Dunkirk Evacuation

BRITISH CANALS IN WARTIME: TRANSPORT IN BRITAIN, 1944

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Catalogue number
  • D 21781
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  • object category: Black and white
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photographs

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Object description

A boatman's wife, accompanied by her pet dog, closes the lower gates of a lock behind the family's pair of canal boats, somewhere along the Grand Union Canal. Canal boats are mostly operated in pairs, the leader being run by an engine with the second (known as the 'butty') towed behind. This woman had been steering the butty as they travelled. Also visible in the photograph is the boatman's daughter, who is holding a rope attached to the butty, to stop it banging against the lock gates as it sits next to the main boat in the lock.

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