In total William Bliss wrote four
books, three on canoeing and one “Pilgrimage of Grace” an autobiography of his early life. This book,
his first, wasn’t published until 1933 when Bliss was already 68. It appears
that Bliss took up the pen following his retirement from the law.
The subtitle to the book is A Canoeing Chronicle by River and Canal,
but you should not be under any illusions this book is mostly about canals.
Bliss just loved canoeing along canals because of their vistas and landscapes. There
is a most wonderful passage in the introduction that has already been partly quoted
by Mick of Old Waterways Books. It describes a journey along a section of the south
Oxford Canal. I will quote it at length because to me it says it all about the
joys of boating.
“I
remember-I shall remember always-one such place upon the Oxford Canal somewhere
between Oxford and Banbury-somewhere about Heyford, I think it must have been,
or Steeple Aston. It was an early Easter -March or early April-and I had come up
from Oxford in a canoe to find the Spring. It had been cold when I started, a north-west wind and even a
few flakes of snow, but when I had come about sixteen miles and it was, I
suppose, a little after midday or towards one o'clock, the wind fell and the
sun came out suddenly warm and caressing, and great blue patches opened in the
clouds. I was paddling quietly round just such a bend as I have described, the
rounded grassy slopes leaned down and closed me in on my right, but on my left
the meadows fell away and all was open country, with the young Cherwell showing
here and there among its willows three fields away in the valley bottom. I had breakfasted
very early in Oxford and thought of lunch, and as I let my canoe come to rest
against the sheltering bank a heavenly scent of Spring came to me on the sun warmed
wind, and I looked up at the bank to see, just above my right shoulder, a
colony of white violets. I had found Spring and would celebrate the discovery.”
Presumably Radcot Bridge, Upper Thames
As you can tell the style of writing is “of its time” but his enthusiasm
and the quality of the prose make it a book that is a joy to read. The book even
has light moments - I have already quoted the section relating to the Red Lion
at Cropredy.
Bliss also describes one of the last
passages through Sapperton Tunnel on the Thames and Severn Canal.
The book has nine chapters and three
are related to the River Severn. Given the title refers to England a fair
amount of time is actually spent describing journeys in Wales with sections
related to Welshpool and Vyrnwy.
You could get the impression that this
is book is all about canoeing but Bliss and his companions travelled along the
Severn in 1899 using a randan – a rowing boat with one person sculling (two
oars) and the other two rowing (single oar). This meant they had more draught
than a canoe, and occasionally went aground, but they found the boat very
useful when they had a difficult moment negotiating a bend in the Ironbridge
Gorge.
If the book has a flaw it is that ends
abruptly without any conclusions or resume. It simply finishes with “The distance from Ludlow to Worcester by
river, I judge to be about 50 miles”. After such a wonderful introduction I would have expected something better.
This book must have had some modest success
at time because Bliss went on to write three more books, including a handbook
on canoeing published by Methuen, but his books became “forgotten” during the post war era even by canoeists.
In terms of its impact on the waterways this book cannot rank with the likes of the books
by Tom Rolt, but it in terms of enthusiasm for the landscape of canals this
book cannot be beaten. Copies of this book do become available on the web but in my experience they are not cheap.
