They Were Nicknamed the ‘Idle Women’ - But Their Wartime Job Was Brutal

They Were Nicknamed the ‘Idle Women’ - But Their Wartime Job Was Brutal

Imagine working an 18-hour day hauling ropes, opening heavy lock gates, steering a loaded narrowboat through darkness and bad weather, then sleeping for only a few hours before getting up and doing it all again. Now imagine doing all of that while being known by the nickname “Idle Woman.” It sounds almost ridiculous, but during the Second World War a tiny group of women carried out some of the hardest and least remembered work on Britain’s home front.

Ministry of Information Photo Division, via Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.

Daphne March aboard the narrowboat Heather Bell in 1942, holding a coil of rope as she works on Britain’s wartime canals. She was one of the experienced boatwomen involved in training women for canal work during the Second World War.

Today I want to discover more about the women who helped keep Britain’s canals moving during the war. While thousands of women entered factories, farms and the armed services, a much smaller number took to the waterways, working narrowboats that carried vital cargo including coal, steel and other essential materials to factories and industrial centres.

By the middle of the war, Britain’s canals were still an important part of the transport network, but experienced boat crews were becoming increasingly difficult to find. Many men had left for military service or other wartime work, yet the cargo still had to move. A scheme was therefore created to train women to work on the Grand Union Canal, and those who joined wore badges carrying the letters IW, meaning Inland Waterways. From those initials came the nickname that has survived ever since: the “Idle Women.”

There was, of course, absolutely nothing idle about their lives. Crews generally consisted of three women working together on a motor narrowboat towing an unpowered “butty” behind it. Between them, the boats could carry around 50 tonnes of cargo. One regular route involved taking steel from London to Birmingham and then returning south with Warwickshire coal. A complete round trip could take around three weeks.

The work was physically demanding and relentless. Days lasting 18 to 20 hours were possible, and the women had to steer the boats, work the locks, haul ropes, secure the vessels and manage the boats through all kinds of weather. They lived aboard throughout the journey, sleeping, cooking and eating in cramped conditions with very little comfort. For women who had never experienced canal life before, it must have been an enormous adjustment.

Training usually lasted around six weeks, and recruits were expected to be physically strong enough to cope with the demands of the job. One official description stated that women should have a “robust constitution,” which gives some idea of what was expected of them. Former ballet dancer Eily “Kit” Gayford became one of the best-known women involved and helped train new recruits for the waterways service.

What makes their story even more remarkable is just how few women actually took part. Around 45 women are believed to have worked in the main wartime waterways scheme between 1943 and 1946. Compared with the tens of thousands of women who became Land Girls or worked in munitions factories, their numbers were tiny, and perhaps that is one reason their contribution has so often been overlooked.

The women earned around £3 a week, and despite the exhausting physical work they did not receive extra food rations. After spending weeks travelling the canals and working extremely long days, they could take time away from the boats, but that leave was unpaid. Their conditions were certainly not glamorous, yet the work they carried out was important to the wider war effort.

I think what makes this story so striking is the contrast between the nickname and the reality. Anyone watching one of these boats moving slowly along the canal might have imagined a peaceful journey through the countryside, but life aboard was anything but peaceful. These women were handling heavy boats, difficult locks and valuable wartime cargo for weeks at a time, often in cold, wet and exhausting conditions.

The “Idle Women” were never idle. They were a tiny group carrying out work that demanded strength, resilience and determination, and although their numbers were small, the materials they transported helped keep Britain’s industries supplied during some of the most difficult years of the war.

Had you heard of Britain’s “Idle Women” before, or is this another part of the wartime home front that deserves far more attention?