I was born during the Second World War in Dudley Road Hospital, Birmingham, and spent my childhood living in a back to back council house in Ladywood, on the edge of the city centre. How well I remember the shared outside ‘lavie’ that froze solid during the winter, and the wooden mangle that squeezed the water from the washing after it had been ‘dollied’ in the ‘bluehouse’. To say it was a tough neighbourhood would be an understatement. Knightsbridge it wasn’t, in fact the local coppers went round in pairs…and that was INSIDE the police station. Our entertainment usually consisted of the ritual Saturday brawl between the Malloys and the Foxalls outside the Eagle and Ball on the corner of Morville Street. The Malloys always won, but then had to buy the beer for the Foxalls! Money was tight Money was always tight and material possessions were scarce, but we were no different to almost every other family in the area. My mom was the greatest cook who ever lived, she could make cardboard taste delicious! As for my dad, well, money or not, he gave me the greatest gift anyone could have given me. It was a love for fishing that has lasted a lifetime. He used to organise the contests for the fishing club at Docker’s Paints in the cobbled Rotton Park Street where he worked as a maintenance fitter. Most Sundays would see us climbing aboard the Co-op ‘shara’ (charabanc…you know – coach) for a match somewhere on the Severn or the Warwickshire Avon. The blokes always found me a place to fish while they slugged it out for glory and a couple of quid in the ‘annual’ or the ‘scramble’. My skills were honed whilst ‘bleak bashing’ at Tewkesbury or Pershore using the best Christmas present I ever had, an old greenheart rod from an uncle. My reel was an aluminium centre pin which my dad made for me. I’ve still got that reel and I’ll never part with it. Occasionally I get it out to clean it, and those halcyon days come flooding back. Shadowed by a little ‘ragged arsed rover’ These days Birmingham’s inner city canals teem with fish life and are a major tourist attraction. But back then they were little more than industrial sewers. The only things living in and around them were rats the size of small ponies…and even they wore boiler suits! If you were stupid enough to fall in, you glowed green for a week! How ironic that part of this system now forms the famous Soho Loop, just about the finest inner city match venue in the country. Only rich kids had bikes back then, so I would trudge the 8 miles or so to Hopwood on the Birmingham – Worcester canal, just to wet a line and maybe catch a gudgeon or two with my dad’s left-over maggots. One day, I’d be about 12, I set off for Hopwood when I noticed I was being shadowed by a little ‘ragged arsed rover’ who lived in the same street. His name was Philip Taylor and he was some three years younger than me. When I asked what he was doing he said he wanted to come and watch me fish. This was in the days before paranoia about letting kids out of your sight; in any case people were too preoccupied worrying where the next meal was coming from. Never being one to miss the main chance, I said he could as long as he carried my rod. On the way he told me he would love to fish, but didn’t have any tackle. I knew his family history but he told me anyhow. His dad had died several years earlier leaving his mother to bring up six kids on her own. Life was tough for everyone but for that family it must have been hell.
Eventually we arrived at the ‘cut’ and I started to fish. We stared intently at my float for hours, but in all that time it never so much as flickered. I let Philip have a go and showed him how to cast. Of course he never had a bite either, but I do remember the look of excitement on his mucky little face when he held the rod. Then it started to rain so we packed up and set off for home. Let me tell you, Ladywood is a long way from Hopwood when its peeing down and all you’ve got between you is four short legs and one battered ‘Sou’Wester’. In the days before high-tech and pre-stretched you didn’t step over 25lb line…you walked round it! That night I lay in bed thinking how lucky I was to have a mom AND a dad, and a fishing rod. Next day I asked my dad if he’d got any spare tackle for Philip. After rummaging in the attic (remember those?), he produced a rickety old rod with some of the rings missing. Never mind, it WAS a rod and the top ring was there at least. There were also some bits and pieces including some line. When I say line what I really mean is anchor rope! It was that old green pike line and must have been 25lbs if ever it existed. In the days before high-tech and pre-stretched you didn’t step over 25lb line…you walked round it! Well, you have never seen anybody excited if you didn’t see Philip when I gave him the gear, and when we set off for Hopwood I couldn’t keep up with the little sod. I felt like Chattaway chasing Zatopek! When we arrived I helped him set up. Not having the luxury of a reel, the anchor rope was tied to the bottom runner and threaded through the rest, being cut off at a length I thought he could handle. Then I shotted his porcupine quill float and showed him how to tie the hook ‘loop to loop’. God only knows what size the hook was, but I’m sure it had been nicked from an abbatoir! Gazed in awe at my speckled treasure On went the regulation two maggots and he lowered it in next to some rushes just as I showed him. Several times I had to put my life on the line and extricate his tackle but eventually he got the hang of it and we settled down to fish. Half an hour went by when suddenly my float buried. I struck and out came a tiny gudgeon. It must have been all of two inches long but it was a ‘proper’ fish….not a redbreast or a stickleback scooped up in a net….a proper rod and line caught fish. Philip came rushing over and gazed in awe at my speckled treasure. In truth I don’t recall his exact words, but they were along the lines of ‘Phwoarrrrr!!!’. I told him to put it back into his swim and then he might catch it (ah! the innocence of youth). Cradling it with the tenderness of Mother Teresa he returned it from whence it came. The most beautiful creature God ever made Some ten minutes later Philip emitted a blood curdling cry. I thought for a moment he had impaled himself on his meat hook, but when I looked up I was amazed to see a small perch hurtling skywards. When the unfortunate fish reached the extent of Philip’s line it plummeted earthwards landing unceremoniously at his feet. ‘I’ve caught a big one….I’ve caught a big one’ said my little pal, beside himself with excitement. And indeed he had. The stripy was no more than 4oz but to Philip it was the most beautiful creature God ever made. Looking back, he must have been experiencing the same emotions as the man who found the Koh-i-Noor diamond! As he reluctantly slipped his first ever fish back into the water, I swear he was crying. I caught one more gudgeon just to let him know his place in the order of things, before we set off home. This time it was not so much a walk…more a triumphant march. We enthused about my gudgeon and his perch, though mostly his perch because I could hardly get a word in edgeways. One time I was snogging Lizzy Tranter outside the Tower Ballroom….. He couldn’t wait to go again, the upshot being he came with us on our next outing on the ‘shara’. By this time he’d got a reel, I can’t remember where from, and I showed him how to catch bleak by the dozen. He was just like a dog with two whotsits, and proudly showed my dad his glittering haul in the 2ft keepnet we’d managed to scrounge. Philip became my fishing buddy from then on. Trouble was, three or four years later when I discovered girls had more under their coats than jumpers, I couldn’t escape the little bugger. One time I was snogging Lizzy Tranter outside the Tower Ballroom when he tugged on my coat and asked if I got a hook to spare. My response was rapid and ended in ‘OFF’. Despite the traumas of adolescence, we remained fishing mates for years and Phil became one of the cracks on the local match scene. He even finished fourth of over a thousand in the B.A.A. annual. Yep, he’d come a long way from those fumbling days on the cut at Hopwood. We drifted apart and Phil became ill I didn’t want it to happen, but you know how it is, we sort of drifted apart. Different house, different jobs, different lives. From time to time I would get news of Phil from a mate, but I hadn’t seen my old fishing oppo for years. Just recently I heard that Phil was quite ill and had asked to be remembered to me. So I jumped in the jalopy and went over to Northfield to see him. We shook hands and reminisced about old times. About the time we missed the last train back to Brum from Eckington, and the signalman stopped the Bristol Birmingham express for us. He ticked us off, put us in a first class carriage, and waved us goodbye with a smile. Ah! GWR, Gods Wonderful Railway indeed. That perch had changed his life…given him a passion in the days when life was pretty dreary He told me because of his illness he hadn’t managed a day’s fishing for months and how he missed it. We agreed that God willing, when he was better, we would have a day on the Avon together just like old times. As we parted Phil said something that will live with me forever. He said me getting him that old rod and him catching that perch had changed his life…given him a passion in the days when life was pretty dreary. On the way home it struck me that just as my dad had given me a lifetime gift when he taught me how to fish, then so had I to Philip. It made me feel quite humble. I really hope we get that day on the Avon….I know a spot that’s absolutely stuffed with little gudgeon and 4oz perch. |
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