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Over the years you could say that I have spent quite a bit of time in and on the canal. But the first time I ever fell in was the most memorable to me. I have always had an interest in all kinds of wild life. From a very early age I would collect all sorts of things. A favourite story of my mother's is the day I came in and tipped a large jar of worms all over the dinner table, and another time, getting my pants ready for the wash, she found a snake in my pocket. But let's get back to the canal; it was a lovely sunny day. We had a lot of them when I was a kid. And I wanted a frog for a pet, so off up the canal I went, fishing net in hand. Back in the sixties come February and March the canal bank on both sides would be full of frogs and frog spawn; to find the frog I wanted for my pet was going to be quite a challenge. After half an hour of studying the canal I spotted the one that I wanted. He was a lovely big bullfrog, greenish brown in colour, a real beauty he was. I could tell from the look in his eyes he wanted to belong to me. But he was about four feet from the bank of the canal. So I had to have a plan. The brook was only a short walk from the canal. So down I went and looked around for the biggest stone I could carry; half rolling and half carrying I got it up to the canal and with some effort I threw it in. It landed about a foot from the bank, then off I went down to the brook once more for another one, getting this back to the canal I put one foot on the bank then one foot on the stone I had dropped in, then I dropped the other stone about another foot further along. This meant I was only two feet from my prize frog. So going back to the bank, I got hold of my net, stepped off the bank on to the first stone, then, placing my foot on the other stone, I reached forward with the fishing net. All this time the frog had sat there looking at me, and he was almost mine. Then suddenly one of the stones started to wobble under my weight and then splash, in I went head first into the mud and the water. Lucky for me it was not that deep, only about two feet and most of that was mud, and snails and blood suckers and frogs and spawn and a million other types of canal wildlife. I know this to be true cos when I got out of the water I coughed up most of it, …but I did have one bit of luck. Guess what I found in my fishing net. But other visits to the canal at Five Locks in upper Cwmbran even today send a shiver down my back. From a very early age I can remember going to the canal with my father and watching him swim in the clear water while I would paddle and watch the sticklebacks swim in and out my toes. I remember one day going fishing with dad, my brother David and my youngest brother Richard, who at the time was only about three years old. It was a lovely sunny day with a clear blue sky, we all carried our fishing rods that consisted of a hazelnut stick about four foot long and a length of black cotton taken out of mom's sewing basket and a large jar of worms dug out from the garden. We had plans for some heavy fishing that day. We all dived our hands in turn into the jar and pulled out a nice big worm, attaching it to the cotton. We then cast them into the water, leaving my brother Richard happily playing with the worms. We all watched intently to see who would get the first bite. After a few minutes or so I turned to see what my brother Richard was up to, but he was nowhere to be found. And before you reached the canal from our house there was an open field so if he were anywhere we would have seen him. Then as I looked to my left I could see him lying on the bottom of the canal face down in the water. I screamed at my father, "Dad, Richard is in the canal!" With that my father learned over the bank of the canal, grabbed Richard and pulled him out of the water. As soon as Richard was out on the canal bank he began to cough up water and he started to cry. We had been very lucky that day. We never got any fish but we caught a very wet brother. And I very often think just a few seconds more and we could have lost him. Luck was with us that day for sure. I got up to many mad things when I was young. But this as got to be the worst. One of my pastimes during the school holidays when I was a kid was a few friends and I would go up to the canal bank, find a wasp nest and dig it out. Up we would go, carrying our picks and shovels, and within a few minutes down we would run minus our picks and shovels, screaming like banshees, hands slapping at the air. Then back we would go for another dig. First we would pour mentholated spirit down the hole, then set it alight, wait till most of the wasps had been killed, then start digging. When I think back, I think how mad we must have been doing this just to get a few shillings for the grubs we sold to the local fisherman on the canal. On more than one occasion one or more of us would get stung. I spent one Saturday afternoon with one ear twice the size of the other and throbbing like a drum, and my cousin Darrel was a sight to see with his pants round his ankles crouched down in the local brook, splashing water on a very sore bum. With the rest of us standing round laughing our heads off. But we were a tough bunch, come the weekend back we would be looking for another wasp nest to dig out. Looking back, the canal gave me many hours of pleasure. I’m a lot older now but I still walk the canal Towpath. But it saddens my heart to see the state it's in today, filled with rubbish and shopping carts. But in my mind's eye I can still see my friends and me trying to catch frogs in one of our favourite spots. THE END |