the supersession of men by machines or a continual expansion of production". His preference for traditional craftsmanship helps to explain his subsequent career. Cressy In 1936, Kyrle Willans bought back Cressy, which he had earlier sold, and several trips on the waterways convinced Rolt that he wanted a life afloat. He persuaded Angela Orred to join him in this idyll. She was a young blonde in a white polo-necked sweater, who had swept into his garage in an Alfa Romeo in 1937 and been caught up in the vintage car scene. Rolt bought Cressy from his uncle and set about converting her into a boat that could be lived on, the most notable addition being a bath. By the summer of 1939, Rolt and Angela decided to defy her father's reluctance and married in secret on 11 July. Work on Cressy was completed at Tooley's Boatyard in Banbury, and on 27 July Rolt and his wife set off up the Oxford Canal. War The outbreak of the Second World War intervened and Rolt, a pacifist at heart, immediately signed up at the Rolls-Royce factory at Crewe, working on the production line for the Spitfire's Merlin engine. He was saved from the tedium of the production line by the offer of a job in a bell foundry at Aldbourne, Wiltshire. The Rolts battled south in Cressy through storms, reaching Banbury a day before the canals were finally frozen over for the winter. The following March they negotiated the River Thames in flood and battled up the River Kennet to reach Hungerford, near Aldbourne, where Rolt worked for more than a year. The Rolts' first four-month cruise was described in a book which Rolt initially called Painted Ship. Despite sending the manuscript to many publishers, he had to put it aside, as it was felt that there was no market for books about canals. It was not until a magazine article he wrote came to the attention of the countryside writer H. J. Massingham that Rolt had the break which led to the book finally being published, in December 1944, under the title Narrow Boat. Inland Waterways Association Narrow Boat was an immediate success with critics and public, leading to fan mail arriving at the Rolts' boat at Tardebigge where they were then moored. Two of the letters Rolt received were from Robert Aickman and Charles Hadfield who were both to figure