‘The lakes were the result of gravel extraction between the wars and offered a wide variety of fishing choices. So successful had nature been in reclaiming these wild, abandoned acres that the angling society even had its own naturalist wing, keenly recording rare orchids and migrant birds’
Inconsequential moments can have a lifelong impact. In my case it was a casual conversation held between three teenage lads. I was in my thirteenth year, the long summer school holiday had begun and one sunny August afternoon in 1964 friends Tony and Chris, both a year older than me, were lounging on the steep grassy bank of our local recreation park in Orpington. As I joined them, Chris was explaining how a Woolworth’s shop assistant had outraged him by her response to his request to buy a “spinner”. In those distant days our nearby Woolworth’s held a rudimentary stock of angling tackle but the poor assistant had confessed to Chris that she was ignorant of what exactly a spinner was. Chris’s indignation struck me amidships so I leapt to her defence: “Well,” I interjected, “I would not know what a spinner is either.”
On that fateful day, if I’d been asked to tell you the difference between a tree creeper’s egg and a nuthatch’s, say, or how many goals David Herd had scored for Manchester United last season, or who had introduced the first stamps in Britain, I’d have waded in with a confident reply. Now I was stumped; exactly what might this mysterious “spinner” be? Chris had said it was used in angling so I asked them both if they fished locally. It so happened that Tony had recently joined the nearest angling society which had a complex of lakes within easy cycling distance. On an impulse, he asked if I would like to try fishing…
Since the age of nine, Tony had been the older brother I never had, while he was the youngest of three brothers. This made for a perfect boyhood chemistry as he also lived only three doors away, in the same council terrace. Tony possessed the sublime gift of paternalism, being happy to field all sorts of gormless questions with endless patience and helping me find my puzzled place in the world. Gifts from Tony were routine and included my first bicycle, fashioned from the parts of several discarded bicycles. My father could never have afforded to buy me such a thing; in his entire life he would never own a car.
There would be no joining the angling society, which had a long waiting list for juniors, but Tony explained that I could, for the princely sum of a half-a-crown postal order and two stamps, write to the society secretary for a day-ticket. First, however, there was to be the acquisition of the tools of the trade.
In the mid-sixties the Kent village of St Mary Cray was teetering on the brink of cataclysmic change. London’s suburban tsunami was poised above its head, ready to pour its concrete and tarmacadam over its few remaining vestiges of independent, working village life. The High Street still retained a few ramshackle shops that hugged the poor, overworked, river Cray and it offered a poignant picture of what it must have looked like when the mills in the valley were going full tilt, beer was locally brewed and agricultural machinery was still repaired by a smith. One of the high street shops was Martin’s, the post office, which also doubled as tackle shop. Like the fly, seduced by sticky aromas from a sundew, I stepped down two paces from the pavement into the shop to the sound, I think, of a shaky bell above the door and my non-angling life was unknowingly ended…
In the rear of the shop cane rods were still made, so there was a heady odour of bamboo dust, varnish, linseed oil, maggots and waxed clothing to inhale. At Tony’s choosing, my first primitive items were laid out on the glass shop-counter for tremulous purchase: a very frail (…though I was not to know it…) twelve-foot cane rod, an Intrepid Monarch reel in a horrible cyan colour and the delightful wonder of porcupine floats in vivid, primary colours. Returning home, all of these treasures were proudly shown to my parents, details of their use eagerly instilled by Tony. Within hours, I had begun to fidget and fret; how many days of waiting were to be endured before we got to cast a line on the lakes?
The envelope containing the precious ticket was seized by eager hands from the doormat and the day eventually dawned. Rising at an hour hitherto unknown to me, we trekked at dawn under fierce summer sunshine, completing the long downhill journey from our terrace to Cray valley and its lakes. The walk involved crossing roads which today no pedestrian would ever dare contemplate. The lakes were the result of gravel extraction between the wars and offered a wide variety of fishing choices. So successful had nature been in reclaiming these wild, abandoned acres that the angling society even had its own naturalist wing, keenly recording rare orchids and migrant birds. The first lake Tony introduced me to was a rippling garden of yellow lily-flowers and exotic saucer leaves, floating away in all directions. I had no idea that angling offered such places…
I had the rudiments of tackling-up explained to me, was shown how to make bread-paste and then allowed to share Tony’s swim, a tiny oasis of clear water in the lily-field. Nobody else was fishing on the whole water and in an absorption with the mechanics of the sport, I was oblivious to a witchery at work upon my senses. The delights of fields, meadows, copses, brooks and downs had always been an accepted part of my childhood but here at the waterside was a whole new cosmos. A dragon-fly cruised down to land on a lily, a grey wagtail loped from reed to reed and a roach-fry catapulted itself onto a pad, before flapping itself back to safety. Time had stopped.
It has to be confessed, all the enjoyment of other interests hitherto had created in me an excitable, restless soul, rather unsuited to the idleness of this new interest. In contrast, Tony was patiently attentive to his float, telling me a bream was his likely target. All this waiting was still alien to me and soon exhausted my over-eager attention. Eventually I deserted my post to investigate the delights of the rest of the lake, leaving Tony supervising both rods. As the fates might be predicted, from afar I next heard a shout and saw him lift my rod into a fish! As he netted a bronze creature I eagerly dashed back to study the captured bream, inertly cradled in the net; here, in vivid and slimy flesh, was the object of our entire day and a new wonder. Questioning Tony, I asked if the bream was ‘mine’ to claim, it having succumbed on my rod. “I’m afraid not, it’s mine!” he barked, his tone a sharp rebuke for having deserted my station.
Acknowledging my folly, I then sat dutifully beside Tony in penance, locking myself into a petulant silence as the scorching sun continued to arch away behind us. The afternoon stretched endlessly on; some despair began to seep into the mood…I’d neglected my possible only chance. Suddenly, a hiatus; what was this, a bite? The vermillion-topped quill that had lain flat and motionless for an eternity, was now inching sideways, now tilting, now running below the surface. I don’t think I ‘struck’ as such, not yet knowing what a correct strike entailed. The reel’s anti-reverse was probably not set either (it would be likely) but the obligingly small bream forgave all these errors. After a short flap, its dark shape was quietly slid into the Tony’s landing-net and I’d become an angler. Oblivious to deeper effects at work here and despite the capture weighing mere ounces, I was now apprenticed for life.
“Words are poor receipts for what time has stolen away...” (John Clare)
Writing & Photograph John Harris – May 2023
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