We all know about the railroads and the way they reshaped industrial Britain. But canals? Last night I watched an amazing documentary on SBS, "BUILDING BRITAIN’S CANALS", about an era when shipping was king. The landscapes those canals went their way through reminded me irresistibly of Wind in the Willows.
While the canals have long lost their industrial use, they are now home to countless narrowboats. The first full-length book to describe a journey by converted narrowboat is "Two Girls in a Barge" by V. Cecil Cotes (which was the pseudonym of Sara Jeannette Duncan, a Canadian Newspaper journalist and author of several other books). It was published in 1891 and describes a journey up the Grand Junction, Oxford & Coventry canals by a couple of female Cambridge graduates, an artist and the author.
To travel on one of those narrowboats - with or within two girls - has been on my bucket-list for many, many years. Being little more than an armchair-traveller these days, I am lucky to have found an online copy of this book here.
