This year, Nick Fallowfield-Cooper travelled back in time, courtesy of a 110-year-old-carp.
It dawned on me earlier this year, what I have been looking for remains right under my feet, an unchanging place, a zone of memory. It is a space that has evolved — at first, just a workbench, a practical space to build picture frames for artists — but over time a place of repair, cabinets, old frames, pieces that need special attention, objects that hold a story.
Two months ago, a cased fish in need of repair landed on my workbench, a job I was unsure I was qualified to take on. This specimen is a wild-looking carp of 4lb, caught at Hampstead ponds in 1914, and the new owner who overlooks the ponds wishes to have it restored. Amongst the stones lay two swan mussels; inscribed on one was the angler’s name, sadly now faded. Only the date and location mark the occasion.
In that same year of capture, my grandfather began his apprenticeship as a cabinet maker, his tools now housed in drawers that I inherited when my father passed away four years ago. My grandfather was an Edwardian who learnt his trade from his father, a Victorian —generations of erudition passed on. When my grandfather retired, he moved his tools to the garden shed. At the age of five, I recalled those tools laid out on his bench, half wrapped in oiled stained greaseproof paper, and jars that jostled for space on the windowsill — concoctions of oils and waxes, a lifetime of knowledge screwed tight, soon to be discarded in a skip when he passed away, just a few months later.
After a run of picture framing, I started to think about that little carp from Hampstead Ponds. The dates written on the swan mussels, ‘caught on July 25th 1914’, less than a fortnight before Britain declared war on Germany; perhaps the angler wanted to mount this fish ready for his return, an optimistic overview that he would be home by Christmas?
It felt invasive removing the glass front, a creak as the last strand of paper tore and the glass came out in my hands, air circulating freely after a lifetime caught in the 20th century. I cut a new piece of glass from old stock, and sawed new filets of wood; small chisels and a tiny hand saw once held by my grandfather were repurposed, and I felt I was working in another time, a time my grandfather would be familiar with. After a few weeks, the case was rebuilt and the glass resealed: its short exposure to 2024 had ended and my journey back in time was over.
It was time to get out. Whilst the final coats of paint dried, I planned my fishing: places I knew well, reed-lined lakes in East Sussex, the Upper Lea or perhaps even Hampstead Ponds, a place I had visited on numerous occasions but never fished. Maybe even catch its descendant? I made the rods up for each fishing trip, a row of possibilities stacked up in the corner.
Many claim the moon affects their moods. I think the river controls my disposition. When the river is in flux, I am unsettled. This year, my constant is here, down below, amongst the soft hues and the muted sounds of the outside creeping in, however, the river is always on my mind. I look up at the basement door to find the daylight is fading fast. I grab my coat and set off across the playing fields; no rod, just hope that as the year draws to a close, the river has finally settled down.
