For anyone interested in a bit of canal history (and London canal history at that), the last show of Alarum Theatre's tour about the wartime trainees, the Idle Women, is at the Pirate Castle on Saturday 5th August at 7.30pm. It's also the last time this show will be performed in London (as it is going north next year) so don't miss it!

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75 years ago the Women's Training Scheme began - young women with no knowledge or experience of working boats took on a pair with 50 tons of cargo. Their route took them along the Regent's Canal, from the depot at Bull's Bridge to Limehouse where they loaded before setting off back across London and up the Grand Union. They carried war supplies to Birmingham (usually steel or timber) before going on to Coventry to bring coal back to London, often to the Apsley paper mills and the ABC bakery in Camden. Alarum Theatre have been celebrating their work by recreating the journey they made regularly over three weeks sharing the stories of their work and lives on the water. They have taken a little longer and now, after 15 weeks, are approaching the end of the tour. As part of the tour the boaters in the Nuneaton area provided a cargo to bring back to London - a bag of coal for Frogmore Mill and a mounted chunk of coal for the ABC Bakery, except of course that no longer exists so the Pirate Castle is standing in!

The show at the Pirate Castle on 5th August at 7.30pm will be the last in the tour and the last time Kate Saffin and Heather Wastie perform Idle Women of the Wartime Waterways in London, so don't miss this chance to hear the wonderfully evocative stories of these game young women taking on a tough wartime job.

The tour has garnered critical and audience approval throughout. You can read some of the comments on the Alarum website or their Facebook page or their Twitter account