L·T·C·ROLT

Sonia Rolt

Sonia Rolt is an author and canal expert in her own right.

As Sonia South, she originally trained as an actress at the London Theatre Studio under Michel Saint-Denis. With the outbreak of the war, she worked for a short spell in the Hoover factory at Greenford working on the wiring for military aircraft.

Soon after this she volunteered as a trainee boatwoman on the canals, where she met and married her first husband, George, who was a working boatman.

In the mid 1940s Sonia became increasingly politically active on behalf of the boating community, and through this met Tom Rolt in 1945.

She went on to marry Tom and have two sons, and in 1953 they all moved to Tom’s family home in Stanley Pontlarge, the house where she still lives today.

Sonia went on to work for the Landmark Trust and the National Trust as a freelance furnisher, and more recently worked on the Landmark Trust’s book collections. She has been Vice-Chairman of the IWA and has for many years been an active committee member for the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB).

Sonia has edited and written introductions to several of her late husband's books. She is author of the book, A Canal People, The Photographs of Robert Longden. Find out more.

Sonia received the OBE in 2010 for services to industrial archaeology and to heritage.

Two of the many recent magazine articles coinciding with Tom's centenary focus as much on Sonia as Tom:

• Cornerstone - Water and Earth, but above all, Fire (4 page PDF file, 350K)
• Canals Rivers and Boats - Celebrating Tom Rolt, Narrow Boat Man (6 page PDF file, 1MB)

Sonia on board 'Heron' in 2010, descending the Foxton lock