If you’ve already come across Terry Darlington’s two previous books, Narrow Dog to Carcassonne and Narrow Dog to Indian River you will recognise his latest book Narrow Dog to Wigan Pier as being in similar vein - the book cover has the same bold colours and simple child-like design; again there are hand drawn maps inside the covers to illustrate the author’s two boating adventures in the north of England; as before the author has tucked chapter notes at the end of the main text, a feature which adds richness and depth for the reader.

Here again the author regales his narrow boat exploits with a mixture of humour and horror. All ex-PGS pupils will be able to visualise the swell, the currents and the tidal race on the half mile crossing between Hobbs Point and Neyland; think then of crossing the River Mersey in a flat-bottomed boat. Early on in the account of their latest boating adventures Terry and Monica Darlington (and their two thin dogs) take Phyllis May 2 across the open Mersey to Liverpool, a distance six times greater than the Hobbs Point equivalent. Their intrepid travels in the north include arrival by boat first in Liverpool, then Wigan and Lancaster, York and Huddersfield... Narrowboaters will know of these places and the routes taken, though not all will have shared the author’s experience of being: “stretched out on the mud like a beached whale” on the Huddersfield Narrow or of fighting a fierce stream on the tidal Yorkshire Ouse.

But Narrow Dog to Wigan Pier is about far more than two extended boat trips: threaded through it is the story of Terry’s life. Maybe contemporaries will wonder how he turned up at Pembroke Dock Grammar School and where he finished his schooling. What were his wartime memories while living in Albany Street? How did he get to Oxford University? What exactly did his business do? Always dry wit pervades the tales of Terry’s past and of his boating adventures. Yet somehow this book seems darker. There is a determination to unpack and display the many threads of his activity-filled lifetime. The boating adventures appear as episodes amid the autobiographical stream but in the end the author recalls a fellow boater pronouncing:

‘You have written a Narrow Dog Trilogy... Every writer should have an ilogy, and you’ve got an ilogy. Terry and his ilogy.’ Fans of the first two books, don’t miss this one, the one that completes a trilogy.

Not only boaters will enjoy this book: read it as a biography, consider Terry Darlington’s childhood wartime memories of Pembroke Dock under bombardment and watch out for frequent South Pembrokeshire references.

The book is available in hardback – and there is a Kindle edition for those who these days prefer to read off the screen rather than off the page.