19 hours ago
Tuesday, 6 November 2012
Is this a Joey?
At Charity Dock on the Coventry Canal at the back end of the summer was this day boat, so called as it lacks night-time accommodation.
At least, I assume that is the origin of the name. Day boats were used for short-haul traffic; the workers lived in houses. In Birmingham day boats were sometimes referred to as Joeys - anyone know why?
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5 comments:
My mother had a neigbour who used to work on Joey boats from the Cannock / Walsall Wood coalfield and I asked him the same question. Unfortunately, he didn't know. To him that was just what they were called. It had never occured to him that the name might have a history or meaning.
Looks nothing like the offspring of a kangaroo!
Strictly Speaking, Joeys were boats built / hired out by (Joe) Worsey. Other builders / hirers were available. So, All Joeys were day boats but only some day-boats were Joey's. This example is an open boat. Some had small cabins in which it was possible to sleep (in a rough, camping out sort of way. See Tom Foxon's excellent books for tales of this sort of thing.
Sue, you're not wrong!
Ray, thanks for that. So were other boats known as Bills, say, or Arthurs, and it's only Joeys whose memory has lasted?
Graham, now you know.
Only Joeys, AFAIK. Bills only came from the toll collector..
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