The first Granada Television series to be filmed in colour (though initially transmitted in black and white), this popular children's adventure featured a star who is 72 feet long and painted in cheerful shades of red and yellow! She is The Flower of Gloster, a converted canal barge which over the course of the series winds her way from Wales, through the inland waterways of England to the Pool of London at Tower Bridge.

When their boatyard owner father is taken ill, ten-year-old Michael, his twelve-year-old sister Elizabeth and elder brother Dick decide to deliver a narrow-boat to a buyer on his behalf. During their 220-mile trip, they make new friends but also encounter all kinds of danger and difficulties, played out against the changing pattern of the British countryside.