Two boats on a long Canal Route to the South Bank and the Festival of Britain The story behind some Family photographs

Two boats on a long Canal Route to the South Bank and the Festival of Britain

I had always wondered what the story was behind some family photographs in my mother’s collection as they weren’t about family but events near Knowle where my mother grew-up and took photographs using her Box Brownie. DAVID BRYSON FRPS

Frances Day the actress having cut the ribbon to start the journey on board one of the canal boats at the start of their journey to London.

BY researching using the British Newspaper Archive https://www.britishnewspaperarchive. co.uk/ I found out about the story behind the celebrity actress Frances Day sending the boats on their way from Lapworth. After the Second World War the canals and waterways of Britain were in need of development to encourage their use. The highlight of the year in 1950 was the National Canal Festival and Rally of Boats held at Market Harborough. A hundred boats attended the event that was designed to become a

Detail of symbols on one of the posts.

One of the narrow-boats pulling the second barge on their way to London.

Frances Day after cutting the ribbon to mark the start of their journey to the Festival of Britain.

major annual gathering and showcase for the Inland Waterways Association (IWA) https://www.waterways. org.uk/. However, the IWA found they couldn’t afford to run a festival in 1951, though they did want to make sure they were represented in London at the Festival of Britain.

One of the crew dressed in traditional clothes for bargees.

Birmingham Daily Gazette - Tuesday 24th April 1951 Two boats with a mission: Canal Route to the South Bank. Two sisters left a small Warwickshire village yesterday for the festival of Britain.

The “sisters” were Ivy and Antries two narrow-boats barges to the layman and they carried illustrious crews with Frances Day, rhe actress, to send them on their way from Lapworth. Their mission is to show visitors to the Southbank exhibition tour of narrowboats peculiar to British waterways. Before reaching the Southbank pier where they will be moored they will travel 133 miles and passed through 149 locks.

Lapworth to London

Miss Day cut a blue ribbon across the bows and the boats moved off to the first lock to the strains of “God save the King” and “Cruising Down the River” Lapworth lies on the junction of two canals, the Stratford, and the Grand Union. The canal passes through Lapworth on its way from Birmingham to Leamington Spa via Shrewley, Hatton and Warwick and eventually on to London. The Stratford Canal passes through Lapworth on its way from Kings Norton Junction in the suburbs of Birmingham to Stratford, where it joins the River Avon

Coventry Evening Telegraph - Friday 18 May 1951

Midland Canal Barges on Show at the festival. Two canal boats last might completed their voyage of 133 miles from Warwickshire and were on show at the South Bank Exhibition today. They passed out of the Grand Union Canal into the Thames at Brentford, today to moor alongside the Thames Sailing Barge Sara off the Exhibition. The two boats a motor boat and a “butty” boat left Lapworth, Warwickshire on Aptil 23rd and have passed through 149 locks. They are Birmingham Boats actually used for canal work in the Midlands. Unchanged from 200 years ago, they are decorated in the traditional way with castles in bright paintwork and Turk’s head ropework.

Photographs by JEANNE BRYSON