I'm impressed by how dressed up the boatmen were...very dapper!

Hi thanks for this Retired and live in Portugal and my friends wife next door was brought up on one of these she is now 76 and this brings back a lot of memories for her once again thank you

Outstanding footage!

That take me back to when I was youngster. Many thanks.

Exellent footage😊

I’m so in love with this history of yours and cannot believe we do not have this opportunity here in America!

Hope the guys who sell fuel. Charcoal. And gas. Watch this video. And how to cover and protect the goods last winter bought charcoal always wet. Lovely video keep cruising

My mum and aunt were born on a fellow and Morton’s and Clayton boat.

Brilliant - love it -thank you tonycolzi -

Well it’s certainly a different life on the canals today, what a contrast indeed.

Love seeing these working boats actually used. Filled up with ingots of metal and piles of coal.

0:04 Wow, the Lichfield canal still on the map. What a pity they dismantled such many old canals which could have been used up to this day :-(

Modern narrowboat youtubers will have a fit at this. Boat in gear against the top gates, whipping the paddles up quickly, dropping paddles without a windlass...done properly!

Excellent, thanks!

Fantastic video

Excellent!!!

Brilliant thank you! Much better without the distracting time code in the frame.

i would love to see someone take a bucket of water that clean today, the water in canals are not replenished enough these days.

its so weird how it looks if you compare then to now . but you look at the washing on the line not far away is the smoke coming out the chimney how do you keep clothes clean. a great piece of our history

Thanks for the suggestion but there are copyright issues relating to the complete film.

nice music

Amazing--what an amazingly simplier time.

this is pretty cool

Flip it took 4 _hours_ to load two boats with maybe 50 tonnes? Never mind the speed the boats travel at that must have been a significant bottleneck at a wharf.

Most of my early years where spent in & out of Bulls Bridge with my Grandparents. My Godparents where the first to train the idle women (Ely Gayford also from out of Bulls Bridge

@lauriebooth i knlw where your coming from, today we should respect the water system, i'm a boater myself and i would never drop the paddles either :)

Fascinating bit of canal history. I wonder if the narrator is correct in saying that they didn't have to work on Sundays. I suspect that the competition from the railways by then probably meant the boatmen had little choice if they were to earn a living wage.

8:14 I absolutely love this clip. It disappeared from KZfaq for a while and now it's back. Is there more to it? I thought it was almost 30 minutes long. I bought British Transport Films on DVD and I would certainly buy this one as well

verry interesting,,do they tranceport fraight today,,thanks for uploading.

@lauriebooth speed was everything then not like todays liesure

Good grief, they are loading aluminium ingots from Alcan made in England!!!

Mrs Richards: "I paid for a room with a view!" Basil: (pointing to the lovely view) "That is Torquay, Madam." Mrs Richards: "It's not good enough!" Basil: "May I ask what you were expecting to see out of a Torquay hotel bedroom window? Sydney Opera House, perhaps? the Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically past?..." Mrs Richards: "Don't be silly! I expect to be able to see the sea!" Basil: "You can see the sea, it's over there between the land and the sky." Mrs Richards: "I'm not satisfied. But I shall stay. But I expect a reduction." Basil: "Why?! Because Krakatoa's not erupting at the moment?" kzfaq.info/get/bejne/hrV_Z8-jucnQfo0.html

A floating sack of coal on water.

Rural Police.