Ingatestone & Fryerning Angling Club - Website historical article

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INGATESTONE & FRYERNING ANGLING CLUB: 1951 TO..........CASTING INTO THE FUTURE..........

The photo above of some of the IFAC Committee members was taken at a Social & Presentation Evening in the club’s very early years, probably in The Bell in High Street, Ingatestone, although it is not known if the Pike on the wall was a club trophy that year! The club was formed in 1951 and the first full coarse season would have been from June 1951 to March 1952 as the Close Season on all waters applied.

The years after the First World War saw a marked increase in the countryside and its mystical element, probably as a reaction to the bloodshed of the Trenches. Post the Second World War in late 1945, with the knowledge of the Holocaust and the dropping of the first Atomic bombs on Japan, many people took to newer non-mystical pastimes and hobbies (that old word!) and an increase in angling and angling in clubs was one of them. Better transport provision into the 1950s meant that more people could get pout into the countryside and car ownership increased as the country slowly dragged itself back towards some new sort of Welfare State prosperity.

At least three of the men in the photo were ex-servicemen who had seen war service; the Willis brothers Victor on the far left and his brother Reg in the middle and Dick Abrey on the far right. Some seven years before the club’s formation, Vic Willis had been one of the remnants of 1st Para who made their way over the Rhine to safety, by whatever means they could, after the failure of “Operation Market Garden” at Arnhem in September 1944. We can but wonder what went through Vic’s mind afterwards when settling down at a riverside to fish although some wonderful snaps of a family trip to Richard Walker’s fishing lodge on the Upper Great Ouse in Bucks in 1974, the year before his early death, point to later happiness’s with large bags of Bream. His brother Reg, who saw service in the Far East, never lost his biting humour and many must have been victims of his “Golden Bollocks” comment when landing good fish! Dick later crossed the Rhine with the British Army and reported seeing one of the first German jet fighters flying overhead and wondering what exactly the noise was and how the plane flew.

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IFAC Committee at a Presentation & Social Evening, probably at The Bell, Ingatestone 1950s (Courtesy of Mrs D Willis)

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In its first year the Club’s membership also included at least two men who had served in the First World War, HJC “Skip” Seymour (1899-1975), RAF fighter pilot in 1918 with 24 Squadron, and James Wentworth Day (1899-1982) who served with the Middlesex Battalion, although the accounts reveal that JWD maybe never actually paid his subscription of 10 Shillings (50 Pence today)! Both men seem not to have joined in later years and this was probably their way of giving support to a new village club in its infancy, both having close connections with the countryside and country pursuits.

What would JWD, who wrote disparagingly of birdwatchers in Skip’s obituary in the Essex Chronicle in 1975 as “birdy boys” and “weekend gull worriers”, have made of carp anglers, carbon-fibred matchmen, and commercial waters where keepnet-breaking bags are considered the norm?

Just eighteen members a three Juniors (subscription 2 Shillings and 6 pence) and expenses in the first year just sufficient to get the Club going, such, such were those accounting simplistic days.

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Extract from the Treasurer’s Membership & Accounts book, Season 1951/52 Ibid.: Purchasing The Disney Cup, its presentation and insurance make up the sole expenses of the Club’s first year, 1951/52

In 1951/52 the Club’s waters would have consisted solely of The Red House Lake now behind the Gatehouse flats and Gatehouse Mews, which was once the lake to set-off George Sherrin’s “Gate House” building of the 1890s.

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The Hyde Lake joined the list of waters in the 1960s when the private school that used The Hyde itself closed due to fire in 1965, followed by four stretches of the lovely little River Wid at both Buttsbury and Margaretting between the 1960s and 1990s. For a while the Club fished Dawes Farm Lake up to the early 1990s and then added the newly dredged Lower Hall Lake at Ingatestone Hall and finally Green Street Lake at the turn of the new century, a water that has improved with some useful work and continues to impress. How many angling clubs can boast of a lake in the grounds of a fine Essex Tudor Mansion the earliest signs of which are clearly shown on an estate map of 1605?

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Victor Willis with a Mirror carp, The Red House Lake, 1950s (Mrs D Willis) The Red House Lake by the old gate, looking towards Tor Bryan, 1980 (Courtesy R W Fletcher)

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Since the early 1970s the Club has also been blessed with the opportunity for members to fish a glorious stretch of the Essex & Suffolk Stour at Borley Mill, Essex and has also held matches there.

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As stated before, from its earliest days, the Club has always tried to encourage youth membership and holds an annual Club match for junior members and for local young anglers under sixteen around the Ingatestone & Fryerning area and has for some years offered its waters to local, Essex and Regional youth organisations for angling competitions and training days.

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Cover of Ingatestone Hall in 1600: An Inventory, Essex Education Comm./Essex Record Office Publications, No. 22, (The Tindal Press: J H Clarke & Co. Ltd, Chelmsford, Essex, 1954) – this shows the Hall and its demesne in 1605 with the lake in the hall grounds with its dividing walkway, which can still be seen below the water, and the ponds in the “Orchard Close” beyond which were dredged to create Lower Hall Lake in the 1990s (John Walker Senior/John Walker Junior, mapmakers) 7 Borley Mill from the mill pool, June 2009 (R W Fletcher)

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Encouraging junior members and other young people to try angling and using this as a means to engender interest in and respect for the natural environment and especially the ecology of freshwaters remains an aim of the Club and Committee as it moves forward well into the next fifty years of its existence.

Robert W Fletcher Ingatestone, Essex 2 September 2014

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A angler from 4 Youth Brightlingsea Club at a Junior Match at The Red House Lake, 2009 (R W Fletcher) A club IBOC/Junior Member with a fine Rudd at an EBGC Match at The Red House Lake, May 2014 (R W Fletcher)