Life on the water

There are many other kinds of enjoyment to be had from our local waterways though, whether it is by bicycle or on foot along the towpath, or just sitting in a pub garden with a pint watching the passing water traffic.

A travelling exhibition, Living Waterways, currently at the River and Rowing Museum in Henley, provides a great introduction to the history and wildlife of the canal system and the river with which it is so closely connected. It is suitable for all ages, with plenty of interactive elements to engage children's interest.

Eloise Morton, curatorial assistant at the Museum, has responsibility for the exhibition while it is at Henley. An archaeology graduate doing a Master's degree in museum studies, she has learnt a lot from it herself about an aspect of industrial history that was largely new to her.

"The exhibition focuses first on the growth of the canal system in the 1700s and early 1800s, illustrated by maps and paintings of local subjects," she said.

"We are showing several 19th century aquatints of the Thames by Robert Havell, and some later sketches of the Kennet and Avon Canal by Ron Durant. There is also an original document from 1771 showing the proposed route of the Oxford Canal, which finally opened in 1790.

"Children can take part in a floor-mat version of Snakes and Ladders called Canal Builder', which was devised by Banbury Museum. It is based on the canal mania' period, when they were springing up all over the place. You take off your shoes, roll a big dice, and it leads you through important stages in the development of the waterways.

"The Thames was very much at the centre of the canal network, and was used as part of the system for transporting goods, which is why we have the towpath running along it. The Kennet and Avon, the old Thames and Severn Canal, the Grand Union and the Oxford Canal all linked up with the river.

"The exhibition deals with the eventual decline of the canals, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, very much from the human point of view.

"There is a full-size replica of a boatman's cabin, which visitors can go into. Some boatmen lived on board with their families - particularly after 1830, when the carrying companies which owned the boats began to cut their employees' wages. They needed to undermine freight prices on the railways, which were just opening. Then the boatmen couldn't afford the rents on their cottages any longer, so the wives and some or all of the children had to come on to the boats,"

Eloise explained.

The cabin was only ten feet by seven, and had to accommodate the full range of a family's living activities - from sleeping, cooking and eating to washing and laundry - which would comfortably occupy a three-bedroom house today.

Every bit of space had to be used, often for more than one thing. Standard fitments were a small coal-fired range, a bed that folded into a cupboard in the daytime, and a table flap behind which food and crockery on shelves could be kept safe when the boat was on the move.

"Life must have been very difficult, very cramped" Eloise said. "And the wives who were on board shared jobs with their men - one of the photographs in the exhibition, taken at some time between the wars, is of two women shovelling coal from the hold into wheelbarrows. "

Boatwomen took a huge pride in scrubbing cabin floors regularly and polishing their brass. Visitors to the museum can see some of the traditional narrowboat decoration which helped to cheer up surroundings so dominated by coal dust and mud.

There are examples of souvenir ribbon plates, Roses and Castles painting, crochet, and woodwork with the yellowish-brown scumble which produced a distressed look Laurence Llewelyn Bowen might have been rather keen on.

Victorian clothing, as it would have been worn on the boats, is also on display, showing amongst other things, bonnets with large brims at the front to protect the wearer from the sun.

"There are also some children's clothes, which visitors will be able to dress up in," Eloise said.

Another section features some of the specialised tools used by the boatmen, and some of the skills they developed, such as the making of amazingly complicated things out of rope, and legging' - getting an unpowered boat through a tunnel by lying across it and pushing it along with your feet (highly dangerous).

A one-and-a-half-hour video of archive footage from all over the country shows boatmen at work in the early 20th century.

"By the Second World War," said Eloise, "the canals had more or less fallen into disuse. Then in the 1940s a book, Narrowboat by L T C Rolt, created an increase in public awareness and led to the founding of The Inland Waterways Association in 1946.

"We have various exhibits showing how the canals and river are used now. There is a collection of model leisure boats from the 1940s onwards.

"There is also information about natural history, based partly on a survey by British Waterways into clean-up operations at various locations and how the wildlife is recovering.

"Pollution in the 1950s meant that, at one point, the Thames was declared biologically dead. Now there are all sorts of things to look out for - kingfishers, swans, toads, and also rarer animals, such as water voles and otters," Eloise said.

Through the glass wall of the gallery in which the exhibition is housed visitors can look directly over the meadow to the Thames, where modern counterparts of the old narrowboats and riverside buildings add an extra dimension to the Living Waterways theme by merging past and present and bringing the whole story right up to date.

The Living Waterways Exhibition runs until June 24. Open every day 10am to 5.30pm. Adults £3.50, children £2.50. Call 01491 415600 or visit the website: www.rrm.co.uk