Key

I: = Interviewer
P: = Interviewee
[time e.g. 5:22] = inaudible word at this time
[5:22 IA] = inaudible section at this time
[word] = best guess at word
… = interruption in sentence, trailing off or short pause

P:I was a founding member of Eden Rivers Trust and for a long time I was a kick sample member of the Environment Agency, gathering samples for them on local becks, particularly those who were spawning becks for the River Eden.

I:Kick?

P:Kick samples, that is the things that live in the rivers. Because it lifts when you’re kicking the rocks underneath you and then catching them in the net and then identifying them and counting how many you’ve got. Because it tells you what the health of the waterway is like, that and samples of water in a jar. I did that for Eden Rivers Trust which was then passed on to the Environment Agency.

I:And you’ve been doing that since you retired?

P:I’ve been doing that for 25 years, yes.

I:So how does that relate to what… well, your knowledge of the Acorn Bank and Crowdundle Beck?

P:I’ve noticed in the 25 years a deterioration in the fishing, the quantity of fish I caught and the size, and I linked it to the food they were eating, the insects and the flies.

I:What sort of flies?

P:Mayfly, hawthorn fly, moths, particularly evening moths, their numbers were crashing. Oh disappeared? Yes, grayling have; I haven’t caught a grayling for the last 20 years. The river had a good population of them.

I:Still getting trout though?

P:In small numbers and it’s hard work. You fish a few hours before you catch one, even on the good sections of river. There was no limit to the fish you could catch in the ‘50s and ‘60s. If you caught 30 trout you could take 30 trout home. Today the catch limit, the fish you can take home, is two.

I:And around Crowdundle and the other becks, what have you noticed then?

P:They were heavily controlled because Crowdundle Beck was one of the very important midsection rivers, that is the length of the river midsection, for producing salmon and sea trout. Sea trout are a species of trout, when there are too many trout, trout in the river migrate down to the sea and feed in the estuaries and grow very big and fat very quickly, come back and if an angler catches them it’s an extremely sporting catch. So they were highly regarded and they put the value of a rent, like Crowdundle’s rent, up because they were much sought after by anglers. The River Eden was the highest sought English river, it was ahead of the Tyne which was poor at the time, for the number of fish it produced and anglers could catch in the 1960s/70s. The estimated run was some 40,000 fish on a bad year. We’re looking now to produce 4,000 fish a year, it should be between four and six, but the last two or three years it’s been poor. The River Tyne produces four times more fish than the River Eden, it didn’t use to, it used to be the other way around. The River Eden used to produce in excess of 60,000 fish a year, this was in the ‘40s and ‘50s. We had a nasty disease which cut it down to between 20-40,000. It can be said you know there were large quantities because in the ‘50s there were otterhounds, kept for killing them, on the beck,

I:Crowdundle?

P:Crowdundle, yes, and on Croglin Beck. Especially bred to kill otters. There’s not so many about now. I would recognise one, it’s like a small trail hound for the river, they’re very good swimmers. That shows how many fish there used to be, and otters, there were large numbers of otters. With the fish disease of the ‘60s, as I said, there was a big crash in numbers and it’s never really recovered from that.

I:What did you enjoy most about being able to fish and go to the Crowdundle Beck area and Acorn Bank? Was there any particular happy memories or…?

P:Yes, fishing properly, the total mind – you switch off everything else. It’s rather like chess, you’re completely absorbed in it and that’s where you were at peace. If you were worked up or work had been difficult, you came away very refreshed after a day’s fishing. You also learnt a lot about the nature around you, you couldn’t help but observe it. It was really good to take small children because any grandchildren, relatives, it was very satisfying to see what they saw and remembered and caught. Not fish but animals like squirrels, red squirrels, and foxes and badgers and stuff like that. And otters. There’s still a number of otters on the river, not as many as past but it’s very satisfying to take somebody and watch an otter hunting. There are places where you can still do it.

I:If you know where to go.

P:If you know where to go. You’d have to pay a lot of money if it was a commercial activity. People really want to see them and they really… but you can’t really tell people where they are because then they start hounding them and chasing them away without realising they’re doing it. So the love of nature really and the fact that you’re part of it. It must be good for human souls, it’s really got to be. I miss it greatly. And because it was so good you do feel desperately that you want to get it back to where it was.