ON A GRANDFATHERS LEGACY

By M.A.Meddings

Yesterday in Berkshire, I crossed the Kennet and Avon canal at Hungerford,

and, for the want of something better, stopped to watch some small boys fishing alongside the leisurely swaying longboat, moored at the quay.

‘STRICTLY OUT OF BOUNDS'

Said the notice.

It was authoritatively emblazoned on the Keystone of the bridge.

 The boys, as is the way with small boys, from my recollection, ignored such proclamations as a matter of course, as do Kingfishers.

I remember a cartoon from the long defunct 'Midland Angler,' which depicted a Kingfisher sat on top of a notice board. The notice board  announced to all who passed.

‘STRICTLY NO FISHING'

The artist's name escapes me now, but the cartoon is etched into my memory, as is that provincial magazine. It proudly proclaimed itself as, 'The voice of the Birmingham Anglers Association,   at one time, the largest angling association in the world. They had under their control, hundreds of miles of water; and one could fish any of it; including some very decent Salmon water; for what in effect was a pittance.

The 'Midland Angler' ceased publication around the end of the Fifties, victim I expect to the same pressures that led to the demise of the once famous 'Fishing Gazette' about the same time. The Birmingham Anglers Association however, lives on, albeit in a much smaller guise.

 Around the end of the Seventies, financial demands meant it had to relinquish some of its assets, and it sold a great deal of its freehold fishing rights. The Association still provides good value for money, albeit on a less grandiose scale.

That magazine and the Association are a part of my heritage. The focal point to which all things' return. And, as I watched the intense concentration on the faces of those 'fledgling' anglers yesterday, I was transferred back to my own childhood. Back to a time when I too, watched in eager anticipation. Waiting for my own porcupine quill float to 'dip,' then 'trundle' and away, as Gudgeon after Gudgeon sucked at the bait

That was on another canal, the Stafford and Worcestershire. A canal not unlike the Kennet and Avon version, except it ran through a less spectacular urban hinterland. The head of fish was not so exotic or robust, yet one could count on sport. There were the obliging ubiquitous Gudgeon; an occasional roach and hordes of those colourful 'raspy' Perch, so beloved by small boys.

They were guaranteed, with flaring dorsal fin, to lift the day from the doldrums. The bream and carp however, were a different matter. Their 'co-operation', was harder won. They were not the quarry that graced the keep nets of small boys. They were meant for older, wiser anglers, just like my grandfather.

In the early days of the Second World War, my grandfather bought a house on the edge of town. It was a large; double fronted; four bed roomed house, with bay windows on the ground floor. These looked out onto a long avenue garden, leading to a quiet street.

The house was the pride and joy of my grandmother. She revered its gnarled apple and pear trees along with its' majestic golden plums and bowered lawn by the front door. Grandmother made that front garden her 'kingdom and grandfather was duty bound to keep it  in good order by ensuring regular attention to the chores so necessary in keeping a garden of that standard, up to 'scratch'.

In truth, grandfather's preference, was for the less formal Kitchen garden, which ran a full thirty yards from the back door, to the edge of the next property. That was separated from my grandparent's land, by a screen of Damson trees.

The garden was about four yards wide, on either side of a brick path leading to the end. On one side it was planted with Blackcurrant bushes, interspersed with Worcester berries, a type of small gooseberry, very popular in the midland counties just after the war. At the end of the plot, a normal array of lettuce, cabbage, runner beans and a host of table vegetables lay 'waiting' their 'season,'

To his credit, my grandfather was an able and efficient gardener, who managed to tend front and rear gardens, as well as maintaining a sizeable allotment, which provided most of the vegetables our family required throughout the early Fifties.

It was not his prowess as a gardener however, that influenced me, or made him prefer the kitchen garden. That preference, originated from a spot hidden in a corner, under an old Victoria plum tree, which in my recollection, rarely fruited.

It was the site of the compost heap. A spot where secretly; craftily; pretending this steaming; rotting; rancid pile, was the 'cradle' of good 'husbandry', my grandfather had encouraged the finest worm 'factory' I had ever seen. He never did discover why the plum tree didn't bear fruit, but I have my suspicions. The close proximity of that compost heap had something to do with it I'm certain.

My grandparents kept a large colony of chickens at the bottom of the garden, and all household scraps were kept as a supplement to their diet. Any left over food, went unceremoniously onto the compost heap, along with the rotting unwanted windfalls from the fruit trees. Pea shells; potato peelings; tea leaves; grass cuttings and garden refuse, all ended their days, ignobly encouraging worms under the plum tree.

Grandfather had a trick of his own which he insisted, was the reason the compost was so productive of large lobworms. The pit itself, was lined with old house bricks, so they formed a large circular crater some six feet wide, and three foot deep.

This was initially lined with newspaper, the Daily Herald if my memory serves me correct. These were given a good soaking from the hose pipe. Garden rubbish and its ilk, was then spread evenly in layers, about three inches deep and stamped down.

Between each three inch layer, my grandfather insisted on another layer of newspaper , carefully torn into squares. These would then be hosed down, and other alternate layers of refuse and newspaper placed on top, until the 'cocktail' was heaped well above the confines of the pit itself.

Every now and then, came the obligatory 'turning', when grandfather spent a whole morning 'rearranging' the layers within the pit. Thus, top layers, found their way, eventually, to the bottom and 'festered'.

 In this way, he maintained, natural combustion turned rubbish to manure , evenly and equitably, throughout the 'abyss'.

He never used lime or any other agent to break down the refuse, and the grass cuttings were spread rather than 'dumped' in one pile. Woody stemmed plants were always burned , since they took a life time to break down, besides grandfather insisted they always encouraged ants, the 'scourge' of any worm producing mire.

Every spring would come the annual delivery of horse manure, the 'ripeness' of which , was unbelievable. It needed to be at that stage, according to my grandfather, to ensure the appropriate level of acidity. Acidity or not, I declare, the stench would have downed a grown Rhinoceros in its' tracks.

Later on whilst I was in my teens, having been ' press ganged into service',

I was told 'officially', it was judged now, I was of an age to here 'such talk', that the horse urine was the cause of the 'acidity'. It had to be neutralised by natural degeneration, hence the smell, and, might I add, my lack of girlfriends.

There were always six bags of manure delivered. Five were for the garden, and one for the compost heap, to help it along and add some 'zest'. That single bag of manure, was forked into the heap with great care, to ensure that it was spread evenly throughout and enriched, what I always considered, had 'richness' in abundance.

What resulted, was an 'amalgam' of grass cuttings; table scraps; plant waste; rotting fruit and horse dung, amongst which, my grandfather continually probed, for the contents of his bait box, or for fertile dressing for the garden. I never quite sorted out which took 'priority', but would hazard a pretty good guess.

That compost heap was a 'focal point' of the back garden. A heaving fetid hummock that nurtured a colony of earth worms so large, that it was virtually impossible to turn over a full fork, without finding myriad's of them wriggling in all directions. There was every variety imaginable. Gilt tails; tiny blue black Fingerlings, with a golden yellow end, a particular favourite of the Grayling. Bright red Marsh worms, that perch gobbled so avidly; yellow banded Brandlings, that my grandfather swore were better than any bait he knew of for Bream, and inevitably, great white saddled lobs, whose sole lot in life seemed to me 'martyrdom' at the end of a fishing line.

The compost had them all, and one of the fondest memories I have of my grandfather, is finding him every Saturday afternoon, gum booted and sweater wrapped, digging for his favourite Marsh worms, so that he could get an early start next morning on the local canal.

Later on, when I began to fish, the treasures of the heap were well appreciated by every Perch in the area. No amount of preparatory work before a fishing trip seemed complete, without the obligatory visit, to grandfather's compost heap. There my pals and I had great fun, collecting bait that might catch 'Leviathan'.

In the kitchen garden, there were two sheds. One halfway down, by the side of the compost heap, held the usual assortment of garden tools. There were spades; forks; rakes; lawn mowers; shears, and a galvanised watering can, the type that costs a fortune now, if you can find one.

In those days, they were the only type you could get, hoop handled like a tea pot, with another carrying handle on top. Grandfather was a sheet metal worker by trade and made them himself in his spare time. He worked all his life in the hollowware trade and was able to get them galvanised as he wanted. The workmanship, with the hand formed folded and grooved joints, was something to be seen, you rarely see it these days.

At the top of the garden, by the back door to the house, there was a second shed, that served as an outhouse. There my grandmother kept her washing machine, a hand operated affair with a pair of hand operated rollers for squeezing water out of the wash.

They were pretty much standard fare in those days. Later on, my grandmother swapped the machine for a 'modern' motorised version. This had power driven rollers and it took its place amongst the contents of the shed, to be brought ceremoniously into service, every Saturday morning, just like its predecessor, at the stroke of 6 am.

On shelves at the back of the shed, my grandfather had the tools of his trade, tin snips; bending irons; hammers and the like. Those items  held a strange fascination for me when I was young.

 Pride of place in my estimation however, was an old wardrobe, where he kept his fishing tackle. It was an amazing 'Aladdin's cave' . Victorian splendour at its best, burr Walnut faced in fine veneer that would fill any modern day auction room with grace. In those days, it was considered junk, fit only for an outhouse.

Inside, it had shelves, where grandfather stored his reels and ancillary tackle. Float winders; cellophane packets of hooks whipped to gut ; large bulbous pike floats, cork bodied, with a wooden peg through the middle. They came in all sizes, shining with bright luminous colours, and were known as the Daily sketch pike float.

In an old tobacco tin on the top shelf, he kept an assortment of lead weights shaped like coffins, and, further down on a lower shelf, was a similar tin, with a selection of drilled, ball shaped leads, known as drilled bullets. In the same tin, he had a variety of leads known as barrel leads, shaped like slim barrels and largely used in those days as weights for spinning.

All these types of weights remain available today, except that toxic leaden versions have been superseded by the non toxic tungsten type, in the interests of conservation.

Tucked into the corner of yet another shelf, was a canvas wallet, which held his snap tackle. Wicked looking, double hooked, wire traces that were designed by Alex Jardine, specifically as a humane alternative, to gorge bait tackle, at a time, when live baiting for pike was all the rage. Thankfully, live baiting has now been largely sidelined, by methods unlikely to give the anti blood sport lobby additional ammunition, but my grandfather would have missed watching those large floats on crisp winter mornings.

He was not a regular pike fisherman.  He more or less contented himself , with the odd day here and there, dabbling during the back end of winter, when little else showed an interest in his baits. It was all to his credit, that if he did anything at all, he would ensure he was equipped with all the paraphernalia required to do himself justice.

On cup hooks, screwed to the inside cross support member of the wardrobe, were his rods, hanging by loops attached to the end ,of Khaki coloured, twill bags. Half a dozen or more, there were, of various lengths and actions. They were a continual source of wonderment for any small boy.

I remember watching him when I was tiny, cleaning and polishing the bright canes with a substance, I recognise now, as bees wax polish. There was always the heady smell of Linseed after he'd finished. Every time I wax a thread for fly dressing now, I remember my grandfather, patiently cleaning every ring, ‘

A must after  a day fishing',

He always said.

After applying layer after layer of the yellow polish, he would painstakingly 'buff' them until they shone. Later on, when I had rods of my own, I followed suit, as grandfather insisted the wax helped to protect the cane from the effects of damp, and, would ultimately prolong the life of the rod.