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Narrow Boat, LTC Rolt - book review
Rolt is an excellent writer, with a good eye for what he sees and good descriptive text, but with massive cultural blinkers.
His description of his travels on board his converted narrow boat Cressy back in the 1940s was to be one of the sparks leading to the foundation of the Inland Waterways Association and the restoration of the British canal network.
In the regard of writing about his journey, and his description of the life of the few remaining owners of horse-drawn boats when he encountered them, he gives many useful details (I'd never known that concertinas were popular instruments among boatsmen).
However, his blinkers come from his conviction that everything of the past is good and everything of the machine age is bad. He says quite seriously that he believes the canals to be the safest form of transport ever devised, but does not spot the contradiction when he encounters a boatman whose daughter had recently drowned in a lock (in fact, drownings and other accidents were pretty common).
He comments on the life span of over a hundred of some old countrymen in the parish records he views and attributes it to their simple life, but fails to spot the high infant mortality in those same records.
He loves his books, but believes that the illiterate boatman loses nothing by his lack of knowledge.
It's a good book if you want to read about the pre-restoration Inland Waterways, complete with the last surviving canal pubs (in the era of real ale served in a jug), but you may find it a touch annoying if you feel that you wouldn't actually want to have lived in Olde England even if it looks very charming in retrospect.
His description of his travels on board his converted narrow boat Cressy back in the 1940s was to be one of the sparks leading to the foundation of the Inland Waterways Association and the restoration of the British canal network.
In the regard of writing about his journey, and his description of the life of the few remaining owners of horse-drawn boats when he encountered them, he gives many useful details (I'd never known that concertinas were popular instruments among boatsmen).
However, his blinkers come from his conviction that everything of the past is good and everything of the machine age is bad. He says quite seriously that he believes the canals to be the safest form of transport ever devised, but does not spot the contradiction when he encounters a boatman whose daughter had recently drowned in a lock (in fact, drownings and other accidents were pretty common).
He comments on the life span of over a hundred of some old countrymen in the parish records he views and attributes it to their simple life, but fails to spot the high infant mortality in those same records.
He loves his books, but believes that the illiterate boatman loses nothing by his lack of knowledge.
It's a good book if you want to read about the pre-restoration Inland Waterways, complete with the last surviving canal pubs (in the era of real ale served in a jug), but you may find it a touch annoying if you feel that you wouldn't actually want to have lived in Olde England even if it looks very charming in retrospect.
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It's a bit like Creosote in Pyramids who spent a lot of money to achieve a simple life...
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In what sort of way were you thinking?
I mean, there's many things I'd like to see as they were in the past, but I'm wise enough to know that we'd have to find ways of taking the best bits of the present with us. eg. I'd like to see us have massively lower energy consumption, but I want to do that without returning us all to the stone age. (A gradual reduction in population by limiting family size would be a good option from my view)
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Very few of these people are women, people of colour, or people of a liberal (let alone socialist) turn of mind...
Occasionally I've run into people when I've been reenacting who think that the 18th century must have been great--again, no poverty, no social problems, a simple life... Needless to say, none of these people are reenactors (who read enough history to know better). A little chat with these folks about hygiene, medicine, civil rights, and what society was *really* like tend to change points of view.
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In the 18th century, I'd have been a servant, probably scrubbing floors all my life...
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[18th century] Back when it was in vogue to have a past life, I was amused at how few people were slaves or servants or subsistence farmers who had very dull lives and travelled more than a day or two from where they were born (which it's my impression has been the experience of most humans in the past). Everyone was always a noble or a ruler; the few who were servants were influential ones, and/or lived in palaces or big cities and saw famous people every day.
One early music group that came to my school tried to get us into the spirit of the age by pointing out how tough life was. They had all the kids stand up. Then they told all of those who had had 'flu to sit down. They were dead. Then thye listed all the things we get immunised for today and told half the rest of us to sit down. And then all those who had had any sort of operation or a serious limb fracture. Then anyone who had had impacted wisdom teeth. And so on for a few more things.
Then they reminded the few who were left that they wouldn't have braces or glasses (this was before contact lenses became popular) and that probably only a few of those with rich parents would be able to read. They talked about diet and living conditions and life expectancy and when you got married and had kids and how far most people (didn't) travel, how few books most people saw..lots of stuff. And then they pointed out how there were no radios, televisions, record players, tape decks--everyone who wanted music had to be able to make it, or know someone who could.
And then they played some really beautiful pieces for us, and pointed out that after all the things people had to go through just to survive, that then they made music like this. It was pretty astounding.
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