decided to find out a little more about one of our earlier UK Canal book authors. I had been gratified but a little perplexed as to why an earlier blog of mine ‘ A Forgotten book from the 1930’s’  published in Nov 2010 had been getting a lot of recent hits. Turning to Steve’s blog http://nbalbert.blogspot.com I found that he had mentioned my site in the first of a series of articles he is writing about William Bliss who is one of that neglected band of early canal travel authors and about whom little has been published.
So I for one will be looking forward to reading the results of Steve’s researches. Thinking about these few early authors and turning to my own collection I remembered a thin paper back published in 1912 which was probably the first ‘canal travel’ book in the 20th C to be illustrated using photographs although I have seen magazine articles from c1906 using photographs to illustrate accounts of canal voyaging.    

‘To the West of England by Canal’  by Robert J Finch was published as a small thin paperback in 1912 by the school text book publishers J M Dent & sons in their ‘Educational Journeys’ series of books intended for teachers leading school educational visits to places of interest etc. The author seems to have been the senior Geography master at Hornsey County school who had led a party of senior children from his school each year from 1907 – 1911 on journeys along the Kennet & Avon Canal. So it seems that school outings & educational visits/holidays are not just a part of a modern school curriculam at all and indeed judging by this evidence they seem to have been an established facit of school life at the turn of the 20th C. Certainly I have not come across any other evidence before this time of canal travel by schools and Finch’s annual trips on the K&A are pioneering in this respect.

Pioneering too was the authors use of camping boats i e narrow boats. The party was large with 60 children travelling and sleeping in hammocks on 2 boats.
The book is primarily a guide to the local sights –literary,archaeological,historical topographical that might be visited from the canal which the author states ‘ is practically disused for commercial traffic’. The preface contains hints and tips for camping on boats and this is followed by a history of the K&A and canals in general. Strip maps of the canal accompany the text throughout.
I have illustrated the most interesting of the pioneering  photographs. I particularly like the top one which shows a pair of the camping boats breasted up at the entrance to the Savernake tunnel . I wonder whether they went through it still breasted?
The bottom photograph shows the boats again breasted up outside the famous tea gardens at Brislington on the Bristol Avon (which amazingly are still there & in themselves must constitute some record for longevity). The boat on the inside of this picture seems to have a conversion or at least a hard top as does one of the boats in the tunnel picture. Both boats have bow cabins.
Looking at these photographs taken so long ago I wondered how many of the young men probably of sixth form age that can be seen in various poses about the boats would return from the carnage of a war that in a couple of years would break out in Europe.!!
A rare little book & I have only ever seen the one. I can find no copies for sale on the internet.
Next time I hope to show the earliest English canal voyage illustrated by photographs that I have in my collection and in future articles talk about other early forgotten canal voyagers.

FELLOWS MORTON & CLAYTON.

Just in case your interested & feeling flush!!!

This boat side panel is for auction at a U S Auction house in Maine –30th Jan.  Estimate $500.

Prompts the obvious question how/ why the US. An interesting story here perhaps. From the registration No – anyone know the boat?

Hiring on the Trent & Mersey in 1951.

The ‘Dabchick’  was hired from Stone in 1951 for a weeks cruising. Fourteen foot long with a two stroke engine she was capable of being fully enclosed overnight although the two women who hired her chose to camp alongside the canal, the hire price including tent and primus stove. Cost for a weeks hire £8.50.!!!!     Source ‘Heiress’ magazine –May 1951.

In the footsteps of ‘Bliss’–(A recent find).

 

 

One of the unexpected pleasures in collecting and dealing in old canal books is the occasional chance find that turns up to surprise and delight. One such find occurred recently in a collection of old canal books bought at Auction. In a copy of ‘The Heart of England by Waterway’  by William Bliss published in 1934 (See my 2010 blog ‘ A forgotten book from the 1930’s ) I found a boaters log from 1938 stuck in the back of the book. It consisted of 6 pages of note paper which detailed a trip from Braunston down the Oxford Canal & onto the Thames.

The canoe trip took place over the course of a week in June 1938.

The author is very much preoccupied by wind direction being a canoeist so distances and times taken to travel are detailed meticulously. The author left Braunston at 10.30am and arrived at Napton at 3pm where he was supplied with a ‘winch’ by the lock keeper who told him that he and his father before him had worked the lock for a total of 100years.

At Fenny Compton Supper,Bed and Breakfast at the George & Dragon cost 7/- and consisted of eggs & bacon for supper and bacon & eggs for breakfast ! Pub menus in those days were obviously not famed for their diversity of choice.

Having passed over the summit where he had met two pairs of motor boats and 6 horse drawn boats all travelling north he finally made Claydon at 10.45am , Banbury Wharf for 5pm and Twyford bridge for 6pm. That day he passed about 6 horse drawn boats all going north.

At Weir Lock he was asked to produce his pass for the first time and at Somerton Deep lock he had trouble getting his boat out of the empty lock and had to ask for the lockies assistance. Arriving at Dukes lock he found it locked as it was a Sunday but the ‘very officious’ lock keeper let him through. In the Duke’s cut he went the wrong way – going down the mill leat but finally arrived on the Thames proper at Kings lock. Here he disembarked travelled to Cricklade by road and attempted to canoe downstream to Lechlade . The weather being hot and the river shallow he seems to have spent more time out of the canoe dragging it over shallows than he did in it.

Having detoured up the Evenlode he eventually reached Oxford where he sampled the delights of the Cherwell as far as Islip Mill.

The author of this log had followed routes described in Bliss’s book almost exactly. The final tally was Braunston – Oxford 61 miles,Cricklade Oxford – 43 miles & Oxford – Islip & back 15 miles. Charges for the Oxford canal came to £0 – 13 – 9 pence.

Incidentally I notice that a copy of this book fetched £100 on EBay recently.

MAY I WISH ALL MY READERS A VERY HAPPY CHRISTMAS.

BRITAIN JUST BEFORE THE STORM (A Canadian Canoe Threads Old English Waterways ….’ in 1940.

 

Amos Burg the author of this article in The National Geographic Magazine seems to have been an intrepid American traveller with several accounts of trips in the Yukon and Oregon to his credit. For this article he  shipped his Canadian canoe Song of the Winds 6000 miles from Oregon to the West India Dock in London. Arriving solo he soon decided that he needed a companion for his proposed month long tour of the English canals and chose Harry whom he found stranded on the outbreak of war at the American Embassy.

On arrival at Limehouse Basin he seems to have been treated with some ceremony being met by the head engineer who presented him with a lock key tied with a pink ribbon (which I must say sounds just about the most unlikely canal anecdote I’ve heard but I am just repeating what I read in the Nat Geo!!!) At this time in the very early years of the war – Limehouse basin was so crammed with pairs of boats loading raw materials for the Midlands War effort that they gave up the attempt to leave the basin until early the next morning. After paddling all day they camped on the Island at Little Venice where they were hospitably received by the local kids armed with stones and other missiles.

At Rickmansworth he found Walkers boat yard still building wooden Narrow Boats and talking to the lock keeper at Batchworth Lock whose grandfather had started work at the same lock in 1794, he was told that 40 pairs of boats were passing daily carrying metals and war materials to the midlands.

Bargeman's ‘Service Van’ !!

Amos Burg and The Song of the Winds travelled across Birmingham and up the Shroppie to Ellesmere Port where somewhat amazingly they locked down into the ship canal ,passed through Eastham Lock and travelled on down the Mersey tideway before journeys end at Liverpool.