A pottery works fireman remembers the people on the working canal boats:-
They’d moor the boat at the side of a firm, and they’d come on site and say “Have you got a bucket of coal?”. Because they’d got a brazier-like fire in the cabin. And you would smell them making soup or ‘lobby’ and tea. They were very clean, boaties were. And they used to be everso grateful. And they’d never pinch anything. And they used to come and sit with you for ab bit, and they’d say “We’d better go to bed”. Then they were off early in the morning – about 4 o’clock – and you could hear them making a “put, put” to go. Most of them had horses on the side of the canal – this was before they’d got engines in the boats. Horses used to pull them with ropes around the front of the barge. And the man – as a rule – would walk with the horse to guide the horse along, and the wife would do the guiding at the back.

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