1980s and later

Travelling the canals with Bill is sometimes a tiny bit weird, often hilarious, always eventful and inevitably informative. Since discovering the Warwick Ring canal route in the heart of the Midlands, he has a new challenge to conquer, and you will be his companion on this idiosyncratic journey. The Warwick Ring follows five different canals, crossing four counties, connecting two cities, seven towns and many hamlets and villages. It’s around 115 miles long and travelling by narrowboat takes between one and two weeks. Walking it takes a little longer and you will be joining Bill to make the journey, not all in one go, but in bite sized pieces. These days, when walking the towpath, Bill gets more than physical exercise. He has an eye for the derelict and the decaying, and loves to dig up the amazing history that follows the canal. Travelling through beautiful rural countryside and urban city grunge, chatting with interesting, quirky characters along the way and experiencing the highs and lows of this journey-with-a-difference. So, what are you waiting for? Let’s Go.

A Boating Life : Adventures of a tiller girl is a personal account of one woman's "boating life", shared with family, friends and her dog.

This is also a useful account of starting life in a boat and learning about how to live on the water. There are many anecdotes and journeys down memory lane for existing boaters and even ideas for future cruising.

Tony Lewery is a well known waterways author, a regular contributor to the waterways press and acknowledged expert on canal art and heritage.

For a number of years Tony has been writing these 'Off The Mainline' features for the Canal Junction website on a wide variety of waterway topics and events. Many of those articles are brought together in this book, where he takes a personal and thought provoking view on the subject of canal boats, barges and boat horses. They are usualloy illustrated with his own original photographs or artwork.

by Iris Bryce.

This book spans 1981-1983 of the Bryce's nomadic voyaging on the waterways of the Midlands and North Country, from Braunston to York.

On one level this book is an entertaining travel book, portraying a slice of England rarely encountered by other writers, but it also shows that it is not outside the capacity at all of us to spend at least part of our lives beyond the office desk and factory floor.

Soft back. 159 pages. A few photos. 14.8cms x 21cms approx.

by Steffan Meyric Hughes.

Circle Line is the story of a unique journey on the forgotten waterways of one of the world's greatest capitals, rowing and sailing around London, whose watery secrets and colourful past are unveiled with wry humour and wonderful detail.

Soft back. 252 pages. 13cms x 19.8cms approx.

by Nick Thorpe.

One clear morning in May, Nick left his Edinburgh flat, ducked off the commuter route and hitched a ride aboard a little white canal boat, heading west towards the sea.

It was the first step in a delightful boat-hopping odyssey that would take him 2500 miles through Scotland's canals, lochs and coastal waters, from the industrial Clyde to the scattered islands of Viking Shetland.

A BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week.

Soft back. 340 pages. 12.7cms x 19.7cms. 8 pages of colour photos.

by Marie Browne.

When the collapsing Rover Group took her company down with it, Marie persuaded her long suffering husband that selling up and moving on to a wreck of a houseboat was a good idea.

This amusing book follows their fortunes as they transform 'Happy Go Lucky' from what looks like a floating coffin into a home.

Soft back. 306 pages. 13cms x 19.7cms.

by Marie Browne.

This is the sequel to Narrow Margins above.

Having saved her family from financial ruin by moving on to a houseboat in search of a less stressful, cheaper, way of life, they find themselves sucked back into normality and pretty much back where they started.

Just when they think they will never return to canal life, the answer to their dreams lies with Minerva, a narrow boat even more run down than the first.

Soft back. 357 pages. 13cms x 19.7cms.

by Marie Browne.

Narrow Escape sets out to dispel some commonly held public myths when people find out you live on a boat, like 'it must be cold in winter', 'it must be great being so close to nature' etc.

This month by month account of one family's liveaboard year takes a firmly tongue in cheek look at what it takes to enjoy the 'idyllic' lifestyle.

Soft back. 288 pages. 12.5cms x 20.3cms (5" x 8" approx).

by Joan McAdam.

Having previously cruised the Thames from Limehouse to Reading, this is an account of a later trip from Reading to Lechlade in 2007.

This proved to be a time of extreme weather, and the book tells of the pleasures, and the difficulties, along the way. It highlights the problem of finding somewhere to moor, and, when weather worsens, somewhere safe to moor.

Soft back. 90 pages. 17.1cms x 23.9cms approx. Illustrated with black & white photos.

by Steve Haywood.

Spurred by the arrival of a BIG birthday, Steve sets out from Oxford to explore what makes the English so English. Prepare for a generous helping of mayhem, mishaps and the staple of every English summer: torrential rain.

First published as 'Fruit Flies Like A Banana', this revised edition with new material is published to coincide with the 70-year anniversary of Tom Rolt's classic trip.

Soft back. 12.9cms x 19.9cms approx. 309 pages.

by Steve Haywood.

Casting aside the road maps Steve escapes to a different England on his narrowboat and cruises slowly through a landscape unchanged for centuries, visiting picturesque towns and canal festivals.

But the new member of his crew, Kit, is an untidy bundle of fur with all the attitude you would expect from a 'sarf lunnun' cat, and determined to keep him on his toes.

Soft back. 312 pages. 12.9cms x 19.8cms approx.

by Steve Haywood.

Austerity might be getting everyone else down, but Steve is waving his worries goodbye on another of his light-hearted trips around the picturesque English waterways.

This time it's a bit different, though. This time he's not just cruising with his cat, Kit, but with his long-suffering wife, Em, who's given up work and wants her share of easy living too.

But how, after life in a four-bedroom house, do they manage to survive together squeezed into a space the size of a potting shed? Other books pretend to tell you about life afloat - this one shows you what it's really like.

Soft back. 320 pages. 12.9cms x 19.8cms approx.

by Nick Corble.

Fired by memories of a canal holiday when younger, and inspired by a desire to rediscover the true values in life, Nick, in a moment of calculated madness, acquires a rather battered but much loved canal boat called 'Florrie'.

With a free summer stretching before him, Nick, aided by a rotation of very different crews, embarks on the Grand Trek South, through the canal system of England. Nick recounts the highlights and low points of his memorable and highly eventful trip with relish.

Softback. 307 pages. 13cms x 19.8cms approx. 2006 edition.

by Paul Gogarty.

The Water Road is the story of a magical journey through backdoor England. Paul Gogarty, travel writer and TV presenter, disappears for 4 months into a maze of canals linking the Thames with the Severn, Mersey and Trent.

The Water Road is both a celebration of a secret England and a powerful personal odyssey in which the author marks his own rite of passage.

Soft back. 364 pages. 12.9cms x 19.8cms approx. Some colour photos, and b/w maps.

by Shirley Ginger.

This is the sequel to 'Lock, Stock & Barrel', the story of a couples escape from the city rat-race to a canalside small holding and general store in Northamptonshire.

A Bit More Boating continues the twin themes of our inland waterways and self-sufficiency, and takes a light hearted look at the boating world from behind the counter and at the tiller.

Soft back. 181 pages. 14.8cms x 21cms approx. Illustrated by Shirley Ginger.

by Terry Darlington.

This book is a true story of high adventure as experienced by two innocent pensioners and a reluctant dog, who decided to sail their narrowboat 'Phyllis May' across the English Channel and through Belgium and France to the Mediterranean.

Highlights of their trip were shown in the Central TV programme Waterworld.

Paper back. 426 pages. 12.6cms x 19.8cms approx.

by Terry Darlington.

No-one has ever sailed an English narrowboat in the US before, for reasons that become clear during the nine month voyage of the 'Phyllis May' - including thirty mile sea crossings, blasting heat, tornadoes, hurricanes, starving alligators, killer fish, insects from hell and the walking dead.

Hard back. 354 pages. 14.2cms x 22.3cms approx.

by Terry Darlington.

Within a few days of their original boat being destroyed by fire, they had bought a new one, the 'Phyllis May 2'.

Terry recorded their trip to Liverpool, Lancaster, York, the Pennines and Wigan Pier, alongside it the story of his life and his marriage and his whippet Jim, with his broken ear like a cat flap, and Monica's whippet Jess, the Flying Catastrophe.

Soft back. 352 pages. 12.7cms x 19.8cms approx.

by Carl Leckey MBE.

Carl was a mate on the Mersey tugs and a lock keeper for British Waterways, and awarded the MBE for services to British Waterways in 1995. He is a born story teller and his hilarious 'Tales of the Cut' does for the tight-knit macho world of the Northern waterways what the writer James Heriot did for Yorkshire and country vets.

Readres will meet 'Arry, Big Al, Pudding Paul, Pontius Pilot, Hissing Syd amongst others.

Soft back. 225 pages. 14.5cms x 20.8cms approx. 2005.

by Doreen Gordon.

This book tells of Doreen's adventures and times aboard a narrow boat in Great Britain. The story starts with a holiday afloat and the decision to buy an empty hull and fit the boat out.

A couple of years later they realised that their cratch making enterprise needed more space so they ordered a bigger boat and started again. Boozy parties, cold winters, boat gatherings, and accidents all occurred over the next 12 years until the sale of the boat.

Soft back. 75 pages. 14.9cms x 21.1cms approx.