Fishing

A Memory of Southborough.

This is the Fish Pond at Holden Corner, Southborough. This was one of the two accessible and popular places for boys to go fishing in Southborough - the other was the Great Bounds Lake, near Bidborough.
As a boy in the 1940s and early 50s my dad, Jack, bought me a fishing rod and my dad and I would go down to the pond to go fishing.
As I recall there was very little change from when the photo was taken. For a time in the late 40s and early 50s the cottage in the top corner was a small corner shop which was handy for snacks, ice cream or bottle of Tizer!
For some reason the bigger boys fished from the bank on the other side of the pond, whilst we always fished from this side, over the railing, pretty well from where the photo was taken. We always used a float with a small ball of wet bread rolled up on the hook, whilst the bigger boys on the other side used no float but used larger hooks in chunks of bread which were cut in cubes. These floated on the surface of the water. Consequently, they caught the bigger fish and we caught the tiddlers.
It was very exciting to get a bite and to catch a fish was amazing. I believe the fish we caught were Roach - my Dad reckoned that I always caught the same fish each time! - he was probably right.