At the end of 1942 Molly was asked by the BBC to give a talk on the Home Service about women’s work on the canals, for the ‘Women Can’t Do It’ series.
This is the transcript:
WOMEN CAN’T DO IT
TWO CANAL BOATWOMEN – Mrs. Traill and Miss Ormsby
MRS. TRAILL: Women in this country aren’t encouraged to become captains of ships – yet – but they can be captains of canal boats, or ‘steerers’ as they’re called, and some of them are already.
At first, nobody thought that women could do this work. It’s tough and heavy; you have to be physically very fit and pretty strong, and you must enjoy an open-air life and not mind living in a cramped space. The boats work in pairs, manned by a crew of three. With the regular boater families, who’ve lived on the canals for generations, the crew consists of the steerer, his wife who acts as mate, and a boy – or the children – as lock-wheeler.
The new women recruits, who have been trained and are proficient, work in crews of three too, as a steerer, mate and lock-wheeler. All three must know their jobs and share the day’s work equally. We live, eat and sleep on the motor and the butty – by the way, the butty’s the boat that’s towed behind and has no engine, – and we have to have a thorough working knowledge of the ????teen horse-power diesel engine, of the locks, the Cut – that’s the canal, – of the loading and unloading points, and we have to be able to navigate properly.
The boats are known as narrow boats or monkey-boats: they’re seventy-one feet six long by seven feet wide and carry about fifty tons of cargo in the pair. The locks are double over the greater part of the Cut on which we operate, so that two boats can go in together. Before we get to a lock, the lock-wheeler has to jump ashore with her bicycle and cycle along the tow-path to the lock gates. Then she must draw the paddle with a windlass which opens the lock gates – this needs quite a lot of physical strength as well as skill – and then the steerer can steer the boats in.
An average day’s locking – as we call it – is about twenty and we take about six minutes to a lock, once it’s been made ready by the lock-wheeler. In some parts of the Cut there is continuous locking, which is rather a strain, especially on the newcomers to the job, but there are also long distances between the locks – incidentally we call these pounds – maybe of ten, fifteen or twenty miles, and then we can settle down and do a few domestic jobs like spring-cleaning and washing clothes, not to speak of preparing the dinner.
In training the new recruits I find that steering both motor and butty into the locks is one of the hardest jobs that they have to learn, as the depth and pull and flow of the water is different in each one. The boater knows these things from his childhood, but the women crews try to acquire this skill in a few weeks. You have to learn how to bring the boats in at just the right speed: if you go too fast, you won’t be able to stop the motor bumping by reversing her; and if you go too slowly the butty won’t come in of its own accord, but will have to be pulled in by hand.
Speed is very essential in getting cargoes to their destination, and we work on freight rates – that’s to say we’re paid by the amount of cargo we carry. Incidentally, fragile cargoes are carried more easily in these boats than by any other form of transport, and you’d be astonished, I think, if you knew how much valuable war material is actually transported on the canals these days.
When you see a pair of boats on the canal with tarpaulins over their cargo, it may interest you to know that they may be full of wheat or cement or steel or coal, etc., etc. I’ll leave you, Rosheen, as you are actually operating boats, to talk about the loading and unloading of the cargoes.
But first, listeners would probably like to know how we live on these narrow boats with their brightly painted bows and stern and their shining brass rails and fittings. The cabins are about seven feet by six feet and have a double bed in them which folds up during the day, and a small side bed. There’s very little floor space, as there’s a table, cupboard and small coal stove. We cook on the stove and boil innumerable kettles for washing and tea, and I’ve always found them extremely efficient and warm. Lighting is from batteries which are charged by a dynamo running from the engine. There are two cabins, of course, one on the motor and one on the butty. On the motor we stow our food in a cool locker under the stern, and in the butty, in a cupboard under the hatches. We have emergency ration cards and buy our provisions at shops alongside the Cut, where the shopkeepers are used to serving us in a hurry – in fact, while the lock is filling, as we grudge every moment which delays our journey. By the way, we have a special permit for tinned milk. The trip I take lasts three weeks, and we’re able to get fresh milk several times en route; otherwise we use tinned milk.
When we women first came on to the Cut, the regular boaters looked at us rather askance. I think they thought we could never do the job. But when they found we were friendly and laughed about our mistakes, they soon grew friendly and helpful themselves, and we’re all on very good terms with each other. Now we have friends all along the Cut and a different tie-up every night,, meeting boating families we haven’t seen for many weeks and exchanging boat gossip – in fact, the whole life is boats, boats, boats, nothing but boats; not just messing about, but vital, needed work, water transport which has a great future. Apart from this, I do it because I like it. What about you, Rosheen? You like boats too, don’t you? Or are you only doing it because it’s a useful war job?
MISS ORMSBY: Well, yes, I do like boats. You have to, or you certainly wouldn’t stick this job. It’s hard work and I hate getting up early in the morning and going out when it’s very cold. You were running boats during the ice last winter, weren’t you?
MRS. TRAILL: Yes, I was. But I don’t mind cold or getting up early. It’s just part of the day. I’m used to it now.
MISS ORMSBY: For the first few weeks I thought I’d never learn this job – but, being determined, I went on with it and now it’s beginning to come naturally. It’s a question of feeling your way into it. You can only hope to learn gradually and by making many mistakes. Steering both the motor and the butty is difficult at first, as each has a different technique. I’m afraid I used to run on the mud and get stuck at first, but that doesn’t often happen now.
I will tell you about the routine of a trip, as it may give some idea of just what the work means. When we get back to our main depot, our boats are checked by the company’s maintenance staff and the engine’s overhauled. Then we get our orders and go at once to the next loading point, which might perhaps be at the docks. There we go alongside an import steamer and take the cargo on board. We are not expected to load the cargo ourselves, stevedores do this, although we are expected to help in stowing some cargoes. Normally we don’t unload our cargoes either, as there’s staff provided for this.
As soon as the boats are loaded we have to sheet them up, or cloth them up as it is sometimes called. This takes some time and must be done very carefully and efficiently or the cargo will get wet and damaged. We cover it with tarpaulins: what looks like forests of string and wood have all to be fitted into the right place and tied up properly with all the proper knots.
Then we leave the docks and start our journey. At night-time we try and get to a proper tying-up place and stay there, going to bed early, as we are usually very tired and have to start off again the next morning well before daylight. The days now are so short that we often have to run by night in order to make a good trip. We can choose when we do this and on our boats we usually prefer to run very early in the morning. All day long we’re busy, steering, lock-wheeling, cleaning out cabins, looking after the engine, cooking, doing our washing …
I found steering a great physical and mental strain at first. Sometimes you may go through many locks in a day and the paddles – as the sluices are called – are often very stiff to work, and then you are always running about and jumping out at locks, and you’re always in a hurry. Not only must you do a good day’s run, but there may be a pair of boats behind, and you don’t want to hinder them, and you certainly don’t want them to pass you!
For the beginner there seem to be lots of obstacles on the route, like low bridges, and emergencies, such as meeting other boats when you are just going round an awkward bend. If there’s a breakdown on the trip you can get hold of mechanics and fitters at different points on the route.
At first, I minded not having a bath, but now we have found out certain places where we can get them. We carry drinking water in two four-gallon cans on the cabin top of the butty and the motor, and there are taps at many of the tie-ups; but we use Cut water for everything else, except cooking. We fit out the cabin as we like, and although they seem very cramped at first, I have got quite used to living in such a small space and now find it very comfortable.
Our chief aim is to copy the boat people as much as we possibly can, although it seems hopeless that we can ever work so fast or well as them. But they have been so kind in showing us what to do and helping us out of trouble – in fact we could not have got on without their help. Their cabins too are magnificent, spotlessly clean and full of shining brass and china. The boaters keep themselves very separate from the shore people. They’re particularly proud of their sons, and as soon as a little boy is more than a baby, he is proudly set to steering.
Well, finally we arrive at our destination. The boats are unloaded by cranes, and we go off to our next loading place. We may have taken a cargo of cement on the out-going journey and then we bring a cargo of coal home. When this is unloaded, we go back to the depot, ready to start off again; and if we’re lucky, we may get a short break before our next trip.
The Listener did a short piece on the talk as part of its ‘Did you hear that?’ series – 7th January 1943. It is an edited extract of the transcript above. As such, the first page only is shown below, for illustrative purposes.
In conclusion, a telegram of congratulations:
As a footnote, a press cutting about the Ormsby sisters from the Daily News, 28 March 1941:
Website by Crispin Partridge – Grandson of Molly Traill.
Molly Traill Archive 