Much of the correspondence about the Training Scheme can be found in the Grand Union Canal Carrying Co. Ltd. pages of this website, plus some on the Severn & canal Carrying Co. Ltd. page. Here we have press cuttings and other correspondence.
The following letter from Cecily Ramsay to Molly gives an insider view of the various characters involved in the Training Scheme at the end of 1943. It is quite a revealing account of the inter-personal dynamics and rivalries, and gives a very different perspective to the glamorous image of the young women portrayed in the Daily Sketch article above.
Two of the characters in the letter above, Betty Snelling and Mary Whitley, feature in the two following press photographs:
Cecily Ramsay, incidentally, gave several talks about her life during the war when she got back home to Dunedin, New Zealand. This short piece is from the [Dunedin] Evening Star, 3 October 1946:
The story of her experiences on a boat on the English canals during the war, trading between London and Birmingham, was the subject of an address given by Miss Cecily Ramsay to the Travel Club, which met in the Tudor Hall, Savoy, yesterday morning.
Website by Crispin Partridge – Grandson of Molly Traill.
Molly Traill Archive 