Tag: Eily Gayford

• Letters home: Canals

  Here are extracts from some of the letters Molly sent to her parents about her application for the job with Daphne March and the skills she had to learn, before boarding the Heather Bell in 1941. Then the letters move to 1942 and the start of the Boatwomen Training Scheme.

  

  

  By the time of the next letter she had learnt that it is a narrow boat, not a barge:

  

  

  

  

  A letter from the 17th February 1941 opens with:

  No further news as to our movements except that the girl has had flu, & the 17th is today & I have not been summoned for the trial run.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  Much detail in this letter about the trip with the Sibleys, undated:

  

  

  

  

  

  

  January 20th 1942 – Molly is itching to start training her first batch of women for the Boatwomen Training Scheme:

  I have got digs in Southall, c/o Mrs. Hunter,

  

  Undated, but probably 24th February 1942, six days before the first training trip:

  

  

  This next letter is dated Easter Monday, possibly 6th April 1942:

  

  Her second trip started on 15th April 1942. This letter, dated 1st May 1942, was probably from this second trip:

  

  

  

  

  

  This photograph, courtesy of the Eily Gayford Archive [thanks to Mike Constable] is fairly certainly from the trip described in the letter above. Brigit Macnamara is on the right, on the butty Saltley. Molly Traill is standing next to her, and Rosheen Ormsby [we think] is pictured sitting on motor boat Bainton. Eily Gayford took the photograph. It is, incidentally, the only known photograph of Molly from the war period; there are none in her photo albums.

  

  There follows a long gap in the correspondence to April 1st 1943 when, during a training trip, she is laid up with the measles:

  

  Another long gap to the final letter, 6th December 1943, around the time of her dismissal by Philip Noel Baker, Minister of War Transport. His letter was dated 29th November 1943, so perhaps a little more than a “terrific argument”:

  

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  Website by Crispin Partridge – Grandson of Molly Traill.

  November 2, 2024

  Albert Sibley, Bainton, Beecham family, Birmingham, Boatwomen Training Scheme, Braunston, Brigit Macnamara, Bulls Bridge, Butty Saltley, Cannock Chase, Daphne March, Eastwood Colliery Wharf, Eily Gayford, Frances Marion Traill, Grand Union Canal Carrying Co. Ltd, Heather Bell, Idle Women, Ivinghoe, Langley Mill, Leicester, Leighton Buzzard, M.B. Bainton, Ministry of War Transport, Molly Traill, Narrow Boat, Petter Engine, Philip Noel-Baker, River Trent, Rosheen Ormsby, Rugby, Saltley, Sissy Sibley, Tipton, Worcester

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• Grand Union: Correspondence

  Here are the letters Molly received from the GUCCC. There are no copies of the letters she sent to the company. First – Eily Gayford sets the scene:

  A meeting with Molly that afternoon; the next day down to the Grand Union depot at Southall, then over to the head office at Ruislip, and at last back home. Everything was now settled. Daphne was not coming with us, but staying where she was on the Heather Bell, and in the new year Molly and I were to do a trip with a pair of boats worked by regular boat people, to learn the route and the management of a pair.¹

  

  

  

  

  

  

  1942 started with real winter weather, ice and snow, and not the kind which soon disappears. At the end of January, we were still waiting to join the Grand Union. We had written reminding them how anxious we were to start as soon as possible, but they had replied that all transport was being seriously affected by the severe weather conditions, and owing to other difficulties they were unable to say definitely when we could come. So that was that and there was nothing we could do about it.²

  

  

  

  There is then a six month gap in the correspondence while Molly and Eily Gayford did their training trip with Ciss and Albert Sibley.

  

  

  The correspondence then moves on to March 1943:

  

  

  A telling off from the company:

  

  

  Her TGWU card:

  

  The question of publicity is raised again:

  

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  1. The Amateur Boatwomen, Eily Gayford. p.53 ↩︎
  2. Ibid p.54 ↩︎

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  Website by Crispin Partridge – Grandson of Molly Traill.

  October 26, 2024

  1942, Albert Sibley, Betty Snelling, Boatwomen Training Scheme, Ciss Sibley, Eily Gayford, Frances Marion Traill, Grand Union Canal Carrying Co. Ltd, GUCCC, Lily Gayford, Ministry of Information – American Division, Ministry of War Transport, Molly Traill, Newdigate Colliery, Ration Book, Transport & General Workers’ Union

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