Canal Life

Here are some photographs, via The Guardian, of canal life in Coventry & Oxford in the 1940's and '50's. When I was seven or eight, and living in rural Cheshire, I wanted to a) take off with the visiting gypsies who came to our house regularly each year, or b) live on one of the painted barges you could still see on the local canals. In my child's eye, both possibilities seemed infinitely romantic.