Preface
This book is set in the early 20th century, in the years just before the First World War.
At that time, England was quite dependent upon hundreds of narrowboats, so called because they were less than seven feet wide. The largest were seventy-two feet long, but others varies from about sixty feet, up to that figure, the length being determined by the canals they were initially built to run on. The determining fact was the locks. Narrow locks could take a boat up to seventy-two long, and the broad locks take two boats at a time. Some even took wider barges, such as the Leeds & Liverpool canal which took barges of sixty-two feet long by fourteen feet and two inches wide.
This book is set mainly on the canals of southern England and the boats that plied their trade between Birmingham and London, using either the Grand Union or Oxford Canals.
A long time ago, in what seems like another life, I lived and worked on a narrowboat, travelling around England. This was around seventy or eighty years after the time around when this book is set and when the canals had almost non-existent remaining commercial traffic, the boats being used just for holiday travel. The role of the boats was destroyed by the coming of the railways, although some hung on, still working until after World War II (when they were very much still needed). Interesting fact, during WWII, canals were covered with coal dust on moonlit nights in certain areas, firstly to try to stop German bombers being able to use them as navigational aids, but also to try to prevent them from being bombed, as the Germans recognized the value they had to the country as part of the transport infrastructure.
I don’t claim this book to be factually accurate. Boats called ‘Ferret’ and ‘Foxglove’ have no doubt existed, it’s probably possible to think of any name and find a boat that has been called that, but this is not a historically accurate tale. Nor are all my canal routes strictly accurately. I have combined and conflated places and locations to suit the story. The book was written as an erotic romance, the boating life is just a backdrop, however I have tried to include some descriptions that indicate what life was like living in tiny back cabins less than seven feet wide and often no longer, and how the boats were worked. At the time this book is written, the boats had no running water, no electricity and no toilets, just chamber pots and an endless supply of slow moving canal water. The boaters were paid by the cargo weight delivered, one payment per boat, or pair. Travel slowly, or take your time, and you earned less money, and it wasn’t much to start with.
The Canal Act of 1877 started to set rules, causing boats to be registered, requiring children to attend school when not on the move, and treating children of over fourteen as adults, and placing limits on how many could sleep in a cabin. It wasn’t until 1920 that children were required to attend school for two hundred days a year. This caused the break-up of families and many gave up and moved on to the land. Engines started to appear around 1905, before (and after) that children lead the horses at seven and worked the locks by the time they were twelve.
The tiny cabins were often highly decorated, with lacework, lace plates and polished brasses. Warmed night and day, summer and winter by a coal or wood fuelled range that was also the cooker and oven.
I hope you enjoy this erotic tale and will leave favourable comments, or please, leave a review, I value all your input and opinions.
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