Wartime Traffic

[Heartland]

In the days when British Waterways undertook sensible recording of boat peoples memories ( CRT have now seemingly gone down the road to aberrant and widely diverse subjects) Violet Stanley was interviewed by Emma Chaplin for the Inland Waterways Heritage Network Sound Archive. Her father was a boatman and she lived on the boats that worked to London. Violet was Tipton born as Violet Wise (1929). The boats were GUCCCo, although not clear about name.

 

She mentioned a prank to scare her father was to put the peg in the engine (it was a bolinder) which made the boat faster

 

Mother would scrub cabin with "monkey" soap

 

Wartime traffic included goods for the army and air force with loads to Tring including Uniforms, food packs, timber and prefabs.

 

It would of use to know how much more of such trade has been recorded.

 

Ray Shill

[Athy]

An interesting avenue of research, Ray. I'm surprised that prefabs would consist of pieces all small enough to fit into the holds of narrowboats.

[Heartland]

I was surprised too, but Violet mentions that a boat capsized carrying one, or part of one that is.

 

I suppose her recording and those of many more are kept at Ellesmere Port. This transcript was given to me at the Wateways History Workshop at Tipton 1999.

 

Ray Shill

[koukouvagia]

I was told by someone who used to steer our butty (Hampton) that it was used to transport shell cases from Birmingham to a munitions factory near Great Heywood (I think).

It would be interesting to verify this.

[TimYoung]

Our shortboat Severn was allegedly involved in a women trainee scheme, much as on the G U.

It would be wonderful if information on this was to be found.

Tim

[billh]

Navy Rum, from Jamaica. A ship load arrived at Bristol(?) but could not be immediately distributed to the RN and storage at the port was not available. Someone had the bright idea of sending it to underused canal warehouses all over the system . FMC shifted it around to these warehouses and later (what was left of it,after somewhat insecure transport & storage) to distribution depots. A matter of debate as to how important this particular canal transport was to the war effort.

[Nightwatch]

Navy Rum, from Jamaica. A ship load arrived at Bristol(?) but could not be immediately distributed to the RN and storage at the port was not available. Someone had the bright idea of sending it to underused canal warehouses all over the system . FMC shifted it around to these warehouses and later (what was left of it,after somewhat insecure transport & storage) to distribution depots. A matter of debate as to how important this particular canal transport was to the war effort.

I would imagine very important.

[Pluto]

The Canal Transport Ltd files from Eanam Wharf, now held in the Waterway Archive, has a considerable amount of detail for wartime traffics on the L&LC. There were a couple of loads by FMC for Liverpool which had to be transhipped at Leigh because of a stoppage, a range of food stuffs, and the occasional naval cargo, though most traffic was similar to that carried pre-war. There was only one boat used regularly by boatwomen on the canal, though a couple, including Venus, were used initially. The scheme, which began early in 1944, was not particularly successful, with just one boat, Mu, being worked by Nancy Ridgway by the end of 1944.

[The Bagdad Boatman (waits)]

Jim Briggs used to tell of moving 50 ton of sugar from Liverpool to Leeds in 52 hours during the war. That was when the locks were manned and had full size paddles.

[Derek R.]

Jim Briggs - or Joe Bridge? I met with Joe in Skipton in 1983, and we had a good chat. Many were the tales he could tell - the 52hr trip was one. Still got a piece of his ropework in the form of a Monkeys fist.

[Pluto]

At an average of 3mph and 7 minutes per lock, 52 hours would just be possible. In 1888, shortly after steamers had been introduced, the time for the Leeds fly was generally between 65 and 75 hours, though this would have also involved towing dumb boats and stopping to load and unload as necessary. By 1900, this had come down to 56 to 60 hours for the trip.

[AMModels]

lots of traffic on the BCN and surrounds during the war, some of the boatmen were listed as protected occupations due to their importance to the war effort. Munitions casings were a regular traffic for sure but I dont know the locations.

[Leo No2]

Some of you will have read this elsewhere but it is my Aunt's (Daphne March) account of operating Heather Bell during the war with some account of the cargoes carried.

 

When I started boating in 1941 the snow was deep on the ground and there were no women skippers. When I left the water for the bank this summer, practically the whole system of inland waterways had been covered by amateur boatwomen trained by two of my early mates. An advertisement for the first of these brought applications in a number and variety that surprised me: they ranged from ballet-dancers to moneylenders and from sailors to service-dodgers.

 

It was two years before I attained the competence and social standing of a professional boatwoman, and my experience was gained at the cost of long hours, some spent in the heavy work of handling cargoes, anxious moments at the tiller, and exposure to all weathers.

 

The romantic features of boating have already had their share of publicity, but details of the work done by boats and boat people are usually left behind the curtain of obscurity, which veiled the canals and everything to do with them until AP Herbert published his Water-Gypsies. In four years our Heather Bell carried more than 7,000 tons of cargo. She took slack to Worcester, spam to Nottingham, sugar to Wolverhampton, and flour to Tipton, sauce to Wigan, coal to Oxford, copper and aluminium to Birmingham, shell-cases to the Potteries, grain to the Mersey, and RAF stores to the Bristol Channel. Each cargo had its own peculiarity, and each canal its rule of the road. On some cuts boats keep to the right, on others the left, on some empty boats must give way to loaded ones, and on others uphill takes precedence over downhill traffic.

 

Our usual round trip started with loading 352 sacks of flour at Worcester for Tipton. In the first fifteen miles there are 36 locks. If these were against us, we had to draw them off as well as fill them, which meant double work for us both. Novices used to complain of having been made to run half way to Birmingham. At the top lock we would thankfully take the shining handles or windlasses from our belts where we carried them and stow them in the cabin for ahead of us stretched a 15-mile pound, with three tunnels, the last 1¾ miles long. There is no lighting in these tunnels, so we carried a headlamp. If another boat had just gone through, her smoke reduced visibility sometimes to 15 feet, which made steering difficult as the boat is 71 feet long.

 

At the Bar Lock we would give our tickets to the toll-clerk, hear the latest boating news, fill the water-can and perhaps stop for the night at a tie-up. These recognised stopping-places which usually boast a lock, a shop, a village inn (the boozer) and a stable, are often called after lock-keepers, some still alive, some living in the memories of old boatmen, and others long since forgotten: at Gills, Parkerses, Dicks, Denny Merrils Mothers lock, live the families who have given their name to the place, but Ammonses is no longer kept by a Hammond.

 

At Tipton the flour was unloaded in a couple of hours and then we set off for Cannock Chase for slack. Here we made friends with the day or Joey boatmen who have homes ashore, and never go far from the collieries. I have been glad to know the Black Country, which looks at its best from the water, and its inhabitants kind people with a good sense of humour.

 

Another trip we often did was to go empty to Sharpness for grain. We locked down into the Severn at Worcester, keeping a good look-out for the petrol tankers which ply up and down the river, and whose crews are always ready to give us a tow: their 160 horse-power was a big help to out 10 if we were trying to reach a tie-up before dark. In the summer the river is lovely, though you have to be careful to avoid the shallows: in the winter there is sometimes too much water for comfort, especially if you run across the tide as well, because the Severn is tidal as far as Tewkesbury.

 

At Gloucester we locked up into the Docks and Berkeley Ship Canal with its low white bridges rather like those over Dutch canals. Sixteen miles further on in Sharpness we loaded bulk wheat from the silo, and if we had time we would brush up our French, Norwegian, or Dutch with the sailors there. In Sharpness before D-day there was a grand array of ships, all flying the B flag: I am loading or discharging explosives. We were glad to hear that of the sixteen ships, which went to Normandy sixteen came safely back.

 

Fog, wind and ice were our worst enemies. It was on a foggy December evening in 1941 that the Darleydale the biggest tanker on the river ran into us. We sank in 8 feet of water in 8 minutes, having luckily salvaged enough blankets to spend the night in moderate comfort on the floor of a Gloucestershire cottage. Fishers History of Europe stood up well to its three days immersion.

 

At Whitsuntide or in August we used to go down the Shropshire Union Canal. If locks had to be repaired, they were generally done then, and boat after boat took her place in the queue waiting for the work to be finished. Those were blissful days with time to paint, shine the brass, scrub the cabin, or de-carbonise the engine at ones leisure, and afterwards to yarn with the boat people or play the accordion, knowing for once that there was no more work to be done. Then when the stoppage was over, everyone set off again in a mad hurry, often going all night to make up for lost time. Twice we went fly like that from Ellesmere Port to Wolverhampton: thirty-three hours non-stop, with about an hours sleep each.

 

Day and the fields of Cheshire changed slowly into night and the sandstone cuttings of Shropshire. Dawn came at the top of Audlem locks, and the first boat wed meet would say: What, you two girls been night-owlin again?

 

I shall miss the cut and all my friends there: but it is a community that does not change and it is nice to know that Big-Mouthed Bella, Sam and Flo, Stickemup and Soapy Joe, young Ada and all the rest of them will probably be about when I go back every now and then.

Edited June 23, 2015 by Leo No2

[BuckbyLocks]

Daphne March carried flour from Worcester to Tipton throughout the war, with 'Heather Bell'. She also made several runs each year from 1941 onwards to Ellesmere Port, presumably for the same cargo. Back load was coal from Chasewater.

Olga Kevelos mentions prefabs in one of her interviews and one of the other women mentions bomb tails. Tinned sausage meat was another and of course cement in porous bags was a much disliked cargo.

[davey b]

I was told by someone who used to steer our butty (Hampton) that it was used to transport shell cases from Birmingham to a munitions factory near Great Heywood (I think).

It would be interesting to verify this.

More likely was through Great Heywood to Stone where it could easily have been road or tramway carried to Royal Ordnance Factory Cold Meece (Swynnerton area) though there were many small ROFs and Ministry Of Supply factories dotted around Staffordshire. Gt Heywood is close to Hixon Airfield too which was a Operational Conversion Unit and launched aircraft on bombing training runs so supplies may have been for there (or just empty cases for store to be filled later).

 

By 1942 there were 60+ explosives factories in the country, some set up by private companies for the benefit of the Crown e.g. Elstow (Filling Factory) was built by the Lyons Tea Company.

[Heartland]

Swynnerton Filling Factory was a distance from the canal, but connected to the main line railway (LMS). Birmingham had factories which made shell cases however and traffic by canal moving shell cases was possible.

 

Ray Shill

[c c]

Jack James took Guinness from London to Birmingham on Badsey through WWII. The Guinness archive confirms this and a couple of accounts written by the IDLE Women mention "the nice beer man". The run ceased after the Big Freeze in 1947 when Guinness realised there were thousands of cheap ex-military trucks to be had and men to drive them.

[Pluto]

Everyone seems to have heard of the volunteer boatwomen, but how many know about the Irishmen recruited to work on English canals in 1943. Not many, I suspect, even though there were at least 190 men employed.

[Rufford]

Would supplies have been unloaded at gnosall and sent via road or train to swynnerton?

[FadeToScarlet]

Our shortboat Severn was allegedly involved in a women trainee scheme, much as on the G U.

It would be wonderful if information on this was to be found.

Tim

Don't think Severn is mentioned in Nancy Ridgway's "Memories of a wartime canal boat woman" but I'll retread it to check.