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‘Wonderfully written, humorous and humane, and beautifully evocative of the time' - Independent Summer Reads

‘Smith's writing exudes wisdom and humour, and her descriptions ... are vividly drawn' - Times Literary Supplement

‘Hope and energy radiate from every sentence of this lovely volume as it emerges into the light after its long sojourn in the cemetery of forgotten books' - Daily Mail

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A classic and unforgettable tale of three girls who abandon their middle-class comforts for an adventure of a lifetime during the Second World War

In 1943 Emma Smith joined the Grand Union Canal Carrying Company under their wartime scheme of employing women to replace the boaters. She set out with two friends on a big adventure: three eighteen-year-olds, freed from a middle-class background, precipitated into the boating fraternity.

They learn how to handle a pair of seventy-two foot-long canal boats, how to carry a cargo of steel north from London to Birmingham and coal from Coventry; how to splice ropes, bail out bilge water, keep the engine ticking over and steer through tunnels. They live off kedgeree and fried bread and jam, adopt a kitten, lose their bicycles, laugh and quarrel and get progressively dirtier and tougher as the weeks go by.

Maidens' Trip is a classic memoir of the growth to maturity of three young women in the exceptional circumstances of Britain at war.