A closer look
Before L.T.C. Rolt came along, Britain’s historic inland waterways were practically viewed as inconveniently wet ditches waiting to be paved over. After WWII, the government was dead set on abandoning the entire canal network. Rolt, a stubborn engineer and writer, effectively sparked a rebellion by cruising the dying waterways on a narrowboat named Cressy and penning a romanticized bestseller about it. He co-founded the Inland Waterways Association, weaponized public nostalgia, and bullied the government into preserving a network that is now a massive tourism industry instead of a series of gloomy parking lots.
