dig for victory Archives

Sunshine for Leela and a Spade for Lizbef.

What a relief this feels like.

It’s been three weeks since I left my “normal” job. Since then, I’ve put myself down for every shift at the museum that’s available and have been working until 2am most nights on the boat to throw myself back into the business.

It doesn’t feel like a hardship to work so late- not when your work is your passion.

Since I last spoke to you, I moved the boat to a new location. It’s a spot that Leela enjoys because there are huge fields behind the towpath she can whizz over, tail twirling around and around like a helicopter.

It’s been wonderful spending more time with her. When I was working in education over winter, I felt as though I was losing her in some way. I refuse to leave Leela alone for more than a couple of hours- if I’m really desperate, so she would stay with my folks mid week until I finished on a Friday to pick her up. And now, we’ve gone back to a lovely routine where I’m with her 24/7.

I don’t know what Leela thinks of this new arrangement- she’s probably mourning the loss of having a bed in each room, constant biscuits, cups of tea and steak at the weekends with her grandparents. Still, she’ll have her way this weekend, as she’s going with my parents on holiday to the seaside, so she can be spoilt to her heart’s content. Leela has had more holidays than me over the past 7 years. Meanwhile, I’m planning on spending my weekend with a rake in hand at my allotment.

It’s been quite exciting planning this allotment. I do admit however, that I may have bitten off more than I can chew.

“So, you can’t just buy a load of seeds and stick them in the ground?” I asked my mother.

She just smiled. “No, love.”

“Oh.”

“And then you’ve got to be careful which veggies you plant next to each other.”

“What? Why?”

“Well, some plants do better next to other plants and others don’t get on.”

“What do you mean?” I demanded, imagining some animated version of the Wars of the Roses with a tomato plant wrestling with a courgette.

“Just get your seeds, Elizabeth.”

Not to mention- there’s the hurdle of getting a greenhouse and a shed into action, which is slightly difficult considering my car is a tiny Peugeot (you know the ones- the one that you get your Nana so she can do her weekly shop at Tescos).

“I was thinking about getting some pallets and building it,” I told my dad as we sat with a pint before Sunday dinner. My brother in law, Ryan, sitting next to him looked dubious.

“That’s not going to be easy,” he told me. Which was a kind way of probably saying, “you are absolutely joking.”

“Why? Can’t I just get a load of pallets and whack them together? I’ve seen some really nice ones on Pinterest that people have done themselves.”

Ryan was silent- either musing other the brilliance of my idea, or coming to the conclusion that it was better to keep his mouth shut.

“Why don’t you just buy one?” my dad suggested. “You can get one online for £120.”

£120 is a lot of money right now for myself. Fresh out of my “grown up” job, I can’t take any income from a painting or a book sale for granted. £120 is a monthly food shop.

I’ve never been good at jigsaw puzzles. And I have never in my life put together any piece of Ikea furniture. I doubted my chances at succeeding with a delivered flat shed. Somehow a load of pallets, nails and a hammer felt like the cheapest and easiest solution.

But my indecision has wrapped me up in knots.

As you may as well know by now, my DIY skills are somewhat… lacking. I can pull things apart, load up bricks, dig ditches and get in hay bales. I am the human version of a pack mule- I’m a strong gal. But building something?

Sometimes I get a perfect idea in my head, and because of seeking out perfection, I get terrified of making a mistake. And then time goes by, where I plan, and read and then fear begins to grow. And before I know it, a month has passed and all I have is a pitchfork to my name.

However, thanks to the forward thinking of my mother, I already have a bunch of tomatoes slowly being grown into existence in her greenhouse, and I have been told that I will be growing beetroot.

“But I don’t like beetroot,” I said in confusion, as she held up a packet of seeds.

“We’ll get these down- they’re easy enough to grow.”

“But, mum, I don’t like beetroot. You know I don’t like beetroot.”

“No, but me and your sister do, so…”

And that was that. In fact, I felt a stab of pride at the thought that my allotment could be useful for my family. Living on the boat, single and without children, sometimes I can feel as though I don’t offer enough. My home isn’t used for entertaining them, there are no dinners held here and most of my family end up leaving the boat dirtier than when they had first stepped in an hour previous.

I suppose getting an allotment was to prove something to myself. That I could learn these things, that I could provide for my family in a way that would be useful and meaningful. Fine, there’s no space to have Sunday dinners on board, and I don’t have an oven, but growing food? Yeah, that’s something I can do.

I had planned to plant things I could easily cook without an oven (installing one is one the to-do list, they’re just expensive) such as spring onions, tomatoes, French beans, more onions, salads, courgettes and anything else I could slice and dice and slice in a frying pan. But growing potatoes, carrots, parsnips and (yes, mum) beetroot to contribute towards my family makes me feel good.

I feel as though there is a beautiful honesty in growing your own veggies, and I’m looking forward to diving into this Dig for Victory experiment and seeing if I can replicate the methods of the 40’s- and most importantly- get into the mindset of being self-sufficient.

It’s an exciting prospect.

So, life on the boat is quite nice and very wholesome at the moment. I’m reading gardening books, painting commissions so I can pay for boat repairs, walking Leela and answering every one of her whims. I’m basically the Temu version of Beatrix Potter.

Over the past eight years of boating, there has been many highs and terrible lows.

I’m enjoying a peaceful high right now, so I’m enjoying every moment.

Sending you all of our love, and we’re excited to share with you the next part in our journey.

Elizabeth and Leela

X X X

A Grand Return to the Waterways

Congratulations- you survived and made it to Spring! I cannot tell you the relief I am feeling with the sunshine on my face. Suddenly, everything feels a lot more positive. Painting feels easier, Leela is happier not being covered in mud after her walks, and I don’t have to put a fire on first thing in the morning.

Finally, it feels like I can enjoy boat life again.

And with that comes the ability to create real content. I have been busy filming and editing videos, the first to be released this Friday and I have been incredibly excited about its subject matter- World War Two on the canals.

With Maggie being built in 1928 and worked on by the people that would have been alive during the First World War, delving into the WW2 felt natural. Maggie was based in Birmingham during the bombings, where she suffered a wall collapse at Gas Street Basin. All of that, she survived.

As you may well know, I have been writing a book about the lost history of women of the waterways- one of my favourite segments is about the Idle Women of the canals. It felt quite poignant to me that my boat would also be “doing her bit”, still working as a haulage boat, (for Samual Barlow at that point) and it occurred to me, what would it be like to live and work on these canal boats during the war? And not just that- what would it be like for the people on land as they coped through rations and growing their own food?

Which led me to my next experiment.

Dig For Victory.

Initiated in 1939, the UK Government called the public to join “The Garden Front”, encouraging all to start growing their own food. It was a concern that with our ships being targeted by the enemy, that Hitler would attempt to starve us into surrender. Our ships were also needed to move our armed forces, weapons and supplies to fight in the war. With our pre-war stats of having 75% of our food imported, the Government knew that something would have to be done. We needed to be as self sufficient as possible.

Flowers were pulled up in every garden and replaced with potatoes, carrots, onions and anything else you could stick in the soil. Nothing was wasted or thrown away. Full dedication was required. Verges, public parks, and even Buckingham Palace’s gardens were revolutionised.

This was one of the reasons I decided to make the leap and get myself an allotment.

I have been boating for about eight years now. I have never had my own bricks or mortar- or my own garden, and I have no idea when I will get to that point in my life. The one thing I do yearn for is my own space where I can grow fruit and veg.

But surely you can plant some flower boxes on your roof, Elizabeth?

I don’t want a boat roof garden of a couple of boxes.

I want a proper garden where Leela can play whilst I rake and dig beneath the sun and eventually collapse into a chair where I can have a glass of cider with my mother. I mention my mother, because although she may not realise it- I need all of her green thumb knowledge. I want to have that experience for myself. I spent my childhood watching my Nan and mother take care of their gardens, fuss over their sheds and greenhouses. My sister and I would be on watering duties every sundown in Spring, help pull out the weeds, and then be put to work in the paddock by our Granddad.

Everything I associate with gardening is a happy memory of family.

The allotment where I am now, was started in 1919 to combat the Great Depression. Soldiers returning and unable to find work, needed to be able to bring in food another way. The green space thrived and served its community well.

During the Second World War, the allotment burst again with life, families and children working together to be able to put food on the table. We had to think outside of the box and make do with what we could grow on our own.

I like this idea of self sufficiency. And whereas I am not experienced in gardening, or planting of any sort, I want to delve into learning a new skill. I want to be able to bring food home and know that whatever happens or if money is short, I can go to the allotment and be fed through my own hard work. Sometimes I feel like I am drowning in technology and social media, the world so different from my childhood. I want to go back to a simpler time where I can work hard and return home to a cup of tea, some custard creams and watch Last of the Summer Wine with Leela.

I’ve started filming this plunge into history already, still showing what it’s like living on a boat, but giving a historical context into this new endeavour. I will also be looking into life on the canals during this turbulent time, how the Idle Women coped and what we can learn from them today.

On top of this, there will be slashes of Medieval History on the days that I’ll be working at the Battle of Bosworth Museum as a Battlefield Tour Guide (my costume is fabulous), and I’ll no doubt be sharing what paintings I am working on and selling.

In spirit of this history exploration, I am launching a letter-writing subscription. In a world where we are so inundated with emails, texts, social media messages, I feel as though we’ve lost something along the way. I’ve always loved handwriting letters, and I feel as though it is a dying art. I will be offering a subscription service to anyone who would like a bit more of the 1940s taste to be kept updated on what has been going on with our boat restoration project, and have a little something extra included inside- it could be a gift from the museum or something home made, but it will be something chosen with love from Leela and I, sent from the English Waterways.

Leela would like you to see our new Fine Art Print, which is now available on the shop- mostly because it is a painting of her on the boat. It is aptly named “Boat Dog” (Leela wanted something grand, but I wanted to stay straight to the point) and is available in sizes A4 and A5. Each one sold goes towards our home’s historical restoration of her hull and interior improvement plans. You can also grab the first art print of Malvern here.

I am so excited to share with you what is in stall this Spring. Medieval history, The Great War, the Second World War, Idle Women, Allotment growing, Dig for Victory, boat jobs, painting AND, of course- writing books. You can watch the episodes early and get access to private blogs and extracts from the fourth Maddox Black book I am still working on, by signing up to be a Patron here.

Sending you all of our love and thank you so much for being here with us.

It really means the world after all of this time,

Elizabeth and Leela x