 First edition | |
| Author | Emma Smith |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Putnam & Company |
Publication date | 11 Aug 1948 |
| Followed by | A Far Cry |
Maidens' Trip is a 1948 autobiography by Emma Smith based on her experiences as a volunteer boatwoman on Britain's Grand Union Canal during the Second World War. [1] It won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for 1949. [2]
In 1943 Emma Smith (then known as Elspeth Hallsmith) joined the Grand Union Canal Carrying Company under their wartime scheme of employing women to replace men who had gone off to fight. Freed from a middle-class background, Emma and her new workmates joined the boating fraternity and learned how to handle a pair of 72 ft long canal boats, carrying cargoes of steel and coal north from London to Birmingham and Coventry.
In 1968 Smith's book was serialised on the BBC's Woman's Hour and read by Miriam Margolyes. [3] A decade later it was adapted as a 3-part television serial, produced by the BBC (Birmingham) and broadcast in 1977. [4] It starred Tina Heath, Liz Bagley, Tricia George and John Salthouse and was directed by Moira Armstrong.
The Grand Union Canal in England is part of the British canal system. It is the principal navigable waterway between London and the Midlands. Starting in London, one arm runs to Leicester and another ends in Birmingham, with latter stretching for 137 miles (220 km) with 166 locks from London. The Birmingham line has a number of short branches to places including Slough, Aylesbury, Wendover, and Northampton. The Leicester line has two short arms of its own, to Market Harborough and Welford.
British Waterways, often shortened to BW, was a statutory corporation wholly owned by the government of the United Kingdom. It served as the navigation authority for the majority of canals and a number of rivers and docks in England, Scotland and Wales.
The River Nene is a river in the east of England that rises from three sources in Northamptonshire. The river is about 105 miles (169 km) long, about 3.7 miles (6.0 km) of which forms the border between Cambridgeshire and Norfolk. It is the tenth-longest river in the United Kingdom, and is navigable for 88 miles (142 km), from Northampton to The Wash.
The Trent and Mersey Canal is a 93+1⁄2-mile (150 km) canal in Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Cheshire in north-central England. It is a "narrow canal" for the vast majority of its length, but at the extremities to the east of Burton upon Trent and north of Middlewich, it is a wide canal.
The Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal is a navigable narrow canal in Staffordshire and Worcestershire in the English Midlands. It is 46 miles (74 km) long, linking the River Severn at Stourport in Worcestershire with the Trent and Mersey Canal at Haywood Junction by Great Haywood.
The Oxford Canal is a 78-mile (126 km) narrowboat canal in central England linking the City of Oxford with the Coventry Canal at Hawkesbury via Banbury and Rugby. Completed in 1790, it connects to the River Thames at Oxford, and links with the Grand Union Canal, which it is combined with for 5 miles (8 km) between to the villages of Braunston and Napton-on-the-Hill.
The canal network of the United Kingdom played a vital role in the Industrial Revolution. The UK was the first country to develop a nationwide canal network which, at its peak, expanded to nearly 4,000 miles in length. The canals allowed raw materials to be transported to a place of manufacture, and finished goods to be transported to consumers, more quickly and cheaply than by a land based route. The canal network was extensive and included feats of civil engineering such as the Anderton Boat Lift, the Manchester Ship Canal, the Worsley Navigable Levels and the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct.
The Coventry Canal is a navigable narrow canal in the Midlands of England.
The Shropshire Union Canal, nicknamed the "Shroppie", is a navigable canal in England. The Llangollen and Montgomery canals are the modern names of branches of the Shropshire Union (SU) system and lie partially in Wales.
Stone is a market town and civil parish in Staffordshire, England, 7 miles (11 km) north of Stafford, 7 miles (11 km) south of Stoke-on-Trent and 15 miles (24 km) north of Rugeley. It was an urban district council and a rural district council before becoming part of the Borough of Stafford in 1974.
The Gravelly Hill Interchange, popularly known as Spaghetti Junction, is a road junction in Birmingham, England. It is junction 6 of the M6 motorway where it meets the A38(M) Aston Expressway in the Gravelly Hill area of Birmingham. The interchange was opened on 24 May 1972.
The Grand Western Canal ran between Taunton in Somerset and Tiverton in Devon in the United Kingdom. The canal had its origins in various plans, going back to 1796, to link the Bristol Channel and the English Channel by a canal, bypassing Lands End. An additional purpose of the canal was the supply of limestone and coal to lime kilns along with the removal of the resulting quicklime, which was used as a fertiliser and for building houses. This intended canal-link was never completed as planned, as the coming of the railways removed the need for its existence.
The Grand Junction Canal is a canal in England from Braunston in Northamptonshire to the River Thames at Brentford, with a number of branches. The mainline was built between 1793 and 1805, to improve the route from the Midlands to London, by-passing the upper reaches of the River Thames near Oxford, thus shortening the journey.
Emma Smith was an English novelist, who also wrote for children and published two volumes of autobiography. She gave encouragement to Laurie Lee while he was writing his bestselling memoir of his childhood, Cider with Rosie.
The Grand Union Canal was a canal in England from Foxton, Leicestershire on the Leicestershire and Northamptonshire Union Canal to Norton Junction, close to Long Buckby Wharf on the Grand Junction Canal. It now forms the first 23 miles (37 km) of the Leicester line of the Grand Union Canal.
The Shropshire Union Railways and Canal Company was a Company in England, formed in 1846, which managed several canals and railways. It intended to convert a number of canals to railways, but was leased by the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) from 1847, and although they built one railway in their own right, the LNWR were keen that they did not build any more. They continued to act as a semi-autonomous body, managing the canals under their control, and were critical of the LNWR for not using the powers which the Shropshire Union Company had obtained to achieve domination of the markets in Shropshire and Cheshire by building more railways.
The Dudley Canal is a canal passing through Dudley in the West Midlands of England. The canal is part of the English and Welsh connected network of navigable inland waterways, and in particular forms part of the popular Stourport Ring narrowboat cruising route.
The Grand Union Canal Carrying Company was a freight carrying transport service in England from 1934 to 1948.
Hadar is a replica of a small Northwich narrowboat of the Star Class originally built for the Grand Union Canal Carrying Company (GUCCCo.) by W.J. Yarwoods of Northwich. She was built by Roger Fuller Boatbuilders Ltd of Stone, Staffordshire, and completed in 2007, and painted by Tina Paramore.
The boatwomen's training scheme was an initiative in the United Kingdom during the Second world war to attract women to work on Britain's canal network. Initiated by the Grand Union Canal Carrying Company (GUCCC) in 1942 the scheme was taken over by the Ministry of War Transport in 1944. The scheme closed after the end of hostilities in 1945. Nicknamed the Idle Women due to the Inland Waterways badge they wore in lieu of a uniform, it is estimated that approximately 100 women joined the scheme but only about 45 completed the training and only six are recorded as having participated throughout the length of the scheme.
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