A Girl At The Tiller
by Geoffrey Lewis
Paperback £7.99; ISBN 978-0-9545624-7-2; March 2008; SGM Publishing
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“Within quite a short time after the publication of A Boy Off The Bank, I found that people were coming up to me and asking when the sequel would be available. Now, I had only seen that story as a one-off, on its own, so to speak – but I thought, if it’s a sequel they want, I’d better get on and write one!”
So, in his own rather self-effacing words, Geoffrey Lewis describes the beginnings of this, his latest (and seventh) published novel. And, given the success of A Boy Off The Bank, we are only too pleased to publish this continuation of his story! That book followed his characters all through the years of the Second World War; A Girl At The Tiller takes the tale on into the early post-war years.
With the outbreak of peace in 1945, life on the Grand Union Canal seems fit to settle back into its steady pre-war pattern – but change is on the way! With a Labour government, the prospect of nationalisation brings hopes of new investment, better maintenance, for the canals; but before that can happen, the winter of 1947, the big freeze, strikes!
In this sequel to A Boy Off The Bank, the familiar characters of Michael and Ginny, Alby Baker, and other boating families – the Hanneys, the Caplins – continue their lives in peacetime Britain, plying their trade despite the deteriorating state of the waterways. And new faces appear, one of whom is to have a greater impact on the crew of the Sycamore and the Antrim than they could ever guess!
The pleasures and hardships of a working life on the canals, the occasional joy or tragedy, form the backdrop of a deeply human tale in which the reader becomes enmeshed in the lives of his characters. As in A Boy Off The Bank, the background to Mr Lewis’ story is carefully founded on fact – the boats of Fellows, Morton & Clayton Ltd returning gradually to their peacetime style of operation, their peacetime traffics, only to find the available trade slowly dwindling with the growth of rail and road transport. Locations around the canal system will, again, strike a chord with all those readers familiar with the waterways; and conversations with ex-working boatmen have enabled the author to accurately reflect their hopes and doubts concerning the impending nationalisation of the canals.
A Girl At The Tiller concludes in late 1948, with independent carriers like Fellows, Morton & Clayton still operating under the nationalised umbrella of the British Transport Commission. A third volume completing the story of Michael’s progress from the scrawny ‘boy off the bank’ into the respected head of a boating family was published in early 2009 under the title of The New Number One. And now a fourth book, Cattle And Sheep And Boats, brings the story of Michael and Harriet, Steve and Ellie Hanney and the others even more up-to-date.
From the press:
‘A graphic picture of life on the canals… The book made me sad, but it also made me laugh and wanting more.’ – Carol Cooper, Waterways World
‘…this engrossing story… be warned, however, that it will certainly tug at your heartstrings like the author’s other books’ – Canals and Rivers Magazine
‘…should be required reading for all canal people. It is a deeply human tale with an absorbing story line’ – Endeavour Magazine
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