A Canal People

During a few brief years in the 1940s and '50s Robert Longden took a set of photographs of the narrow boat community at Hawkesbury Stop - the main meeting point for those who worked the Midland canals. The images are of a close community representing them at work, at play and in their domestic affairs, as they lived on the paired and single colourful narrow boats of the time. They illustrate the close relationship between all ages and types, and the dramatic boat shapes and infrascape of this rural and industrial area. Sonia Rolt, who herself worked the canals during the period and knew the photographer, provides an introduction, which details not only how Robert Longden came to this involvement but also sets the photographs in the context of their time, the last period when the narrow boats could really be said to play an important part in transporting goods.