For the Love of Canals

"Most canals still in existence - two thousand miles of them - were built more than two hundred years ago, before the advent of steam railways began to make them redundant before their time. It is remarkable how many survive, often a tribute to the immense amount of hard work with picks and shovels, just like the original navvies, of volunteers who restored abandoned waterways." For the Love of Canals begins in Paul's previous home in Dudswell Wharf, where he lived hard by "the Cut", as canal folk know the waterway, just north of the historic Hertfordshire town of Berkhamsted. Paul's first encounter with canals goes all the way back to his childhood, in the coal mining country of west Yorkshire. Just over the hill from his home town of Normanton lay the Aire and Calder Navigation Canal, a prince among waterways, that served the collieries of half the country. From these early beginnings, he graduated to cycling the entire lengths of several canals in southern England, on his folding Brompton, and in later years walking many more across the country. For the Love of Canals brings readers on a journey round Britain's canals, their history, their rise, decline and rebirth, their role in trade, their romance, their dark narrative of crime, their future in the gentrification of homes by "the Cut" that were once deeply unfashionable but now highly sought-after, their sport and wildlife and most of all their sheer fun and pleasure, on the towpath, on board and in art, film and books.