I would imagine, that there are for most people, certain places in the world that hold very special individual memories. Memories embedded and constantly vivid for years, perhaps even for life. It might be a football stadium where you first witnessed your beloved team, or perhaps your first family home forever eliciting magical childhood memories. These places often inhabit your dream states too, long after your physical body has connected with them.

Like many, bewitched by stories of carp fishing and uncaught monsters in the 1970s, I was first aware of Redmire pool, probably from what I had read in the angling press. There were of course by that time other places that held large uncaught carp, but Redmire was special; a Mecca if you like, and a place that had produced record breaking creatures. So when the, now legendary, book written by Kevin Clifford and Len Arbery was published in 1984, I don’t think it was long before I was able to get a copy for myself. I would have been probably 17 or 18 then, and stepping in the working world as a young graphic design apprentice. But fishing, rather than losing its magic or taking a back seat to the usual behaviour of a young and hungry teenager, was in my world still very much in the front row of my life priorities. I was keener than ever, my enthusiasm and imagination further fuelled and inspired by places like Redmire and the use of car, gave me a newly found freedom and I was able to take my curiosity further afield.

So when I was finally able to get stuck in to the book, I would go so far as to say, I was a little obsessed.