A Canal People

`One of the most remarkable collections of old photographs I've ever seen they are like stories: the Photohraphs are full of Hndsome women, and rathe sulky mysterious men and wonderful mud-locked children... I was absorbed by them . Marvellous.' Ronald Blythe, Kaleidoscope

`An evocative and intimate reminder of a lost way of life.' The times

`The book is a joy to look at, a "must for waterway enthusiasts.' The Oldie

`The most remarkable series of photographs of canal people that I have ever seen.' Waterwa;ys World

During a few brief years in the late 1940s and early 1950s Robert Longden took a remarkable set of phofographs of the narrow boat community at Hawkesbury Stop-the main meeting point for those who worked the midlends canals. the images are of a close community and represent its members in a very imtimate way, at work, at paly in their domestic affairs, and as they lived on the paired and single colourful narrow boats. They illustrate kthe close relationship between al ages and types within the community, and the dramatic boat shapes and infrascape of this rural and industrial area.

Sonia Rolt, Who herself worked the canals during the period and Knew the photohraphe, provides and introduction, which details how Robert Longden came to this passionate involvement. It also sets the photographs in the cotext of their time, the last period when the narrow boats could be said to play a serious aprt intransporting goods in quantity. informative captions identify the scenes before us. Providing a rere unsihgt into the community who worked the wateways when it was still a way of life for many, this book will appeal not only to canal enthusiasts, but to anyone interested in Britain's social and industrial Heritage.