By way of ensuring no offence to any locals who, in real life, live in the places mentioned in Rolt’s collection of sometimes strange, sometimes outrightly terrifying tales, an ‘Author’s Note’ claims that “…I do not attribute to such places or to their inhabitants any supernatural or sinister quality”. This is the first instance of Rolt’s key theme throughout this small but beautifully crafted set of “Railway, Canal and Other Stories of The Supernatural”; that of humour. Rolt knew his rural Britain, no doubt about it. His work with conservation and the Inland Waterways Association (in which he worked alongside, then royally fell out with, Robert Aickman) earned him much national and academic acclaim, and his seminal account of life on the English waterways, Narrow Boat (1944), virtually single-handedly instigated a belated resurgence in interest in England’s proud and lengthy canal history. Rolt toured England and Wales…
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