Product Description

In 1943 Emma Smith signed on with the Grand Union Canal Carrying Company under their wartime scheme of employing women to replace the boaters who had joined up. Emma sets out with Nanette and Charity on a big adventure: three eighteen-year-old girls, freed from a conventional middle-class background, precipitated into the world of the boating fraternity. Never before had they met such people, the women with plaited hair and gold earrings, the men with choker scarves and darkly sunburnt faces, whole families existing for generation after generation on boats painted the brilliant colours of blue and scarlet, white and glossy black, living hard but undisturbed lives - until the arrival of these incomprehensible young creatures from another planet. Presented with the motor boat Venus and its butty boat, the Ariadne, the three girls embark on their maiden trip. They learn how to handle a pair of seventy-two foot-long canal boats, how to carry a cargo of steel north from London to Birmingham and, on the return journey south, coal from Coventry; how to navigate hazardous locks in the apparently unceasing rain; how to splice ropes, bail out bilge water, keep the engine ticking over and steer through tunnels. They live off kedgeree and fried bread and jam, adopt a kitten, lose their bicycles, laugh and quarrel and get progressively dirtier and tougher as the weeks go by. First published in 1948, Maidens' Trip is a classic memoir of the growth to maturity of three young women in the exceptional circumstances of Britain at war. Informative and fascinating, it breathes new life into England's canals and is vivacious, entertaining and poignant. A pure delight.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14432 in Books
• Published on: 2009-06-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 240 pages

Review
'A joyous and rare memoir ... catching that era and that adventure that now will live forever
--Michael Ondaatje

About the Author
Emma Smith was born Elspeth Hallsmith in 1923 in Newquay, Cornwall, where until the age of twelve, she lived with her mother and father, an elder brother and sister, and a younger brother. Her book, Maiden's Trip, was first published in 1948 and won the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize. Her second, The Far Cry, was published the following year and was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. In 1951 Emma Smith married Richard Stewart-Jones. After her husband's death in 1957 she went to live with her two young children in Wales, where she proceeded to write and have published four successful children's books, a number of short stories and, in 1978, her novel The Opportunity of a Lifetime. Since 1980 she has lived in the London district of Putney. In 2008 she published The Great Western Beach, her memoir of her Cornish childhood. Once again, it gained widespread critical acclaim.

Customer Reviews

Blissful!
This is an evocative account of three young women encountering a truly alien way of life. I first read this book more than 40 years ago at the age of 8 or 9 ( we lived beside the Shropshire Union canal) and I was bewitched by Emma Smith's story and the vivid picture which she drew of a world with it's own rules and traditions, in many ways detached from the war and it's impact. I am about to reread it for the twelfth or so time, whilst on a narrowboat holiday and I will introduce it to my daughters.

A maiden's war effort, her determination to contribute and grow
A very enjoyable read. Emma Smith brings her experiences on the canals to life - written from the perspective of a volunteer doing her best for England during the War. I knew of the land girls but had never known that the canals were supported during the war by similar patriots.

I read the book during a canal boat holiday covering some of the same waterways described in the book; the contrast in approaches (now 'safety first' and 'relaxed enjoyment', then 'get the goods delivered quickly') was clear.

I recommend reading this book - though the reader must not enter the book expecting the 'maiden' to have any form of sexual experience; perhaps a difference in expectation in literary content between today and 60 years ago!

Maidens' Trip
I needed to know a bit about the book and finding it 'fun', ordered it. I will be passing it around various friends of all ages as it gives a fascinating insight of 'another' life.
I was also most pleased with the speed of Service provided.