{"id":2228,"date":"2017-12-12T22:13:30","date_gmt":"2017-12-12T22:13:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/narrowboatingforbeginners.com\/wordpress\/?p=2228"},"modified":"2017-12-12T22:14:09","modified_gmt":"2017-12-12T22:14:09","slug":"what-to-read-while-traveling-a-canal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/narrowboatingforbeginners.com\/wordpress\/what-to-read-while-traveling-a-canal\/","title":{"rendered":"What to read while traveling a canal"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Clicking on the picture should take you to Alcuin Book, unless this copy has already been sold<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of the things I love to do when traveling the canals is to read a book about canals. Of course it\u2019s inconvenient to bring actual physical books on a trip, so I often resort to loading up the iPad or Kindle with things to read. While cycling the Worcester & Birmingham Canal for instance, I read Nick Corble\u2019s book James Brindley: The First Canal Builder<\/em><\/a>. Admittedly Brindley wasn\u2019t the engineer for the Worcs & B\u2019ham, but he was the first engineer of what became the Birmingham Old Main Line and he did survey and engineer (well, under his distant supervision) the Droitwich Barge Canal.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m also looking forward to re-reading The Wench Is Dead<\/em><\/a>, an Inspector Morse mystery, whenever I travel the Oxford Canal. I could also read Our Mutual Friend<\/em><\/a> by Charles Dickens if I ever pass through Shepperton Lock<\/a> on the Thames, but that\u2019s a whole lot of book to read just for the association between Rogue Riderhood and the fictional Plashwater Weir Mill Lock. I could also re-read Tom Rolt\u2019s seminal Narrow Boat<\/em><\/a>, but then I might be compelled to admit I find it a difficult book to read.<\/p>\n

An association I never made between literature and canals, however, was Sherlock Holmes and the Kennet & Avon Canal. That is until my friend Larry Feldman, an eminent Sherlockian and fellow member of Doctor Watson\u2019s Neglected Patients<\/a>, leant me a copy of The Quintessential Sherlock Holmes<\/em> by Richard Boyer. It\u2019s a collection of pastiches, one of which is the Wilton Water Horror<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to give away the story, but it starts with the Great Detective once again being overcome from the strain of solving murders and Watson suggesting they travel on the K&A as a waterway holiday. They paid to travel on a working boat instead of on a fly boat that operated day and night specifically for passengers. Quite a bit of the story is just about the experience of boating and reminded me of my first impressions of the canal. We traveled it in 2011, starting at Sydney Gardens in Bath and going as far as Devizes before turning back. (And no, we skipped the Caen Hill flight, preferring to walk it instead.)<\/p>\n

Holmes and Watson, of course, experienced a still working canal and some of the attendant dangers. For it me it was hard to reconcile the beautiful, bucolic canal I enjoyed with the tales of ruffians in this story. But being a Holmes story, the tale quickly gets darker after they learn of the\u00a0grisly death of a towpath horse being dragged into the canal and eaten. I don\u2019t want to ruin the story by giving too much away, but I will mention that Wilton Water is a real place.<\/p>\n