Born in the dark WWII days of January 1944, in Willersley Castle, in Matlock, (Derbyshire), Leon was devastated to find himself living in a two up / two down terrace house a in East London, just a couple of short weeks later.

After such a promising start to life, followed by such a crushing disappointment, it seemed inevitable that the young Leon would follow many of his contemporaries into an early career of petty theft and vandalism.

Two events were to change all of that. A neighbour offered to take the seven-year-old troublemaker fishing. Then someone bought him a comic book entitled 'Mr. Crabtree Goes Fishing'

After that, the post war East London street, which was the only world the young Leon had known until then, became strangely quiet, as Leon found each and every excuse to go fishing.

Using a hand-made rod (fashioned by his father), constructed from two lengths of bamboo garden cane, joined by a brass ferrule and fitted with a simple wooden reel, and with 'rod rings', made from safety pins tied on with cotton, Leon spent many, many hours fishing the river Lea, and the forest ponds near Whipps Cross.

Occasionally, a small gudgeon, roach, perch or bleak would be the reward for hours and sometimes days of fishing. But these were the finest years. Years spent learning nature's secrets, learning the habitat of fishes and other water dwelling creatures, years when an East End street kid grew a love and respect for the natural environment and, before such things became fashionable, an unease at what man was doing to it.

As Leon grew older, he became possessed of a bicycle, cobbled together from spare parts and fitted with rubber hose, in place of inner tubes (which lasted all of a week!). With rods strapped to the crossbar, and a bag containing all the other paraphernalia of fishing (cat-gut, a tin of gentles, hooks, floats and lead-shot), he would cycle deep into the countryside, sometimes along with other companions who he had cynically contrived to get hooked on fishing. The Roding at Ongar, the Lea and the pits at Enfield, Waltham Abbey and Cheshunt, these and other places now became the destination of fishing expeditions. By now, a tank aerial had replaced the bamboo rod, and a metal reel with a ratchet now took pride of place in the kitbag.

Chub, Dace and Bream were added to the list of fish caught.

Soon it was time to leave school (somehow Leon contrived to do this without sitting a single 'O' level (GCSE), but life in a city office proved too dull and too far away from water. So, at the age of nearly sixteen, Leon joined the Merchant Navy.

Whilst most of his shipmates were perched on bar stools, or enjoying the company of the local ladies, Leon would often be seen sitting on the harbour wall, dangling a line baited with locally gathered shell fish into the water.

At 19, Leon was back on land, in Australia! Despite a lacklustre career as a guitar player in a folk duo, accompanying his first wife, his constant companion was a fishing line of some sort or another.

After catching Barracuda from Port Melbourne, Leatherheads from Sydney Harbour and Grouper from the barrier reef, roach seemed a bit tame when he returned to the UK late in 1967, at the age of nearly 24.

With dad in tow, they headed for the beaches of Essex and Kent and, later, fished the Blackwater Estuary from their own boat, targeting Cod, Thornbacks, Tope and Stingray. But these were the last few 'good' years of sea-fishing.

With declining catches caused by pollution and overfishing, Leon forsake the art of fishing for playing about in Gliders, and before marrying again and raising a family.

It is worth noting here that Leon had, by this time, drifted into computer programming (he admits that the 'millenium bug' was probably largely his fault).

Having moved to the Medway Towns, it was the sight of a shoal of sunlit Roach, beneath the hull of an anchored houseboat, in the River Medway, that had Leon searching his loft for his split cane rod and Black Prince spinning reel once more.

Married with three grown up children, Leon retired from his job as a Business Analyst early in 2004, but the long awaited endless days spent casting lures towards waiting pike, and tempting Medway Mullet with breadflake, pottering about in the vegetable garden or days spent cycling through the Kent Countryside  somehow failed to materialise.

Instead Leon found his time taken up acting as National Co-ordinator for the Sea Anglers’ Conservation Network, working on the NFSA Conservation Group, participating in the work of the Specialist Anglers Alliance, attending  'Angling Summits' and other meetings at Westminster, working with the BASS Restoration Team, and attending DEFRA stakeholder workgroups etc, Oh! And taking up a DEFRA appointment with the Kent & Essex Sea Fisheries Committee.

That book will have to wait!