Photographic Assistant, Caroline Benson has resisted the temptation to select a festive image this month, instead sharing images she discovered whilst preparing materials for an education session last month…

The photographs this month are from a collection depicting canals & canal life. The two I have chosen were amongst a selection used by Philippa Heath, our Public Programmes Manager, in a school workshop held last month. The primary school children visited MERL as part of  Takeover Day and used pictures from our collection to create mini exhibitions (see an online version here) about life on the canals.

Unfortunately we don’t know the names of the people nor the location of the canal in these particular pictures but the date is August 1965.

The collection includes a variety of activities but here we have crocheting and painting.

Crochet on the canal

Painting on the canal