Water Gypsies: A History of Life on Britain's Rivers and Canals

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His memorial certificate (CWGC) describes him as Sergeant James Alfred Oliver. (Company Quartermaster Sergeant) Service Number- WR/501333, Inland Water Transport, Royal Engineers. During the 1950s and 1960s freight transport on the canals declined rapidly in the face of mass road transport. Coal was still being delivered to waterside factories that had no other convenient access. But many factories that had formerly used coal either switched to using other fuels, often because of the Clean Air Act 1956, or closed completely. The Anderton Boat Lift, the world's first commercially successful boat lift and the only boat lift in the United Kingdom. Hadfield, Charles (1966). The Canals of the West Midlands. Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0-7153-4660-1. Census- Age 7, at Crowle, River Trent at Amcotts, on board the vessel Agile with his uncle James White and aunt Annie (nee Oliver, later known as Grandma White)

The gypsies used to haggle and fight like mad; we used to keep well away because, when they got really mad, they used to throw knives at each other and many were badly hurt. Little did the onlooker realise what a complicated trade it was to put a lad to learn. For instance, most lads know what a hammer or an axe is, but when he went as mate of a keel to learn the trade, he found himself in a strange world. The sound of someone hailing 'Keel – a – hoy. Are you there, Captain? Come ahead with that keel' faded away about 1940. During the 19th century the canal systems of many European countries such as France, Germany and the Netherlands were modernised and widened to take much larger boats. This did not happen on a large scale in the UK, mainly because of the power of the railway companies, who owned most of the canals and saw no reason to invest in a competing form of transport. The only significant exception to this was the modernisation carried out on the Grand Union Canal in the 1930s. Thus, almost uniquely in Europe, many of the UK's canals remain as they have been since the 18th and 19th centuries: mostly operated with narrowboats. An exception to this stagnation was the Manchester Ship Canal, newly built in the 1890s using the existing River Irwell and River Mersey, to take ocean-going ships into the centre of Manchester via its neighbour Salford. [13] Road competition and nationalisation [ edit ] The Leeds and Liverpool Canal linked the two cities

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London has a port, and as early as 1790 this was linked to the national network via the River Thames and the Oxford Canal. A more direct route between London and the national canal network, the Grand Junction Canal, opened in 1805. Relatively few canals were built in London itself. [24] Landes, David S. (1969). The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present. Cambridge, New York: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge. ISBN 978-0-521-09418-4. Keels were built at various small shipyards on the banks of the rivers and canals. For example, the five different keels I had charge of were: The Unity, built by Stanilands of Thorne; the William & Jane, built at Goole (both these owned by my father), the Britannia at Dunstons of Thorne; the Daybreak at Goole, and the Daystar at Mexborough. Trade to the Mill had dropped, and Dad was getting old by now. He decided to give up keeling and sell the keel now that his Mate was married. So that was the end of my eighteen years as a keelgirl.

I don’t know what Mum expected to see, but she came from the cabin and shouted to us on the quayside, 'What a cabin! It's more like a horse box'. Everyone around us laughed. I wondered if she expected it to be like the one on our Comity, all polished brass work and nice carpets. I know they are better equipped these days. But they would be only one night on the boat, as the 'Duke' was a very fast boat. They would be in Zeebrugge early next morning. Well written, exciting and a brilliant historical / period novel which evokes a wonderful spirit of a time past. Height of the mainsails that I worked was about nine yards from the centre of the foot rope to the centre of the head rope of the sail. The width of the head of the sail was about 19 breadths of canvas. The topsail was a square sail of very light, strong canvas; it had two carring thimbles at the head and small eyelets for the lace line, also two thimbles in the clews. Permanently attached to it were hemp rope earrings and a lighter manila rope for lace lines. It was only used in a light wind or when the wind was favourable and when in use was made fast to the topsail yard. Traditional working canal boats In Great Britain nearly 4,000 miles (6,400km) of canals (shown in brown) were built Under the Transport Act 1962, the surviving canals were transferred in 1963 to the British Waterways Board (BWB), which later became British Waterways. In the same year the BWB decided to formally [ clarification needed] cease most of its narrowboat operations and transfer them to a private operator called Willow Wren Canal Transport Services. By then the canal network had shrunk to 2,000 miles (3,200km), half the size it was at its peak in the early 19th century. However, the basic network was still intact; many of the closures were of duplicate routes or branches. By the mid-1960s only a token traffic was left.Later it was reported in a local newspaper that, weather permitting, the R38 would set out on a long journey across the Atlantic to New Jersey, and would pass over many towns before taking the direct route. Hull would be one of the last towns the R38 would fly over – but she was destined never to reach New Jersey.

During that time, Mum, Dad and family had moved from Cobby's Yard to a larger house on Bottom Street, now Queen Street. I was born in Alma Cottage and lived there for two years. Then we moved to a larger house in Top Street, now renamed King Street. I can remember my life there at the early age of three, all hurry and bustle getting ready to catch a train from Thorne to Hull to board the good ship Hannah and Harriet. That was during the school holidays when my two brothers and sister were at home. George would be leaving school on June 1st, his birthday; in those days they did not usually have to wait until the end of term. As soon as one was 13 or 14, you could leave on the same day, or earlier if there was a job to go to. George was going with Dad as Mate, as Dad could not trust Old Tom. Maryann Bartholomew is a boatwoman, married to a born and bred boatman though she struggles being not born to the life she tries hard to be a good wife and help to her husband Joel. Linda EmmersonMy Dad Herbert Webster was skipper for furleys and Lincoln and Hull.l remember at furleys he was on loxley and other barges included Bradford and winthorpe + many others. He lived in Hammersmith Terrace, an eighteenth century street close to the river where every house now bears a blue plaque. So he set the greater part of the novel literally on his doorstep. The Hammersmith of the novel is pretty much the real place, between King Street and the river (as it must have been about 1930), although the magnificent picture-house described in chapter five does not seem to correspond to an actual Hammersmith cinema. It is not the famous Hammersmith Odeon, which opened in 1932 as the Gaumont Palace; it’s probably based on one of the several opulent cinemas that were beginning to appear in London at that time. We spent many an hour in these shipyards, watching the carpenters repairing old wooden keels and building new ones; timbers, beams and plankings were all saw by hand over the sawpits and shaped to measurements with adzes and planes. I recall the clatter of the carpenters' caulking mallets, the boiling pitch and escaping steam-like a fog-when the men carried long planks out of the steam house, to be bent round the head or stern of the ship they were repairing or building. The planks were hammered home with large spike mauls, all the work being done by hand. Then came the great day we had been waiting for.Jane Myers, 68, who has been living on board her yacht The Spirit of Dundee with her husband, 71, on and off for the last ten years, said residents were "disgusted", especially with comments suggesting they don't pay council tax. Bedes do not have any kind of formal education and they do not use medical facilities. Most of them speak Bengali. Most of them are Muslim but also practice Hinduism, Shamanism and Animism along with Islam. They are related to other South Asian nomadic groups, such as the Dom and Buno people. APH’s old house on Hammersmith Terrace is marked by a blue plaque. These riverfront houses used to be part of an upper-middle-class enclave, now pretty much the whole area has that character. The riverside trades have closed down or moved upstream.

When we went to the Vicarage to make an appointment for the wedding, Canon Littlewood said that he could not marry us on Easter Monday, the day we had chosen, because he already had three weddings arranged for that day. So we had to wait until the next day, Easter Tuesday, and it turned out to be worth waiting for as it was a glorious sunny warm day. We did not go away for a honeymoon; people did not think about them in those days when there was less money about. The Trent and Humber have entwined so many lives and hundreds of memories, sadly no more..I do know Dad wouldn`t of lived any other way. Albion Square development: Businesses have 'little or no appetite' in taking punt on major Hull scheme They brought lots of cards home showing all the damage done during World War I. They also had a picture taken of themselves dressed in Dutch clothes. Dad brought me a few trinkets, two serviette rings in mother of pearl, two fancy ornaments and a couple of lovely wall pictures – one of the promenade in Ostende, the other of the Kursaal Ostende. They shine beautifully as they are all inlaid with mother of pearl. Mum and Dad kept us amused for hours, telling us of the many things they had seen. Awful damage had been done during the war, but how happy the Dutch people were, and how pleased when they could tell amusing or sad tales to anyone like Mum and Dad who were on holiday.We are told all of Jane’s thoughts and those of the other characters as necessary. The author gives his own opinion directly as well as through the thoughts of Gordon Bryan, a wealthy artist who has a studio on the Hammersmith riverfront. Jane’s thoughts are simple; she never questions her own thoughts. Mr Bryan constantly asks himself why he thinks as he does. This presumably represents their difference in class. Burton, Anthony (1983). The Waterways of Britain: A Guide to the Canals and Rivers of England, Scotland and Wales. London: Willow Books, William Collins and Sons & Co Ltd. ISBN 0-00-218047-2. Dad and Old Tom hauled the boat down the canal from Mexbrough through Swinton, Kilnhurst and Conisbrough, taking it in turns to