Book review: Barging Round Britain by John Sergeant and David Bartley
Barging Round Britain: Exploring the History of our Nation's Canals and Waterways by John Sergeant
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
"Barging Round Britain" sounds good as the title of a book on the history of Britain's canals and its narrow boats - it has a ring to it - but it's an intriguing choice nevertheless when you consider that boats people found the term "barge" and "barging" offensive! Maybe the authors are signalling that despite their knowledge of the topic they are not boaters?
The book is perfect for anyone wishing to move into a narrow boat, already living in one, or keen on British history (especially engineering history). It's structured chronologically, starting from the first canals until the last one built. After each chapter detailing the history of a particular canal, the book then offers a guide for the journey on that particular canal, for any readers who chooses to have the book with them as they cruise the canals. It's worthwhile reading these sections, though the desire is high to skip them, as they contain interesting tidbits of English and Welsh history. For example, near Liverpool there is a National Nature Reserve with the largest area of peat bog in the country where the military set fire to moss during WWII to make the Luftwaffe think it was Liverpool and drop their bombs there.
The most interesting section, in my view, is towards the end, where it goes into the canal's social history. The miscreants that manned the boats in its early days (considered the worst of the worst for their boozing and depravity), to the families that then grew from them - entire communities that were born and raised in tiny cabins, shunned by "good society", living in awful conditions (no lavatories, washing their clothes in canals dirtied by the industrial revolution) - there were so many interesting facets mentioned (boat schools created, for example, as well as floating chapels!)
There's a lot of interesting info for history buffs:
- Charles Darwin's grandfather was directly involved with the implementation of canals in England, which led to the Industrial Revolution. He'd have been proud to know his grandchild would one day be the father of the theory of Evolution.
- Boats were drawn by horses on canal paths. Once they reached tunnels, there would be men and women waiting to offer their help in pulling the boats along them. They (known as leggers) would lie on their backs on top of the boat and push with their legs. Wasn't unusual for some to fall in the water and drown. Horses, in the meantime, were worked to their death and were considered the worst treated animals in the country. It wasn't unknown for horses to drop dead into canals and be left there.
- Birmingham was the epicentre of a lot of discoveries that propelled the Industrial Revolution and changed the world, such as the first steam engines. The expansion of canals there also involved a lot of corruption.
- There was a "Canal Mania" at the end of the 18th Century, when canals shares steadily grew, encouraging frenzied speculation and investment - often on canals that never got their permits through Parliament or took decades to finally be completed. Fortunes were made and lost. All interest, sadly, was in making money and not maintaining the canals or creating decent working conditions - so only the worst possible characters took on a boating life. Crime was rife.
- After the "Canal Mania" came the "Rail Mania", killing off canal trade. It made me think of MySpace, killed off by Livejournal, which then got killed off by Facebook... which then got killed off by TikTok?
Luckily, the canals didn't die - thanks to a revival of interest in the Second World War, enthusiasts worked on restoring many stretches, and soon the leisure boating industry moved in. Nowadays, canals are seeing a really strong revival, with many people moving into narrow boats thanks to the high cost of living "on land" (the book doesn't go into this, though.)
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