Mystery barge name solved after Yorkshire Post article prompts family to reach out

The boat, Marjorie R, has a rich history. Originally used to transport coal to Thornhill Power Station, Marjorie had passed through many different hands before being found by Victoria and Chris, and transformed first into their home, and then into the bookshop Hold Fast Bookshop.

A mystery remained, however, about Marjorie’s name.

Other canal boats of her kind have had their names attributed to people, but Victoria and Chris had yet to find the person who Marjorie was named after.

When The Yorkshire Post first interviewed the couple in October, this is something they were keen to publicise, in the hopes that someone would hold the key to the secret of Marjorie’s past.

An answer did not take long to come.

On Tuesday November 29, after the story was published the weekend prior, The Yorkshire Post received an email from Sue Grafton.

It read: “Tonight I was delighted to read in the Yorkshire Post Magazine about the 76-year-old barge which has been made into a bookshop! Our dear Mum Marjorie Reed christened her.

“She was the wife of Reg Reed, who worked in the coal industry all his life. I’d be delighted to talk to the owners!

“Sue Grafton née Reed.”

Just over a week later, on a cold Friday December 9, Sue, 84, her brother Bill Reed, 86, and her sister Ann Simpson, 90, are gathered, ready to meet Victoria and Chris for the first time, and to climb aboard the barge which carries their mother’s name.

“It’s a lovely space,” says Bill, reaching the bottom of the barge’s steps.

As the two groups introduce themselves, with the barge’s heater burning in the background, Sue passes two black and white photographs to Victoria and Chris.

One of them, inset, shows Reg and Marjorie together, Reg wearing a suit, Marjorie in a patterned dress, both of them smiling.

In another, Marjorie is photographed on holiday in France, she is sitting back on a deckchair, laughing, her feet resting in a bucket of water.

“She was the daughter of a farmer from East Riding,” says Bill.

“She was a mother,” adds Sue, “she didn’t work, but they didn’t in those days.

“She was a very practical lady, very energetic.

“She worked a lot for the village in Boston Spa, and she did a lot of fundraising for the Red Cross. Me and Ann used to help her cater for their dances.”

Although she was only eight years old when the boat was christened, Sue has memories of her mother preparing for the event.

“I can remember her being anxious,” she says, “because she wasn’t somebody that dressed up. She wanted to have a nice dress and I remember that she had to have a hat.”

Ann, the eldest of the siblings, remembers her mother being given a handbag as part of the ceremony.

The ceremony took place in Knottingley, where the boats would be launched with the smashing of a bottle of champagne, events which would often see children taking the day off school to ride on the barges as they were pushed into the water.

As was tradition at the time, Marjorie’s name was used due to her being married to someone in the coal industry.

“He was the president of the Yorkshire Coal Exchange,” says Bill, discussing his father.

“He started there when he was 14, after he had to leave school because his father had lung disease.”

After growing up in Boston Spa, Ann, Bill and Sue would each go on to have differing careers.

Ann worked as a school secretary, whilst Sue was an outside caterer.

Bill moved to Hong Kong, and worked on setting up legislation for environmental issues such as noise, air pollution and waste disposal.

“Who was it that spotted the article?” asks Victoria to the family.

Sue goes on to recount having seen the article late at night in The Yorkshire Post Magazine, and emailing shortly after.

“It’s really odd how it happened,” she says. “I just thought, ‘wow, that takes me back,’ it was a real thrill.”

This is not the first time Victoria and Chris have had the boat elicit an emotional response from someone, nor the first time this has come about through coincidence.

“We met a guy called Paul who used to do the maintenance on this boat at Castleford,” says Victoria. “He was walking down the canal with his granddaughter and he saw her and just burst into tears.

“We wondered what was going on so we went out and chatted to him and he remembered her, this is the first boat he had ever gone underwater to mend.

“She just seems to provoke a lot of emotion in a lot of people.”

As Sue, Bill and Ann prepare to leave, the group exchange contact details after Sue buys a book.

“I guess it's like missing bits of jigsaws,” says Victoria, reflecting on the meeting after the group has left.

“People always ask why she’s called Marjorie, and we’ve never had a satisfactory answer.

“It’s a big thing naming a boat, people tend to pick their grandchildren or somebody important emotionally, so to finally realise who she is, it’s fabulous.

“It’s lovely now to be able to say, ‘This picture on the wall is Marjorie, and this is Reg who worked for the coal board’.

“And it was really nice seeing how much it mattered to their family.”