The Great Days of the Canals

London: David and Charles. Very Good/Very Good. 1989. Hard Cover. 4to 0715392646 Dust jacket complete. Green cloth with bright gilt titling on spine. Map end papers. No ownership inscription. Numerous Colour & b/w Illustrations / Photographs. 224 pages clean and tight. The canals we travel for pleasure were actually built for work and industry - in The Great Days of the Canals the author takes you on a nostalgic journey through the past and present and reveals of the future of Britain's canals. Canal building, with special sections dealing with architecture and engineering, the steady development of trade, waterways craft and the early days of pleasure boating and many other topics of interest are enthusiastically and lovingly portrayed by an author who has been researching and writing about canals for over twenty years. A good deal of emphasis is placed on people, starting with the engineers and navvies, then leading on to the boat people and including the pleasure boaters and the new generation of restorers. Much of the material has never appeared in print before and includes taped interviews with boating families. The Great Days of the Canals, fully illustrated using historical material and a number of photographs specially taken for this book, is a book to dip into or read from cover to cover. And it will be enjoyed for many years by all those who have an interest, however fleeting, in Britain's unique inland waterways. Jacket illustrations: (Front) Carrying boats at Preston Brook warehouses belonging to the Anderton Canal Carrying Company, 1969 (Photograph by Tony Lewery) (Back) Hatton Locks on the Grand Union Canal (Photograph by Derek Pratt) .