‘The centrepiece of this kit was a three-piece boy’s rod, nine foot long, with two sections of flame-decorated bamboo and a solid glass top painted black. A little tin-plate drum reel, ten yards of silk line on a card and a card winder with quill float, shot and hook to nylon completed things. Fabulous it looked to our naive eyes.‘
They say that parks are the lungs of the city; well the Swansea of my youth, that ugly, lovely town, could breathe deeply and easily, blessed as it was and still is, with many green oases and none more impressive than the undulating grassy acres of Singleton Park. Caressed by the mild salt air coming off the Bristol Channel, its rolling sward and smaller intimate themed gardens are ever popular with residents and visitors alike. Mature deciduous trees, oak in particular, were situated to give beautiful vistas wherever one stood and an aura of peacefulness exuded from its inner self.
For two nature-enthralled, ten-year old lads it was heaven on earth. Summer and winter we roamed this playground,engaged in activities nefarious by varying degrees; one of which was raiding the two tiny ornamental ponds in the Italianate Garden, both of which held a healthy stock of newts. Both of these were also encircled by wide, well kept flower beds where the head park-keeper frequently stopped to sit and take stock. Timing was everything! Trampled blooms obviously raised his blood pressure alarmingly and a hasty exit was prudent if he should happen along at an inopportune moment; fortunately, narrow winding paths and dense shrubbery hindered the top-heavy pursuant and aided our escape!
The Park also holds two larger ponds, one designed for boating, situated at the Park’s southern extremity, almost on the Seafront; the other, another circular, ornamental pond,maybe thirty yards across and studded with lily pads. Shallow and partly overhung with mature oaks, an attractive Swiss Cottage provides a scenic backdrop to this pretty pond. Now I must confess I’m not the first to write about the charms of this pond in an angling context as anyone who has read Hook, Line and Spinner, Clive Gammon’s early autobiography will recognise it from the first chapter. It was here that both he and I took the first faltering steps of our angling careers (though the actual events were separated by three decades!).
Jess and I walked past that little pond many times when heading for the bus stop and home. We showed mild curiosity as to what it might harbour as regards aquatic life but it didn’t really fire our imaginations; we were still yet to hold a rod, though were quite adept at catching tiddlers from rock pools and sticklebacks from small ponds.
All that changed one sunny summer’s day towards the end of the school holidays. With the slamming of classroom doors imminent, we were visiting the Park at every opportunity and this day, after a successful raid on the ‘newt’ ponds, we passed the Lily Pond and happened on two, much older lads fishing. We sidled up to a safe, respectful distance, discretion being the better part of valour! We needn’t have worried as the lads were so engrossed in their sport they barely noticed us. We watched mesmerised as small fish were hoiked out unceremoniously from a clear spot in the centre of the pond, splashing vigorously as they were drawn to the bank. That scene was burned indelibly into my memory and fuelled a passion that still burns as bright as ever. Those few minutes changed everything for us and we looked at our unfortunate amphibians with a newfound disdain!
A few days later we were back at the Lily Pond, yet another sunny day, alive with birdsong (in those times the jetstream seemed to know its place!). Jess had remembered a fishing outfit, a Christmas present from a kind Uncle was stored at his Grandmother’s three-storey town house overlooking the bay and just a stone’s throw from the Park. The centrepiece of this kit was a three-piece boy’s rod, nine foot long, with two sections of flame-decorated bamboo and a solid glass top painted black. A little tin-plate drum reel, ten yards of silk line on a card and a card winder with quill float, shot and hook to nylon completed things. Fabulous it looked to our naive eyes.
Choosing a quiet spot in the shade of an ancient oak we began operations; what a mess we got in to! The line was soon waterlogged and twisted around the rod at various points and it had looped back on itself on the reel. Half an hour later we admitted defeat. That clear spot in the middle of the pond seemed a million miles away. We trudged disconsolately back to his Nan’s house and left the tackle hoping his Uncle might sort it out at some point. Perhaps we were only newt catchers after all?
Our enthusiasm was dented somewhat and school soon intervened to drastically reduce our freedom. A new grammar school it was for me and happily I soon discovered that a few classmates were budding anglers; this helped to keep the flame alive through the autumn months, along with reading every fishing book I could put my hands on, including one from the school library, a rather attractive pictorial guide with gaily painted illustrations of floats and shotting patterns. It had fish too, with strange names like nase and ide, depicted hugging the bottom of weedy rivers.
Christmas came and a solid-glass, spinning rod was added to the second-hand Intrepid Classic reel I had bought from a classmate for ten bob! A handful of floats a tin of split shot and some hooks and I was ready to go.
With a wealth of sea angling and a good spate river rapidly recovering from decades of industrial abuse, coarse fishing was very much the poor relation in our locality at that time. But if you were a lad (or lass) just starting out, it transpired that the Boating Lake in the Park was the place to go. The recounted tales of obliging little rudd sparked our enthusiasm and a January day found me and Jess on its well kept banks. The rowing boats had retired for the winter, the pond was cold and quiet and it seemed no one else was fishing. Jess had bought a fixed spool reel now and presently our Day-Glo floats rode the leaden ripples a few yards apart, a worm on the hook below. Of course, despite all my reading, the fact that rudd were essentially summer fish hadn’t sunk in. So, while we handled our rods with more assurance this time around, the fish, in a state of lethargy, refused to co-operate and our floats remained resolutely buoyant.
Despite regular visits in varying weather the results through the late winter months remained the same and I marvel now at our perseverance against the odds. It was sometime in March, a ‘soft’ day with the wind in the west, when our first little breakthrough occurred; Jess was just returning from the convenient little cafe-cum-sweetshop when my float did something unusual, it bobbed violently then slowly disappeared. I began winding feverishly as the little rod came alive in my hands and my first ever fish was soon on the grass at our feet. An eel, about twelve inches long, did a rapid and comprehensive job of knotting up my line but I was so pleased at finally catching something that it mattered not. Kept alive in a bucket of water it found a new home in the garden pond at Jess’s Gran’s.
Spring advanced, the air warmed with the ever climbing sun and nature did what nature does at this time of year. Encouraged by the eel we had continued to fish most weekends and though we could sense a subtle awakening about the pool, success still eluded us. By mid-May the transformation was almost complete; the days warm and sunny, the rowing boats back from their winter sojourn and a few other young rods at the waterside. The rudd, hungry after their winter fast, soon found our nicely presented baits and we thrilled to the simultaneous dipping of our floats. Bites came thick and fast and soon our little, oiled cotton keepnets were full of brassy, red-finned, little rudd, greedy for the pellets of ‘dough’ we offered them. This was flour and water paste, of course kneaded up by our indulgent Mums! At long last we had arrived, we were anglers!
Confidence and ability grew in equal measure and soon we felt it was time to revisit the Lily Pond. A whole year had passed since our first inauspicious meeting; the pond, though unchanged, seemed smaller, less forbidding this time and very soon the ‘ghosts’ were laid to rest when rudd, as eager as their Boating Lake cousins, came obligingly to the dough that stood out starkly against the dark of last autumn’s leaves carpeting the bottom. Inky-backed with gilded flanks, their striking looks compensated for their diminutive size, their fighting spirit equal to their beauty.
Euphoric wouldn’t be an over-exaggeration of our mood that day; never had the sun shone so brightly, Moorhens clucked contentedly and dazzling dragonflies quartered the vivid verdure of the lily pads. The rudd obliged at decently spaced intervals, an occasional four ounce specimen punctuating the soporific afternoon. Occasionally we noticed the pads rocking slightly, mysterious ripples spreading towards the bank at our feet. We couldn’t guess at the cause of these disturbances (a tale for another time?) and anyway, our youthful desire was sated and the last tiny piece of dough was pinched by a clever rudd; our bus home beckoned. The journey whizzed by, bubbling over with the delicious reliving of a day not to be forgotten anytime soon.
Writing & Illustrations Paul Huxtable – Winter 2024
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