ARTHUR’S ARCHIVES Inside fishing history
Historian Keith looks back to 1953 when Peterborough, home of Angling Times, hosted the National Championships
“A steward needed to be advised if a ‘call of nature’ was required”
INEVER fished a match in a shirt and tie but in the post WWII years that attire was pretty much standard everywhere. Grey flannels and waistcoat it was!
These scenes from 1953 are typical of an era when ‘The National’ was the pinnacle of the season for every club angler.
Nationals are primarily team events – in fact, when the NFA made individual membership a condition of entry, I retired from them in principle because it’s only possible to enter as part of a team. My first Nationals were, like this one on the River Nene in Peterborough, conducted in the classic manner. The draw would be held at a venue capable of dealing with 1,000 anglers, a couple of hundred stewards and officials – every team had to provide two ‘capable’ stewards – and enough buses from local transport companies to deliver anglers to their sections.
That was fun in itself, boarding a bus with anything up to 50 other anglers, plus their tackle, to be dropped off at the nearest point. On the Great Ouse Division 2 event in 1977 I had to walk through the town of St Ives and across the bridge to get to my section. Still worse, on the Trent in the early 1990s I was dropped at peg 66 at Hamms Bridge for peg 93 at Gunthorpe!
Despite all that, Nationals were magical occasions when old friends were met and new ones made. Pegs were often as little as eight yards apart to get in the required numbers, although 10 yards was normal.
Crowds would gather at the best pegs or behind favourite anglers, often there by 9am for the 11am ‘all-in’.
Rules on leaving your peg were strict, and a steward needed to be advised if a ‘call of nature’ was required, but once weighed in you’d follow the scales, trying to ascertain how you’d done.
It would be impossible to recreate those matches now but, goodness me, I miss them – even without a tie!