Boating Woman by Jane Rouse (2025) Recorded by Three Idle Women I was born in the year of 1924, me parents were boat people born and bred, Me mother gave birth on the butty boat and she laid me down on the wooden side bed Chorus : I am a boating woman I was born afloat, I live my life on a pair of narrowboats I had no schooling but there’s plenty that I know, I stand on the butty with the elum in my hand and I feel the line pull tight and tow As I grew up on the Oxford canal a childhood on the move was glorious and free, The fields and towpaths a wonderful playground, endless chores but no school for me At twenty one years old I married me husband we knew the work well and we made a good life, Worked the butty and the motor as we had with our parents, had four children while we laboured and strived By 1962 the work had dried up, for love nor money we couldn’t get a load, So we moved ourselves onto the bank, for just fifty quid the two boats we sold Despite living on the bank for some long years I’m still a boatwoman it’s in my bones, We roamed the canals again in our retirement, cos life feels right when we’re afloat The music of Three Idle Women can be heard on SoundCloud and the album ‘all hands together’, released November 2024. More details and CD purchase info can be found on their website from where a free copy of this track can be downloaded. This track will be on their next album. ‘Boating Woman’ was written as a celebration of Rose Skinner’s 100th birthday which would have been in September 2024. Rose was born into a horse boating family in 1924 and the song follows her life-learning all her boating skills as a child working with her parents, her married life as a Mum of four while working afloat, their forced move onto the bank as the trade on the canals declined and her retirement years travelling around the waterways again with her husband Jack.