In the old "steam" days, I allowed myself an extra 10 minutes when buying a ticket for a train journey from Skipton. One of the booking office clerks was T K Wilson. He was sure to want to chat about angling.

Tim, a native of the Eden Valley whose main interests were fishing and writing about fishing, added the letter "K" to his initials so there would be a more imposing by-line on his articles, although he used the pen-name Broughton Point for his "Dalesman" articles.

Every brief chat at Skipton ended with an angling story. One of them concerned a vicar who, while walking along a riverbank with one of his pretty daughters, met an angler. The vicar, making what he thought was an apt comment, said: "I am a fisher of men". The angler eyed the young lady and remarked: "By gum - but tha's getten some champion bait."

Tim also told me of the time a dalesman glanced over the parapet of a Dales bridge and asked a visiting angler what he was hoping to catch. He replied: "Salmon". The local man said: "There's no salmon in yon river." The angler replied: "I've caught nowt. I might as well fish for salmon as owt else."

Tim's researches into Dales anglers turned up records kept by Jimmy Blades, who was born in Cotterdale in April, 1848. While still in petticoats (lads were not breeched until they were five or six years old) he caught his first trout with a willow stick and a line of fine string.

Jimmy Blades, who was nicknamed Sproats, had only one rod. It was a two-piece, joined with a splice, the butt being of hickory and the top of greenheart. Jimmy had first used it when fishing for sea trout in the estuary at West Hartlepool at a time he worked at the ironworks.

He "thowt nowt" of urban life and was soon back in Wensleydale, where he kept records of his experiences and also details of fly-dressings. Among the advice he gave to a novice angler was how to develop the right action and the correct position for the elbow. He should "place a stiff-backed book well up under the armpit of his casting arm. The book must remain in position when he casts."

Skipton was the home of my maternal grandfather, whose twin passions were angling and cricket, not necessarily in that order. He was not a member of an exclusive angling club. His haunt was a bank of the Leeds and Liverpool canal. If he had not turned up for cricket, someone was sent along t'cut bank to remind him that there was a match.

A celebrated angler with Skipton connections was W Carter Platts. He was born at Huddersfield, became a writer, moved to Kettlewell in 1902 and in 1916 took up residence in Skipton, where he remained until his death in 1944.

Mrs Carter Platts, who outlived him, had shared her husband's interest in angling. When she went on a fishing excursion along the Wharfe, she was prettily attired. Her hat and clothes would not have been out of place at a vicarage garden party.

One thundery day, at Kettlewell, the Carter Platts were worried because their daughter Doris was late home. Hastening down to the river bridge, they peered over and saw her fishing in a peaty torrent. Their anger evaporated when they saw she had caught nine good trout.

In the first decade of this century, the Carter Platts were among the spectators when Albert Farnell of Bradford became the first person to drive a car (a Daimler) up Part Rash at Kettlewell.

Books written by this once-famous angling author contain a host of good stories. He had a tale about a West Riding manufacturer who all his life wanted "a full ha-porth for his ha 'penny". He went on a fishing trip to Scotland, hired a boat with someone to row it and fished a loch.

He fished for hours and caught nothing. Said the visitor from Yorkshire to the boatman: "We'll give up for today. We'll start an hour earlier tomorrow to make up for it."

Carter Platts lost a good deal of money when he invested in, of all things, a cricket ball factory at Gargrave. A brochure in two colours announced "the special Gofa match five and a half ounce cricket ball (patent applied for)." The tradename was pronounced "go-far".

This piece of copywriting was surely from the pen of W Carter Platts: "If you play Cricket with a leather-covered ball you want a new ball every 200 runs. If you play Cricket with a cheap composition ball you want a new bat every 200 runs. If you play Cricket with a 'Special Gofa' Ball, both bat and ball are good after 2,000 runs!!!"

The key man from Dunlop's was on loan and eventually returned to his old firm. There was an engineers' strike lasting 26 weeks. The factory was closed - and Carter Platts returned to journalism.

His lively stories are still capable of raising a laugh.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.