Painted Boats appreciates the gentle rhythm of traditional canal life, whereas Ted's ambition is to get off the canals and into mainstream life at the earliest opportunity. World War II intrudes when Ted is called up for military service, leaving the future for the pair uncertain. Location filming took place on the 20-mile stretch of the Grand Union Canal between Stoke Bruerne and Braunston in Northamptonshire, including the Blisworth Tunnel – at 1.75 miles (2.82 km) in length, the third-longest canal tunnel in Britain. Insert shots feature the industrial landscape of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, the famous Anderton Boat Lift in Cheshire and
Sapperton Canal Tunnel bring water from the River Severn toward the Thames Basin and London; if such a plan is realised the Sapperton Canal Tunnel could be utilised to transport water. In "Hornblower and the Atropos" by C.S. Forester, Hornblower helps the boatman "leg" through Sapperton Tunnel after the boatman's assistant is incapacitated. Forester spends the first two chapters of the book on the canal-boat journey, Roughly a third of the first chapter is devoted to the tunnel. In the novel "Gone" by Mo Hayder the tunnel is used extensively as a location in this crime thriller. Sapperton Canal Tunnel The Sapperton Canal