Looking for information on Idle Women

Discussion in 'The Women of WW2' started by LadyEmma, May 11, 2010.

  1. LadyEmma

    LadyEmma Junior Member

    Hi all I am looking for information sources (websites, books etc) on the women that volunteered top work the inland waterways during the war.
    Any suggestions appreciated, thank you in advance.
     
  2. OpanaPointer

    OpanaPointer Pearl Harbor Myth Buster

    There are several articles on women war workers in The War Illustrated Archive to date. Oct. 18th, 1940 comes to mind immediately. I'm sure there will be more as the scanning continues.
     
  3. LadyEmma

    LadyEmma Junior Member

    Great thank you so much.
     
  4. Drew5233

    Drew5233 #FuturePilot 1940 Obsessive

    I think the BBC did a piece on this subject last year. I seem to remember some ladies being interviewed and giving rather detailed accounts of life working on the canals. I think they were delivering coal and timber via the canals across the country.

    Cheers
    Andy
     
  5. OpanaPointer

    OpanaPointer Pearl Harbor Myth Buster

  6. englandphil

    englandphil Very Senior Member

    There is some interesting bits hear about WW2 life on the canals, and the role that they played in the Defence of the UK. Only a small sentance with regards to the role of women though

    The Leeds Liverpool Canal at War
     
  7. englandphil

    englandphil Very Senior Member

    The canal boat woman
    As a 'boater' working on the barges of the Grand Union Canal, Emma Smith enjoyed a level of freedom that was unheard of for most women. She rose and went to bed at whatever hour suited her, ate what she pleased and generally did what she liked. 'We were almost the only workers in the country at that time who had no commanding officer, no uniform,' she smiles. Her 'uniform' was a pair of dungarees cut off below the knee and an old shirt. 'I think of myself as being one of the original hippies. It was lovely,' says Emma, 86, still sparky and beguiling, with a girlish bob. It was an experience that was to have a life-long effect. Not only did it establish her as a bestselling author – Maidens' Trip, a memoir of her experience, won the John Llewellyn Rhys prize in 1949 and The Great Western Beach, a memoir of her Cornish childhood, was published to critical acclaim in 2008 – but it also triggered a personal transformation.
    Elspeth Hallsmith, a dainty young girl from a privileged beginning, became Emma Smith ('Elspeth Hallsmith is such a terrible mouthful'), a resourceful, passionate socialist. 'I remember how grateful I was to be liberated from my upbringing,' she says. 'The war was an escape.' The daughter of a banker, Emma grew up in Cornwall. Her parents were, she says, 'completely incompatible: he passionately wanted to paint and draw, and my mother, who was very brave and beautiful, had absolutely no sense of art whatsoever.' He was also violent and cruel. 'It was a traumatic childhood.'
    After war broke out she worked as a secretary in the War Office. 'Then a friend found a newspaper cutting about a scheme for taking women on the canals,' she says. Boats were laid up on the Grand Union Canal lacking operators, at a time when heavy cargo needed to be shifted between London and the industrial Midlands. Between 1942 and 1945 some 60 women worked on the canals.
    Aged 18, and after only three weeks' training, Emma found herself operating boats that carried up to 50 tons of essential supplies – steel, aluminium or cement – from London to Birmingham, returning loaded with coal for the canal-side factories. She slept barely six hours a night, lived off stews and fried bread and jam, used a bucket as a lavatory and never felt clean. But she found a romanticism in the lives of the dockers, bargemen and regular boaters who travelled with their families. 'I admired them greatly,' she recalls. 'I felt I crossed over a boundary line and never went back. It made me realise there was this other world. We'd go to caffs and have bacon sandwiches. I'd never have gone into workmen's caffs otherwise. I became a working-class girl. It was terribly good for us.'

    SOURCE : WW2: the role of women in the Second World War - Telegraph
     
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  8. OpanaPointer

    OpanaPointer Pearl Harbor Myth Buster

    I had some pictures from WW2 England, I'll see if I can find them. One was a female PC team, three women. Another was a woman learning to run the tram from a gentleman that must have been 90 years old. One I remember in particular was a trio of ladies who were prominent in the suffrage movement and had jobs organizing woman workers during the war.
     
  9. OpanaPointer

    OpanaPointer Pearl Harbor Myth Buster

    Hi all I am looking for information sources (websites, books etc) on the women that volunteered top work the inland waterways during the war.
    Any suggestions appreciated, thank you in advance.
    The April 28, 1944 edition of The War Illustrated has a cover that will interest you. I'm working on that volume now. Should be uploaded in 2-3 days.
     
  10. Ednamay

    Ednamay wanderer

    There was a film called "Idle Women", I think it was a Ministry of Information film, about two girls / young women who worked the narrow boats; their only identification (no uniforms) was the Inland Waterways initial badges - hence the 'Idle Women'; Sorry, can't be more helpful.

    Ednamay
     
  11. Jedburgh22

    Jedburgh22 Very Senior Member

  12. At Home Dad (Returning)

    At Home Dad (Returning) Well-Known Member

    I assume you're aware of these books? I was briefly working on a
    drama based in this world a few years back. Nothing came of it, tho


    The Amateur Boatwomen. Eily Gayford - working waterways series
    Eily Gayford describes the life of one of the women in charge of the 'trainees' on canals during the last world war.'Working Waterways ' series 5.5" x 8" softback.
    This title is currently out of print
    Price: £8.99


    Maiden's Trip - Emma Smith - working waterways series
    Emma Smith's vivacious and entertaining story of three girls working on England's canals during the last war.'Working Waterways ' series 5.5" x 8" softback.
    Price: £8.99


    Troubled Waters. Margaret Cornish - working waterways series
    Margaret Cornish describes the second world war scheme recruiting girls 'off the land' to crew canal boats.'Working Waterways ' series 5.5" x 8" softback.


    Price: £8.99
     
  13. Ednamay

    Ednamay wanderer

    #10 Idle Women - I am sure it was a Ministry of Information film and will probably be listed (and possibly accessible) at the British Film Institute.

    Ednamay
     
  14. dbf

    dbf Moderatrix MOD

    BEAUTY AND THE BARGE - British Pathe

    "BEAUTY AND THE BARGE".

    London.

    Various shots of three girl bargees, Audrey, Anne and Evelyn preparing their three barges for a journey from London to Birmingham. They are taking essential war materials to the Midlands as part of their work for the Grand Union Canal Company.

    They cast off and steer their barges along the canal. Commentator makes much of the fact that the girls are doing "a man-sized job".

    Good shot of one of the girls in a barge kitchen, poking a stove. View from a barge as we pass under a bridge.
     

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