Dipper

Today we’ve tied up between Banbury and Oxford, on the Oxford Canal, just to the west of Bicester

From here the plan is to join the River Thames at Oxford for around four days, and turn on to the Kennet & Avon Canal at Reading.  This has been the plan all along, however October can be a bit of an unpredictable month weather wise, and had there been a lot of rain it might have scuppered our chance of getting down the Thames (due to high stream flows), or made it difficult to punch along into the flow on the River Kennet.  As it’s turned out, the Kennet and Avon Canal summit has had restrictions due to low water levels this autumn because there’s been so little rain !

Back in June we posted a bit of a write-up about a group of girls during WW2 who trained to work narrowboats up and down the Grand Union Canal as part of the war effort. They were nicknamed the ‘Idle Women’ – their badges bore the initials IW which in reality stood for ‘Inland Waterways’.  To help with recruitment in 1944, a publicity photos and films were published to encourage a further intake of potential new recruits to apply.  Newspaper adverts carried photos of one of the original trainees, Audrey Harper,  using a pole on the roof of a narrowboat called ‘Dipper’.  It was also used on the front cover of the ‘War Illustrated’ magazine, April 1944 :

Narrowboat ‘Dipper’

One of the trainees, Susan Wolfitt, wrote about the exploits in 1947, and used one of the Dipper publicity shots on the dust jacket of the first edition …

Well yesterday we came across the very same ‘Dipper’, still in great condition, and having had a cabin added.

Narrowboat ‘Dipper’

 

Nice to see that the boat survives. Sadly Audrey Harper passed away in 2013, aged 92

Other news :

Our first frost this autumn :

Big-bridge, little-bridge – the little one was installed over the Oxford Canal in 1790 (with updates over the years), whilst the big one is the rather more recent M40 crossing just south of Banbury..

Finally, another unusual canal boat for the collection :

This one was only about 8 ft long and 4 ft wide. Many boats carry firewood on their roof for the wood burning stove. The wood on this one took up quite a bit of room inside !