BOATER: A Life on England's Waterways

Step aboard Boater, a mesmerising voyage along the tranquil waterways of England, written by former UK Canal Laureate, Jo Bell. Marcus Aurelius said: "Very little is needed for the happy life." This life is a lifestyle - for over 20 years Jo Bell, archaeologist and poet, has travelled the waterways of England and sometimes Wales, meeting extraordinary people in an extraordinary environment which has taught her about human nature and her own, about rope and Brasso and bravery, ducks and locks and above all the necessity for a constant supply of biscuits. Her clever and funny memoir she describes an alternative nation where different maps and deep history is home to people who live and work in a world quite separate from landlubbers. It is an adventure story which requires us to look differently at the land we live in. The history of the canals is a history of work and of a changing planet involving armies of navvies who dug out the channels, thousands of mill workers and miners and generations of boating families whose knowledge was subtle and deep, but unrecorded because writing was not their habit. The canals of Britain are one of the greatest achievements of human endeavour. In her partial account of their history, Jo touches on the lives of James Brindley and Thomas Telford, canal builders, and that of writer L. T. C. Rolt. Her peaceful life is interrupted when a turbulent relationship takes her on a year-long odyssey through the tranquil waters and on to the treacherous Bristol Channel. We are welcomed onboard for 296 pages. Woodcut illus.