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Kit Gayford photograph collection
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Grand Union Canal
BW192/3/1/20/2/12
Kit Gayford and wartime women walking along a the quayside at Bulls Bridge
Description
Black and white photograph showing Eily (Kit) Gayford, chief trainer (carrying windlass). Audrey Harper (carrying shaft), Mary Vanderpump, Monica Martin, also known as Frankie Campbell-Martin, Evelyn Hunt (carrying water can) and Anne Blake (carrying rope). Photograph taken at Bulls Bridge Depot lay-by. There are several narrowboats visible in the background including the Grand Union Canal Company Limited boats "Bedworth" and "Feltham".
Admin history
Eily Tolley Gayford (1903-1991) was born in Hadleigh, Suffolk. "Kit" was a nickname which came from her experience with canals. She joined Daphne March and Molly traill on the March's boat Heather Bell, running between the Worcester & Birmingham Canal and the BCN, in 1941. AFter she left, the Ministry of Transport sought to recruit women to work narrow boats on the Gran Union and associated canals, and Kit Gayford became one of the trainers. After the scheme ended in 1945, she retained connections with waterways, crewing with George and Sonia Smith on Cairo and Warwick in the late 1940s. Living in Chelsea in the 1950s, she moved to live on a Thames houseboat there in 1959, and in 1973 her The Amateur Boatwomen was published
Date
1940-1945
Reference code
BW192/3/1/20/2/12
Creator
Gayford, Eily
Administrative / Biographical history
Admin history
Eily Tolley Gayford (1903-1991) was born in Hadleigh, Suffolk. "Kit" was a nickname which came from her experience with canals. She joined Daphne March and Molly traill on the March's boat Heather Bell, running between the Worcester & Birmingham Canal and the BCN, in 1941. AFter she left, the Ministry of Transport sought to recruit women to work narrow boats on the Gran Union and associated canals, and Kit Gayford became one of the trainers. After the scheme ended in 1945, she retained connections with waterways, crewing with George and Sonia Smith on Cairo and Warwick in the late 1940s. Living in Chelsea in the 1950s, she moved to live on a Thames houseboat there in 1959, and in 1973 her The Amateur Boatwomen was published
Extent & medium
1 photograph
