Foxstone Dam and woods is a short walk south east from the Birkhill Estate in Eckington, North East Derbyshire. Today was a bright and sunny bank holiday weekend with a gentle breeze and the smell of summer in the air.

I arrived in Eckington at half past nine in the morning and went for a walk ‘down the dam’, a place where I spent many a happy hour during my childhood, fishing, biking and playing with my mates.  The dam and the surrounding woods hold a lot of fond memories for me and the hour or so I spent there today bought a lot of those memories flooding back.

When I was young, my step-father, Idris and I, would go fishing there, often bright and early on a Sunday morning.  We would get up early, just as the birds were waking and quickly make some sandwiches and a flask of coffee, always strong, white and very sweet.  We would quietly get the tackle from the shed and if the weather had been warm the day before, the maggots would be removed from the fridge (no matter how many containers and plastic bags they were in, my mother was never to keen about this). Sometimes Idris would make some rigs up the night before so we could start quickly when getting there.  

The walk from our house used to take us about half an hour with all our tackle.  There was never any rush to get there and I used to enjoy the walk down almost as much as the fishing. The path was rough most of the way down, worn by many a generation of fisherman, farmer and horse.  The sounds of us walking and the rattle of our fishing tackle would flush out the odd bird and at least once on every walk Idris would come to a stop, pull out a roll-up, look into the distance, push up his fishing glasses and tell me of some fact about whatever he was looking at. The path down to the woods is on the highest part of Eckington and Idris would look out over the fields while delivering his little gems of knowledge all the while looking into the sky and taking in the surroundings as if he was looking for signs or omens for the days fishing.

There was that magical moment when you enter the woods, that brief second when you are half in and half out, when the temperature changes, the smells and sounds are different and it feels like you are leaving the sun and the real world behind. My mum and sisters would still be fast asleep in their beds and if felt like we were the only people alive.

There’s a crossroads along the path a short way into the woods.  You can carry straight on which takes you towards Renishaw, a left will take you around the fields in a loop back to Eckington, or take a right to the dam. This crossroads was a favourite part of the journey.  Maybe it was the possible adventure which would await depending on the direction you would take, I don’t know.  I can’t remember ever continuing on the path towards Renishaw, I used to turn left and loop around back to Eckington when out with my mates when the weather had been bad and the path to the dam was to muddy to risk the chiding from our parents if we came back caked in mud.  The trees at the crossroads used to thin out slightly which would make this small intersection brighter than the surrounding woods and as you approached it felt like some higher power was asking you to make a decision and choose your path.

So we would take the right-hand path and follow it as it gently dropped down to the dam.  It was usually at this point I would be wondering how many fish I would catch, what type they would be and would I catch a really big one and make Idris proud?

 

As the woods opened out to the dam an old metal bin stood next to a tree with a sign asking you to take your rubbish with you and that the cost of the days fishing was £2.  The chap that used to collect the money never ran to a schedule and if the days fishing had been bad or the weather was turning we would hurry away before he turned up.  Sometimes he would see us on the walk back home and separate us from our money however I do remember one time Idris and I hiding in the woods as his car went past while we were camouflaged in the undergrowth.

When we arrived at the dam Idris would walk a short distance, put his tackle down and light up another cigarette and start to read the scene.  He would look at the suns position, check the direction of the breeze, see if anyone else was fishing, and if there was, they would talk in the same hushed, brief way without taking their eyes off the float in front of them and a sharp intake in breath as the float went under and the angler would strike while Idris would involuntarily mock-strike it himself and usually a split second before the person with the rod!

Never one to rush, Idris would choose the favoured pegs for the day, quietly justifying his reasons to me and pointing to the water with his cigarette then quietly set up the tackle.  Landing net was set up first.  Always.  Then he would set up my rod and I would wait and watch as he used his hook tying tool, which I never really grasped, and he would do some elaborate loops with the line before wetting it in his mouth and pulling the line tight onto the hook.  He would hand the rod over then it was all up to me.  For some reason I always preferred the red maggots and would put one or two on the hook and try to catch one really fast while he was setting his own rod up and, depending on the time of the year, the keepnet too.

I’ve fished every peg of the dam during my childhood.  I never had a favourite and had good days and bad on all of them.  I’ve dropped a fish into Idris’ coffee, got tangled in many a tree, briefly hooked a duck, had to run home and back (in 40 minutes) when Idris left the reels in the shed, and cried when the wind kept tangling my line which tested Idris’ patience as well as his knot unraveling skills.  Coffee always tasted better from a flask and if I ever drink from a flask nowadays, it always reminds me of fishing.  We would always eat our sandwiches with mucky, fish covered hands and not even think about it.  Occasionally Idris would accidentally burn through his line with a cigarette due to concentrating too much which would result in muffled curses and give me ten minutes to try and catch him up.

On the walk home after a bad days fishing Idris would grumble about the dam making a good car park, but back to the present day, I was relieved to find that this hadn’t happened, infact apart form the sign telling you to clear your litter fading into nothing, the dam hasn’t changed at all.  There wasn’t anybody fishing today so I don’t know how well it fishes now, however my mum said that one of her neighbours goes often and later that day, while sat drinking coffee in her conservatory, I saw three people carrying tackle heading towards the woods.  

As I walked through the woods today, the paths were the same, with the same holes and tree roots showing as they did when I was young.  The woods were thinned out slightly a few years ago which did seem to take away some of the magic, but today it looks as thick as ever, just as I remembered. The sounds and smells were the same and I still got that magical feeling as I approached the crossroads with the light shining through the trees and lighting up the way. The buzz of insects and the calls of birds were the only sounds at the waters edge where I stopped for a cigarette.  It felt as if I was doing what Idris did, surveying the area and taking it all in.  There was a man sat alone in one of the far pegs and he looked up my way from his book then carried on reading.  I leaned on the railings soaking it all up, smoked my cigarette, watched three horse riders go by and took some photos with my phone, noticing that I had a signal.  Well somethings do change after all.

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Photos and video were taken with my T-Mobile G1