Bessie Bunker

[Richard Bird]

The picture here, at Tinsley locks, is of a cruise organised by the Inland Waterways Protection Society (which I think may still be active)  along the Sheffield Canal in 1968. The idea was to, in some way, to encourage a return of commercial traffic on the canal which was a bit of a forlorn hope. At that time there was only about one commercial canal user left whose base was Rotherham. A leading light in the IWPS was Bessie, whose enthusiasm for the canals was legendary, along with the ability to talk the hind leg off a donkey. The she was the author of the book Portrait of Sheffield, (for which I took many of the photographs) published in 1972 and now long out of print.  Another of her pet subjects was cruck buildings and I believe she did a lot of research into these both locally and nationally. One of her successes was the initial restoration of the Buxworth Basin on the Peak Forest canal and much groundwork for it's restoration was down to her as the driving force and the society members. Subsequently, it has been given a fairly modern facelift by others and is now a national and well known feature of canal and tramway history. Bessie lived at Cartlidge, Holmsfield. Her actual driving was appalling and, from personal experience very dangerous. But she somehow survived!

She is the lady in the white hat in the foreground, sitting next to my late wife.

One the subject of the Sheffield Canal, many interesting historic photographs, which are still reasonably well known nowadays, were taken by a work colleague of mine, Mr Reg Frost, who worked in the photographic department of Firth Brown Ltd in the 60s and 70s. 

[Athy]

I'd like to display this photo on the Canal World Forum, of which I am a moderator. Would you mind?

Have you got any other snaps from the trip?