A Train to Catch
Entry posted by Chris Plumb
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Angling books are another one of my passions - and my little angling library is not so little these days as the number of books in it creeps towards 200! Over the years I've done a number of reviews for Anglersnet of my favourite ones. I've got ½ dozen or so to catch up on - a legacy of Christmas (and birthday pressies) so there'll be a few more over the coming months. Here is the 1st.
http://www.anglersnet.co.uk/book-and-media-reviews/a_train_to_catch.html
A Train to Catch
A Return Ticket to the Golden Age of Fishing
By Jon Berry
A century ago the presence of an angler on a train with a creel over his shoulder
and rods in hand, would have been a familiar sight. For generations the
railways offered an escape for the urban angler; a chance to explore a greener
and pleasanter land and find some peace by the water.
And anglers were a target audience the railway companies went out of their way to
attract with special ticketing arrangements and marketing materials such as
Anglers Guides geared specifically to travelling fisher-folk. One such guide
even gave a swim by swim description of waters that could be reached from
London by rail! 150 years ago the rail network itself had spread to every
corner of Britain allowing ready access to the lakes, broads, rivers and canals
of the nation.
In ‘A Train to Catch’ Jon Berry writes of his attempts to follow some of these
angling journeys. In this ‘post Beeching’ era with the rail network a pale
shadow of what it was, it is a quaint and slightly quixotic quest! Jon sets out
from his home in Swindon and travels the length and breadth of Britain. The
trips take place over 3 years during his holidays, again imitating the anglers
(or rather journeys) he is writing about. It also seems somewhat appropriate
that Jon’s journeys begin and end in the town where many of the great steam
engines that would have carried the anglers he is trying to emulate were built.
Despite the limitations of a now depleted network Jon puts in some rail miles and
remains reasonably faithful to his quest, only rarely having to resort to road
to reach his final destination. His angling by rail odyssey takes him far and
wide, from Looe in Cornwall to the North of Scotland, Lowestoft to Wales and
many points in between.
The book is a mixture of history, anecdote and reminiscence, written with good
humour and is quite ‘chuckle-some’ in places. I particularly liked the old
railway maps illustrating just how extensive the rail network was in those
days. There are snippets from old adverts, pictures of old railway inns,
extracts from the angler’s guides, a cartoon from punch, colour plates of his
trips – in fact all the usual plethora of tid-bits you come to expect from one
of Jon’s books – meticulously researched as ever! It all adds up to a most
pleasing narrative.
The fishing itself is somewhat secondary – but I guess that’s sort the point. It’s
not the being there, it’s the getting there that’s important – even if it does garner
a few disapproving stares from the odd Thames Valley commuter! Having said that Jon
does cram in quite a variety of angling, from shark fishing off the Cornish
coast, trout fishing in Derbyshire and pike fishing on the Norfolk Broads to a
grand tour (of sorts) of Scotland. Some enterprising TV executive really ought
to make it into a TV programme!
Medlar Press (25 Nov 2011) £20 Hardback
ISBN 978-1-907110-31-3
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