For centuries it was far more efficient to move goods by water than by road. The end of the 18th century saw 2,000 miles of canal built in Britain: the Canal Age had begun.Constructing the canals consisted of a great deal of hard work and manual labour, headlines by individual names but mostly done by tens of thousands of men across Britain called navvies. Initially much like carting on roads, boating on canals grew as canal systems expanded across the country, but still required long hours, hard work and specific skills.This detailed and informative guide tells the story of the boats and their workers. From the professional leggers who walked boats through tunnels to lock keepers to canal children running ahead of the boats, original photographs and artefacts such as tug tickets and timetables show what life was like on the canal.A classic Pitkin guide to immerse readers in the world of canals in Britain, including a list of museums and heritage centres to provide further insight into the history of the canal network.
Titanic represents a microcosm of the world in 1912. It was a mans world in many respects, across law, land ownership, voting rights, family structures and religious hierarchies. The stories we know about those involved that fateful night are as varied as the people aboard the ship, but many of them revolve around the roles and actions of the men. This new book from Melinda Ratchford delves into the world as it was for women in 1912, and presents a selection of womens stories, including a variety of women who travelled aboard Titanic, from rich to poor, and well-known to largely forgotten, and also stories of some women who didnt travel but whose lives were inextricably linked to the tragedy and changed forever. This collection of stories presents the lives of these women before, during and after the tragedy that irrevocably changed their world, and ours.