24 in ’24 Challenge – Book 19 “Small Boat in the Midi” by Roger Pilkington

Roger Pilkington and his wife have travelled the waterways of Britain and Europe in several converted barges over a period of many years. Small Boat in the Midi is one of a series of books detailing these journeys. This book talks mainly about travelling in the 1960s but there are occasions when the author writes about events in the twenty years or so following their first voyage. This book was one of my Advent calendar of books in 2023 and you can see my first impression of it here.

The Midi is the area in the South of France which is mainly rural but includes places such as Carcassonne, Marseilles and Avignon. Travel by water uses the Rhone but also many canals, including the Canal du Midi and the author includes tales of the challenges of building this waterway. The author details his journeys, the rivers and canals, the locks and the towns as well as indicating how these changed during the period in which he sailed there.

This book is, as I said, very detailed and to understand it fully I really needed a map which was not included in the book I read. I didn’t really grasp where the towns and waterways were in relation to each other or the distances involved. The book did have some coloured photographs but they weren’t very helpful and the book could have done with more illustrations. The author is good at description and in creating an atmosphere but there is little personal detail – I was over 200 pages in before he actually used his wife’s name. I got no feeling of what his barge was like or the sort of life that the couple lived when on the move as the book concentrated on the history and landscape of the areas visited.

I didn’t hate this book but I found it much too detailed for the average reader who has never been to these places or travelled by barge on French waterways. I suspect that its target audience would be those who have experience with boats on inland waters and who know this area.