STRANGE BUT TRUE THE WEIRD HISTORY OF NARROWBOATS: Canal Horses, Tunnel Leggers, Floating Families, Cheese Boats, and Other Bizarre Stories from Britain’s ... (SparkTrail Strange But True Book 49)

Britain helped power an industrial revolution with boats that could be overtaken by a determined pensioner. Welcome to the wonderfully peculiar world of narrowboats, where the engine once ate hay, express delivery involved cheese, and getting through a tunnel could mean lying down and walking along the walls. Apparently, somebody considered this a perfectly reasonable working arrangement. Today, narrowboats promise peaceful countryside, pretty bridges, and the pleasure of taking your kitchen somewhere else. Behind that gentle image lies a much stranger history of crowded cabins, fierce rivalries, ingenious engineering, stubborn families, and cargo that absolutely needed to arrive before anyone could stop for a nice cup of tea. STRANGE BUT TRUE: THE WEIRD HISTORY OF NARROWBOATS takes you aboard for a funny, fascinating journey through Britain’s floating world. Meet the horses that supplied the horsepower, the tunnel leggers who supplied their feet, and the families who fitted entire lives into cabins with less room than many people reserve for unwanted exercise equipment. Discover overnight cheese boats, extravagantly painted castles on very modest homes, wartime women doing anything but idle work, and volunteers who refused to let the canals disappear. Along the way, encounter a boat crossing high above a Welsh valley, an orchestra whose floating platform had travel plans of its own, and the celebrated tale of a cow that took a tunnel swim nobody had booked. Then follow the narrowboat into its extraordinary second life as a holiday escape, a floating bookshop, a theatre company’s travelling home, and accommodation with the unusual advantage of being able to leave the neighborhood. Packed with curious history, memorable characters, and affectionate mischief, this is a book for canal enthusiasts, armchair travelers, lovers of British oddities. Step aboard. Mind your head. The scenery is lovely, and the past is considerably less well behaved.