In spite of fishing only six days in 365, only five if we had a day in Boston, Charlie still maintained his own fishing rod. This was in the days when a rod was in three pieces, of built-up cane, with cork hand grips and brass mounts, before the merchandisers began to target the fishing fraternity as gullible fools, waiting for a chance to part with their money. Watch a fisherman arrive on a riverbank, and start setting up. Its like watching someone lay out a market stall. Some of them even have a special trolley, about a yard square, all specially made in polyprolapsythene, and even more specially priced, you can bet.
Every few years, Charlie would strip all the varnish off all three rod sections. All the fittings would be removed- the brass butt end, reel collars, male and female brass ferules from the interconnecting rod ends, and the runners through which the line travelled up the rod, the first and biggest of these complete with its tortoiseshell thimble, the second sporting a modest ceramic thimble, the rest mere brass. He would remove the cork segments, which had formed the hand grip, and sand all the canes down to the bare wood. All the brass fittings would be cleaned and polished until they gleamed like gold.
Then he would re-assemble everything, starting with new, bored corks to make up the 18” length of handgrip. He would whip on all the runners again, with red cotton, each successive turn lying tight and neat against the previous one, the ends being drawn under the whipping, sailor fashion- no messy knots. The brassware- reel collars, butt end, connecting ferules would all be re-fixed. Last job of all would be the varnishing- 3,4, even 5 coats, if he saw fit, all lightly sanded between coats, being sure not to score the whipping or the brassware.
In fact, there was one more job to do. That was to make a new bag to carry it in. Using any heavy but smooth material- blanketing, or cutting up an old raincoat- sacking was too coarse and would scratch – he would sew, by hand, a long narrow bag, maybe 5 ft. long, and 3” wide, with an end flap a foot long, all properly hemmed. Incorporated into the end would be a double strand of tape, and a similar double strand was secured in the seam, about a foot from the other end, so the whole could be tied tight, in two places, and so prevent chafing. In the bag, along with the rod, would go the handle of the landing net, and a rod rest would be secured by the tape ties, but outside the bag because, being just a 4ft long iron ‘spear’ with a ‘y’ end, it could cause damage, inside.
The rod rest doubled as anchor for the keep net, if required. In our day it was a matter of honour that one didn’t install one’s keep net until one caught something to put in it. Then, if you had caught nothing all day, the absence of a keep net would openly acknowledge the fact that you were ‘watter-licked’. Not so, nowadays; the keep net goes straight in, the excuse being ‘to save time’.
Charlie’s landing net was an ingenious contraption, designed and made by son-in-law, George Frazer. The hoop frame was, in fact, a triangle of three straight sections, with swivel connectors on two corners of the triangle. The two meeting ends of the third corner having a captive bolt on one end, passing through a fixed washer on the other, then screwing into the top of the handle. When disassembled, the triangle folded up on itself, the net wrapped round it, and the whole fitted easily into the fishing basket.
The basket was yer actual woven wicker construction, because the fishermen knew, then, what the hot air balloonists still know, that a wicker basket will roll with the knocks .So just as the balloonists wicker baskets ‘give’ plenty, on hitting the deck, thus protecting the passengers, Charlie’s basket, placed on an uneven, sloping, grass-slick riverbank, would give, and lean back a little, so giving extra purchase to the turf below and the bum above.
Nowadays, they sit on plastic sideboards with more drawers and trays than a tart’s dressing table, and the use 40ft long carbon fibre radio aerials to poke the eyes out of’ the fish sheltering under the opposite bank. Not another word about the modern Piscatorial Artists, I promise. Let’s go to Boston!
We would be up at the crack of sparrowfart, and because I had nothing to do but wash, dress and eat breakfast, I would be ready and outdoors well in advance, maybe 6-ish, to look for the taxi which had been ordered to take us to the station. The air would have a freshness, usually still, invariably silent. Even now, on occasion, I will put my head out of doors at that enchanted hour, register that particular, magical atmosphere, and think’ Its just like a going-on-holiday morning’.
The train would take us only half way- possibly Newark, where we transferred to a motor coach, called a char-a-banc, then pronounced ‘sharrabang’ or more colloquially ‘sharrer’, which took us to Boston. The town still has a train service. Presumably, splitting the journey was the most expedient way to travel. It was very much a west/east trip, which even now is marginally less easy with our north/south orientated rail system, but back then, it would have been much more ethnic, shall we say.
From Boston, we would get a local bus to a place just north east of the town, called Anton’s Gowt. I believe the name referred to a 30ft wide drainage dyke, which ran by the side of the road. We did most of our fishing in this drain. In fact, the name couldn’t have referred to anything else because there was nothing else, no village, just a few farms and houses, scattered in that very spare way one sees in the Fens.
The drain ran west/east, and the River Witham came up in a big sweep from the north and west, almost hit the drain, then veered off south east, towards Boston. The river and the drain were connected, at the nearest point, by a disused lock, the river being a good 10ft higher than the drain. The railway line also ran west/east, and ‘ambushed’ as it was between the river and the drain, it bridged the lock at its outfall to the drain, and so escaped across the Fen to Boston.
Two or three hundred yards east of the lock was a small farmstead, immediately after which were a couple of 1930’s detached bungalows. In the far one, named ‘Holm Leigh’, lived May and Fred Curtis, with their two daughters, Gloria and Madge, and this was the family we stayed with. Life at Holm Leigh was somewhat Spartan. The sole water supply was a hand cranked pump, by the kitchen sink, and there was no electricity. All lighting was by paraffin lamps.
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| “Hush!” |
We would arrive sometime in the afternoon, and Charlie would usually get a few hours fishing in before supper. Betty and I fished, too, but we wouldn’t make it until the next morning. My rod had been Leslie’s, when he was a boy. As a boy’s rod, it was a bit smaller and a bit heavier, because the middle and bottom pieces were plain dowel rather than cane, with just a wooden handgrip, polished by use. This rod had one small defect. Where the middle connected to the bottom piece, there was a brass ferule only on the lower bit, the middle offering just bare wood into the socket. Over time, the wood had worn or shrunk ever so slightly, so that the joint was just a teensy weensy bit slack. Consequently, if I was a mite enthusiastic when casting in, the middle part would fly off, and the top two thirds of my rod would belly flop into the water, noisily, which made Charlie snarl.
Quite what I was supposed to do about it, I don’t know- fish more slowly? I would have thought that Charlie doing something about that missing ferule would have been favourite, but that’s just the sort of daft idea you’d expect from a lad who’s not interested in football. By the time I had rescued my rod and reassembled it, which probably included sorting a huge tangle in the line, my attention span had probably shut down for the day. I could only take so much encouragement.
So I tended to spend half my time with Gloria and Madge, who were about my age. Sometimes, we would walk a couple of hundred yards up the road, to Cartwright’s farm. Mr. Cartwright was referred to as a ‘gentleman farmer’.
I didn’t know what that meant, other than that they lived in bloody big house, and when we went to play with the daughter, a chum of Madge and Gloria, there was never any shortage of lemonade and biscuits. The first time I encountered the smell of straw was when playing in a stack, at the Cartwrights. The dusty, floury smell is with me still, and the silky sheen of the barley straw was like brushed gold.
If we went the other way from the bungalow, half way to the lock was a footbridge over the drain, to Matthewman’s farm. Once over the bridge, the path veered to the left, then went down alongside the farm orchard. At one point there was a huge pear tree, right on the boundary, where there would be windfalls a-plenty, on the path, and out into the crop, in the field alongside. We were picking our way through a carpet of pears as big as cricket balls, and the colours of peaches and lemons. Many would be half eaten away by the drowsy wasps, who were still gorging themselves, as we gingerly high stepped over them.
Matthewman’s orchard was the source of one of Jane’s favourite stories about me, as a toddler. They had a very fine and prolific Victoria plum tree, and plums being a particular weakness of hers, Jane would always take herself off to buy a big bagful, which she would bring back to her ‘nest’ on the bank side, by Charlie and Betty..
The first time she did this with me in tow, on settling down with a first few plums, she tried to give me one, but never having had them, I didn’t want one, because I knew I didn’t like them. I’m afraid it took me a few years to lose that approach- ‘I’ve never tasted it ‘cos I don’t like it’. Fortunately for me, Jane remembered Little Jack Horner, and stuck my thumb right through the ruby skin of the biggest, juiciest plum in the bag. I pulled it back with a howl, and as Jane surmised, I immediately stuck my thumb in my mouth to soothe the ‘hurt’, and so tasted the juice. The next time she reached for a plum, I had emptied the bag. Well that’s the way she told it, and I do love plums.
The path lead beyond the orchard and out across the fields to another farm where once, when the girls had taken me to meet the brothers who lived there, it transpired, in conversation, that I couldn’t knit. The boys both scoffed at me because these kids all learned to knit at school, as a matter of course. I wonder if their school still teaches kids to knit? Probably no longer exists.
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| Anton’s Gowt Lock |
Down the road and opposite the lock was the pub, the Malcolm Arms, probably named after some long forgotten gentry. Opposite the pub, and crossing the drain, was a bridge leading to a track over a railway crossing, next to the lock.
Beyond the railway, the track turned left, bridging the lock approach, to give access to the lock keeper’s cottage. I remember free-range hens were always scrabbling about the railway line. It’s a wonder there weren’t casualties. Maybe there had been miss-haps of sorts, because I remember one particular hen with a deformed beak, like crossed fingers. I couldn’t understand how it managed to pick up a living.
The lock keeper’s garden had clumps of red hot pokers. I’d never seen such vibrant, glowing colours. In my world, red was the colour of rust, or broken bricks. Green was the colour of school railings, or boiled cabbage, or worse- dried peas that had been soaking all night, with a soda tablet. Yellow was the colour of dried egg- a greasy, flat colour, and blue was the colour of the printing on the grey, waxed box the dried egg came in.
Our world was drab because we lacked either the funds or the technology to bleach the raw materials white, which is the first step necessary to dye something lemon, or lime green, or ice blue, or the colour of a tangerine. If the sheep’s wool is grey, then any applied colour can only go down from grey. If the asbestos slurry is grey, it won’t make yellow Bakelite. It will make brown, though, hence all the wireless casings and ashtrays, and light switches.
I didn’t know all this at the time, though. All I knew was here were pears, lying like broken lamps, on the ground, broken but still giving light. Here were plants looking like burning hot metal, chicken feathers like burnished bronze, copper and brass, cocks’ tail feathers like splinters of midnight sky, and fish like living, precious jewels. Of course, if you stood too long daydreaming over the lock keeper’s garden, his nanny goat, Bessie, would come clattering up her chain and give you a butt in the bum!
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| No, butt- |
The Curtiss bungalow had limited bedroom space, so as they became more popular, Fred fitted up an out building as a male dormitory, so that the ladies could have the bedrooms, while the men slept in the shed. I remember sleeping in there with Charlie, Fred, Leslie, George, and a Mr. Gillott, an elderly, gent, all in a row of hospital type beds, like the seven dwarves. Fred kept chickens, and I remember Gloria and I once gave Madge the slip, and stole a kiss in the chicken shed, but chicken shit and feathers being no aphrodisiac, nothing came of it, not even a replay.
One year, Fred decided to rear some Aylesbury ducks, the big white ones, to sell for the table. The ducks had their own accommodation, which was supervised by the family pet goose of several years, Billy, who had been withdrawn from the chicken run to what was considered a more suitable situation more befitting his organisational talents.
While we were there, Fred got his first customer for a duck, but they wanted a dead duck, lying still in the back of the car, on the journey home. What they didn’t want was a live duck, thrashing about, all hysterical, and crapping on everybody’s best clobber. So they asked Fred to kill it for them. He was too squeamish to wring its neck, and he wasn’t convinced that this was the right thing to do. In fact, over the years, I’ve heard of many folk wringing chickens’ necks, but I’ve never actually seen it done. I did once try wringing a duck’s neck, and you really wouldn’t thank me for telling you about it.
So what was Fred to do? No one could suggest anything, until someone said to look in the Bible. It must be covered in the Mosaic Law, somewhere, and so it is. No, you find it for yourself; I’m busy. He finally strung up the duck, by its feet, on the chicken wire fence, and cut its throat. I think the rest of the ducks were sold off as a job lot, on the hoof, or on the webbed foot, to a nearby farm, and Billy went back to bullying the chickens.
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| Singa-longa-Charlie Time |
You might think that evenings in a home with no electricity were boring, but that is to reckon without the Curtiss piano, and Charlie’s marathon playing ability. Every evening, when supper was over, Charlie would sit at the piano, and he would play and play, until bedtime. I remember Gloria once playing the piano accordion for us, but she, being a mere slip of a girl, couldn’t carry it, so it had to be laid flat on the table, with Gloria sitting at the keyboard, as at a piano, while Fred sat opposite her, gently working the bellows back and forth.
We would all sing along to Charlie’s playing, as and when we felt like it. It must all sound pretty-‘nerdy’-I suppose the current word would be. Well just look in the current TV listings and see what the most popular programmes are, then tell me who are the nerds.
Down beyond the Malcolm Arms, there had been a family called Mablethorpe. This was where Charlie and Jane, and children Evelyn, Leslie and Betty spent a holiday before the war, before discovering the Curtisses. Their evening meal came in serving dishes for Jane to then serve the family. One evening, Mrs. Mablethorpe placed, in the centre of the table, a roasting tin, in which she had cooked a Yorkshire pudding. Rising up through the centre, like a leviathan rising up, through the batter pudding sea, was the contents of a tin of Spam- a whole block of Spam, pristine, uncut, in splendid, prominent isolation. Jane looked at Mrs. Mablethorpe and asked-
“What is it?”
“Toad in the Hole!” was the incredulous reply. I think that they were mightily relieved that, when they went home, Charlie had, in his pocket, a piece of paper with the Curtiss’ address written on it.
Although, for some reason, we did spend one holiday in Boston itself, at a pub called the Cutters’ Inn. For me to remember it, it must have been ’43 at the earliest. My reconstituted memory, being the one in which I was rehearsed by Betty, in later years, is of the bedroom window being directly above the river, which lapped at the very base of the pub wall, so that, as Betty said, if you were so inclined, you could fish while sitting up in bed.
However, my real memory is of the cheese. Every supper time, we were served our meal on the plate, but in the centre of the table, on a large meat plate, sat a large block of crumbly, white cheese- Caerphilly, or White Stilton, or something of that sort. When I say ‘large’ I mean bigger than a 3lb. loaf, all in one magnificent, inviting, drool-making block. In fact, it was so impressive, that’s probably why no one ever had any, although I don’t believe there was a knife to cut it with, or plates to eat it from, but we got to admire it all we wished, every evening.