Sonia Rolt

Sonia Rolt OBE (née South; 15 April 1919 – 22 October 2014) was a campaigner for the Inland Waterways Association (IWA) of Great Britain and was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2010 for her services to industrial archaeology and heritage.

[2] She met and married, in 1945, a handsome but illiterate boatman called George Smith who had spent all his life on the canals, and got to know much of the lore and culture of the boatmen, including the ghost stories.

[3] When the Inland Waterways Association was established by Tom Rolt and Robert Aickman in 1946, she took part in the first delegation to the Ministry of Transport and became a member of the council.

[4] When Tom Rolt left the waterways to return to his childhood home at Stanley Pontlarge, he also parted from his first wife, Angela.

[8] After Tom's death in 1974, the breach with the IWA was gradually healed by her being given an honorary membership in 1983 and her appointment as a vice president in 1993.