A Boy Off The Bank

by Geoffrey Lewis

Paperback £7.99; ISBN 978-0-9545624-6-1; August 2006; SGM Publishing
Digital

A Boy Off The Bank > A Girl At The Tiller >The New Number One>Cattle, Sheep and Boats

For his sixth published novel, Geoffrey Lewis stays with the world of England’s canals which formed the background of his last book, Starlight. But now, he ventures further back again in time, to the years of the Second World War!

The ‘boy’ of the title is a ten-year-old, living in the drab industrial town of Wolverton, which is today a part of the greater conurbation of Milton Keynes. His is an unhappy existence:

Michael Thompson has had enough. Mentally and physically abused by his drunken father, treated like a skivvy by his mother, he’s taken all that his miserable life can throw at him; but then the final blow comes when his dog is taken away as well: On a bitter cold night in January, 1940, he sets out to commit suicide – but all does not go according to plan!

What follows is a moving and, at times, dramatic tale of Britain’s canal system in wartime. Geoffrey Lewis recreates the pressures and pains of an arduous trade carried on in increasingly difficulty circumstances, as the waterways suffer from failing standards of maintenance, whilst also capturing the resilience of the boating people and their pleasure and pride in their trade and their outdoor lifestyle. The innate tragedy of war surfaces repeatedly, to be offset by their inherent stolid nature and good humour.

The story is set on boats operated by Fellows, Morton and Clayton Ltd – a real company, who were England’s biggest independent canal carrying company through the first half of the twentieth century. To anyone familiar with our waterways, all the locations which appear in the story will be recognisable; the trade the boats are following, too, is based entirely upon fact researched diligently by the author. All of this serves to give a great feeling of authenticity for the reader, to such an extent that some have assumed the story to be autobiographical (which, we are assured, it definitely is not!).

A Boy Off The Bank concludes with the end of the war, after the surrender of Japan in August 1945 – another factual event is depicted in the closing pages, related to the book’s dedication: the first meeting between Robert Aickmann and Tom Rolt. These two men were, the next year, to found the Inland Waterways Association, which has done so much to preserve and enhance our waterways in the years which followed. A sequel, entitled A Girl At The Tiller which follows the story’s characters into the early post-war years, was published in early 2008.

A Boy Off the Bank was published in August 2006 to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Inland Waterways Association.

From the press:

‘I commend this book to adult and younger readers alike’ – David King, Endeavour

‘Accurately drawn – from his own wide experience’ – Martin Ludgate, Canals & Rivers

‘This has got to be a winner’ – Roger Wickham, Amherst Publishing

A Boy Off The Bank>A Girl At The Tiller>The New Number One> Cattle, Sheep and Boats