Daphne March

Reader's Letters & Queries: NarrowBoat, Summer 2011

Strictly speaking it is incorrect to refer to Daphne March (Spring 2011 NB) as an ‘Idle Woman’ (as indeed it is for the rest of the women canal-boat Trainees but that is another story!). Whilst it is true to say that without Daphne there probably would not have been any female Trainees, she never was a ‘Trainee’, never worked for the Grand Union Canal Carrying Company and was never given one of the now infamous ‘Inland Waterways’ badges [which simply had ‘IW’ on them, hence the nickname – Ed.]. At the age of 26, Daphne advertised in The Times for crew to help her work the Heather Bell, as soon as the bombdamaged Bournville Aqueduct was repaired in 1941. Daphne, with her mother Margaret, had been working her brother Christopher’s boat on the Worcester & Birmingham Canal and out onto the Severn so she counted as an independent trader or ‘Number One’. About 70 people responded to the advertisement (and not all w…