Narrow Boats at Work
£9.95
This book is out of print. The copies available are second hand, in near-as-new or very good condition.
This book contains over 200 archive photographs of historic narrowboats at work during the first half of the 20th century and a little later. Each photograph is accompanied by a detailed caption explaining the location and what is going on in an engaging and authoritative way. The book is unashamedly about narrow boats on the canals of England. The author fully realises that there were many other types of craft trading on the inland waterways of Britain, but he has chosen only to illustrate the narrow beamed craft, which are now collectively known as narrow boats. Practically all types of inland waterway craft have been illustrated and described in Edward Paget-Tomlinson’s book Britain’s Canal and River Craft.
Only 1 left in stock
The challenge with a book such as this, which is written around historic photographs, is that it is not always possible to illustrate every point that the author would like to make; very often suitable illustrations cannot be found. He is, therefore, left to compromise; which means in this case that some of the less common varieties of narrow boats may not be included and possibly some boating techniques have been left out, as have many examples of the different types of cargoes carried. Where possible, most of the illustrations have been chosen from pre-1950 photographs, but with the greater interest in canals since World War II, it was impossible to ignore some very good post-1950 pictures. Most of these, however, represent the narrowboat at work much as it had been for the last 100 years or so.
The author has found it very hard to find illustrations from a number of northern canals, such as the Rochdale or Huddersfield Narrow. Perhaps pictures do not exist; or it may be that research for them has not been deep enough. Again, the pictures used in the book show boats and techniques which could have commonly been used on these northern waterways.
While there are still pockets of trade by Number Ones on the canals, this book is about the days when such trade was commonplace, and people did not ‘stop and stare’ as the boats went by. Here then, for the first time, is a full-length picture book devoted entirely to the narrow boat at work.
Author: Michael E Ware
Binding: Softback
Published: March 1985 (2nd printing – originally published in 1980)
Pages: 144
Size: 248 x 188 mm
ISBN: 0861901444
Publisher’s Price (in 1985): £4.95
