I'm so lucky to be an angler

ALAN TYRRELL, COVENTRY

I was having a quiet morning on Ricky's Pool at Parkers Fishery, near Coventry, all on my own day- dreaming about what might or should be happening, when one of the regulars came over the bridge to enquire how the fishing was going.

After he left, I thought how lucky I am, coming up to 87 years old and still fishing two or three times each week. Just getting out is an incentive to do so – I have only blanked three times in the last year. But just to see the float or tip indicate a bite still gives me the adrenalin rush of old.

This got me thinking about what I say to those who question why I sit and wait for a bite. There are a lot in cemeteries and crematoriums who would just love to be sitting and waiting for a bite.

I am so lucky to have many memories to carry into each season, so it is with this thought that I enclose some photos out of our local paper from some years ago.

These should say it all to those who are just starting out into our piscatorial world that you can share our sport with the country's elite anglers. How many sports can you end up sitting on the peg next to one of the icons of the sport. The photographs shows our first world champion – Billy Lane – in his old shop and his new London Road shop in Coventry.

This is, of course, known as Laney's to us who use it today. My treasured memories are of the young boy at the front of the picture who is my youngest son. Him and his wife plus their two sons are all now hooked on our sport. Billy Lane let my son hold his medal and also the World Angling Cup. Thanks for the memory Mr Lane – you were a true gentleman of Coventry. All of that for just a shilling's worth of maggots.

I was there in the shop and we were given a full commentary on how Bill fished his peg. A true privilege to be a piscatorial brother among such high- profile company who was a ' True Blue Coventry Kid' and a great ambassador for our city becoming Capital of Culture in 2021.

Why not tell the world that we have this history to add to so many our own city has produced?

Billy Lane was almost born into the sport when his father, also Billy, bought an existing tackle shop ( Storers) in Much Park Street, Coventry

Billy Lane, world champion in 1963, was only 58 when he died in 1980, pictured outside his later business premises in London Road