The book arrived today, and I have to say that from a brief flick through it's an absolute delight ... starting with the hand written inscription "To Aubrey, with all my love, Mummy." Lucky boy !!!
My attention was immediately drawn to the very end ... "366 Days' Weather Readings," which gives water temperature, atmospheric temperature, Barometric pressure, and fishing conditions for every day from the first of August 1939 to 31st July, 1940 ! Fascinating to see that today's temperature was a full 10 degrees higher than it was back in 1940 !
The 158 pages comprise 24 short chapters covering so many topics ... even one chapter given entirely over to "Plumbing the Depth," something which I think many of us do too little of.
There are some lovely pen drawings by Cicely Luckham, and 11 black and white photographs very evocative of the period, especially one of the author with his roach pole ... a subject to which a chapter is devoted ... including the lovely anecdote of when he won the A. B. Competition at Richmond when he was 19.
"There were nearly 500 of us and I am sure most used the pole. The A. B. Competition is not a 'pegged down' one so when the signal was given you should have seen the mad rush along the banks to the noted swims. The old boys stood little chance against the fleetfooted youngsters and seldom got the best swims, they had to rely on knowledge and experience to pull them through."
Imagine 'match anglers' today having to cope with such a start ???
I loved the quote in the section on ground-baiting :- "Spare neither time nor money in the preparation of this most important item. One loaf - I laugh ! - two loaves, well, perhaps. Make it four and done with it. I have taken as many as eight loaves with me on a days fishing when the water has been fast *"
The asterisk leads us to the foot of the page where it is explained "* Written before bread rationing. of course !"
I'm sure I shall learn much from this super volume.
Pete Stone talks about then in Old Father Thames (a superb book by the way), where they used to cycle to their pegs and he fitted his bike with an electric motor to beat the others to the bream hole - he got away with it too ....... for a while. 
