On
1 September 1939, Tom Rolt and his wife Angela were travelling along
the Trent and Mersey canal aboard their narrowboat, Cressy.
Arriving at Trentham Bridge to take on some fuel they were hailed by
a boatman at the tiller of a passing barge, who told them that
Germany had invaded Poland. That day they passed through the
Potteries, and the Harecastle Tunnel on into Cheshire, where two days
later they heard the announcement that war had been declared.
Rolt, a future campaigner for preservation of Britain's neglected canal system and one of the founders of the Inland Waterways Association, later wrote a lyrical account of their journey entitled Narrow Boat, which sparked a post-war resurgence of interest in this by-then woefully neglected transport network. A traditionalist at heart, Rolt was dismissive of many of the towns and cities they passed through, but devoted two short chapters to their brief passage through the Potteries. His appreciation of the area and its people stemmed from the fact that he had some years earlier partially served his engineering apprenticeship at Messrs Kerr, Stuart and Co, locomotive engineers in Stoke.
Reference: L.T.C. Rolt, Narrow Boat pp. 115-129; Landscape With Canals, p.3.
Rolt, a future campaigner for preservation of Britain's neglected canal system and one of the founders of the Inland Waterways Association, later wrote a lyrical account of their journey entitled Narrow Boat, which sparked a post-war resurgence of interest in this by-then woefully neglected transport network. A traditionalist at heart, Rolt was dismissive of many of the towns and cities they passed through, but devoted two short chapters to their brief passage through the Potteries. His appreciation of the area and its people stemmed from the fact that he had some years earlier partially served his engineering apprenticeship at Messrs Kerr, Stuart and Co, locomotive engineers in Stoke.
Reference: L.T.C. Rolt, Narrow Boat pp. 115-129; Landscape With Canals, p.3.