Product Description

Over a few years in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Robert Longden took a series of photographs of the narrow boat community at Hawkesbury Stop, the main meeting point for those who worked the Midlands canals. The images presented in this book are of a close community and represent its members in a very intimate way - at work, at play, in their domestic affairs, and as they lived on the paired and single colourful narrow boats. They illustrate the close relationship between all ages and types within the community, and the dramatic boat shapes and infrscape of this rural and industrial area. Sonia Rolt, who herself worked the canals during the period and knew the photographer, provides an introduction, which details how Robert Longden came to this passionate involvement. The introduction also sets the photographs in the context of their time, the last period when the narrow boats could be said to play a serious part in transporting goods in quantity.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #279937 in Books
• Published on: 1998-05-21
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

Customer Reviews

Poignant photographs of the dying years of life on the canal
I enoyed this book immensely. These wonderful photographs show us that life on the British canals in the 1940s and 1950s was hard, and that it was not exclusively a male preserve. Here we see families with children living and working on the boats. This way of life has passed forever and these photographs provide a rare view of a culture that, in the end, could not compete with railways.