Jake Kavanagh has spent what he describes as some enjoyable years working as a lock keeper. Almost inevitably, countless stories emerged each season, just waiting to be told by the keepers. This book is a collection of the best of these stories, most of which are firsthand accounts, and all are true. To the uninitiated, it may seem like a catalog of chaos, but those who regularly navigate by boat know: when everything goes well, the lock is part of the fun, and when it doesn’t, someone is surely watching. Some things are simply too strange to be made up: like how a lawnmower turns into a hovercraft, for example, or the tale of the Bavarian houseboat crew who first get their boat stuck in a self-service lock gate and then sink it. These and other anecdotes have been captured by the Englishman Jake Kavanagh in his book.