HICKATHRIFT PRESS

Author Dave Phillips explains why his newly-released book – The Golden Years of Angling – is autobiographical as well as factual

The second half of the 20th century was a golden era for fishing. With the horrors and deprivations of WW2 behind them, Brits were filled with a new optimism and inventiveness, which expressed itself in massive leaps forward in fishing tackle and tactics.

I was determined to celebrate those achievements and immortalise the great anglers who made it happen, but as I got stuck into the research for my book, it became obvious that my own life was inextricably tangled up in angling – so much so that the book took on a very personal tone as I started writing it.

By chance, my own life mirrored those golden years. I was born in the Fifties, became an angler as a child in the Sixties, an angling writer in the Seventies, and a fishing magazine editor in the Eighties. I couldn’t have been more tangled up in fishing if I’d tried.

That’s why The Golden Years of Angling mirrors my journey through life, as I explain how my love of fishing shaped me.

I was born and bred in the close-knit village of Tilney St Lawrence, in the heart of the West Norfolk Fens, so the book also describes the great changes happening in that corner of the world. Fruit growing was the major industry in those days, and nearly everyone had a connection with horticulture, because it was a labour-intensive industry. The surrounding countryside was devoted to huge orchards and thousands of acres of strawberries, which required lots of outside labour to pick. Former prisoner-of-war camps were converted into accommodation for hundreds of foreign students, who came here on working holidays. That’s why my book also includes the memories of one of those students, from Norway, who came back for three summers in the Sixties.

Those same fenland fields were criss-crossed by dykes and drainage channels, and most contained fish. Some contained lots of fish, and coachloads of anglers from Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire used to pass our house every Sunday morning on their way to the Middle Level, Relief Channel and other nationally-famous waterways that were right on my doorstep. How could I not become an angler?

I was also influenced by a fellow school pupil, a young Neville Fickling, who was a huge influence on me. He went on to become the most successful predator angler this country has ever seen, breaking both the pike and zander records in the process. Neville kindly wrote the Foreword for my book, which he concludes by saying: “Enjoy the book – it is a good read.” I hope you agree.

I’ll tell you more about the book tomorrow.

• The Golden Years of Angling is available in paperback, hardback, and Kindle e-book format, direct from Amazon. You can also order signed copies directly from me.