Canal Boat – July 2018

canalboat.co.uk Canal Boat July 2018 9

CANAL BOAT NEWS

TOW

PATH

Limehouse plans

refused

Proposals by Canal & River

Trust marinas subsidiary

BWML to create new

paid-for pontoon berths

on part of what is currently

free visitor moorings in

Limehouse Basin have

been turned down. There

were over 50 objectors

(including boating groups

concerned about the

implications for convoys

heading for the tidal

Thames or craft using the

basin as a refuge), and the

Council is reported to have

refused the planning

application on the grounds

that it was not supported.

Short term

licences down

The Canal & River Trust’s

annual report shows the

number of boaters without

home moorings given

short term licences (for not

satisfying the Trust that

they cruise far enough) fell

from 560 to 520 in the last

six months. Most boaters

issued with them have

since satisfied CRT they

are cruising further, moved

off CRT’s waterways, sold

their boats or taken up a

home mooring. Of the

remaining 16 percent, most

have been issued with a

further short-term licence

or are still subject to action

• leaving 1 percent whose
  boats were removed by
  CRT.

Boat seller jailed

for fraud

David Shakespeare of

Nottingham Boat Sales has

been jailed four four years

after admitting cheating

customers out of £480,000.

The court heard that he sold

a boat on behalf of a

customer but kept the

money, used a boat he did

not own as security for a

loan and issued a cheque for

£27,000 which bounced.

TELEGRAPH

Watching over London’s towpaths

Keen to keep the towpaths of the

capital’s canals and towpaths safe

from muggings and other criminal

activities, the London boating

community has launched Canal

Watch London, an initiative to

“reclaim the towpath from crime”.

The idea follows a ‘human

chain’ event held in October 2017

in response to break-ins,

muggings and thefts. It

involves patrols of four

people (with torches and

whistles) to create a

non-confrontational presence

on the towpaths, and call the

police if they spot any criminal

behaviour. It has been launched

on the Hertford Union and

Regent’s canals in the

Victoria Park area.

The organisers are

encouraging people to email

[email protected] to

register their interest – either to

volunteer to take part in the

patrols, or just to keep informed.

The proposal to build a

new branch of the Grand

Union Canal to link it to

Daventry has reportedly

been ‘ditched’ in the run

up to local authority

changes. However the

Daventry Canal

Association has told

Canal Boat that a story

which appeared in local

press does not

represent an official

announcement,

although the decision to

prepare a business plan

for the Arm was

“currently on hold”.

Despite opposition

from the (Labour

controlled) Town

Council, the

(Conservative

controlled) Daventry

District Council gave

planning permission in

2017 for the scheme for

an arm to link the town

to the Grand Union Main

Line east of Braunston

Tunnel, and agreed

£300,000 of funding to

prepare a business plan

which envisages the

canal being built as part

of residential expansion

of the town. However

with the forthcoming

changes which will see

the District merged

into a new unitary

authority, all plans

are on hold while the

Council decides what

it is “prepared to move

forward with within

the time and financial

parameters we are

currently operating

within”.

Chairman Dean

Hawkey said that DCA

would “continue to push

for the Business Plan

to be implemented, as

we believe that this will

show that the canal arm

is financially viable, and

will prove to be a major

attraction to Daventry”.

THREAT TO DAVENTRY ARM PLAN

Emma Smith, author and wartime

boatwoman, has died.

She was a writer of novels,

memoirs and a children’s series,

and secretary to fellow author

Laurie Lee (to whom she

suggested that “ you ought to

write a whole book about your

childhood” – resulting in the

classic Cider with Rosie). But it is

for one book, Maiden’s Trip, that

she will be remembered by those

interested in the canals, as it is

based on her experience with the

wartime trainee boatwomen on

cargo-carrying narrowboats from

London to the Midlands.

Born Elspeth Hallsmith in

Cornwall, she had a difficult

family relationship as a result of

her father’s mental scars from the

First World War. A typing course

enabled her to leave home in her

teens to work as a secretary in

MI5 during the early years of the

Second World War. But she found

it “incredibly boring” and felt

herself cut off from the war effort,

so when she spotted an opening

to join the working boats, she

jumped at the chance.

It was “very hard work, but

very enjoyable hard work”,

carrying imported metals from

London to Birmingham and

returning with coal. She later

admitted that “it slightly bothers

me that the war for so many was

so dreadful, and for me it wasn’t”.

The experience was the basis

for Maiden’s Trip, described as a

novel but really a fictionalised

account of her actual experiences

on the boats. It won the 1949 John

Llewellyn Rhys Prize, was

serialised on radio, and adapted

for TV the 1970s – and it opened

doors to a career in writing.

Married, then widowed and left

with two young children and in a

difficult financial situation, she

fled to a remote Welsh farmhouse

but continued to write, including

a children’s series. More recently

she admitted to being “slightly

perplexed” at the idea of

republishing Maiden’s Trip and

other early works so long after

they had been written, being

more interested in what her

grandchildren were doing in the

present day. But she published

two volumes of her memoirs, The

Great Western Beach, describing

her childhood, and As Green As

Grass covering the years from

1935 to 1951. And she returned to

the canals briefly in 2008

(pictured) at the reunion of four

then surviving ‘Idle Women’ (a

derogatory nickname deriving

from their ‘IW’ badges signifying

‘Inland Waterways’ – she disliked

it to the point of amending her

commemorative badge at the

2008 event to read ‘boat woman’!)

to mark the unveiling of a

commemorative plaque to the

women’s wartime efforts at Stoke

Bruerne Waterways Museum.

Emma Smith (left, back) with fellow

wartime boatwomen Daphne March

(left, front), Sonia Rolt (centre) and

Olga Kevelos (right) in 2008

Emma Smith 1923-

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