[Bern]

My Dad kept goldfish and belonged to an Aquarist club. We had a pond in the garden that was fenced off to keep me out. Dad died when I was four and sometime after that the pond became mine. For my 7th birthday my brother paid my dues and made me a meber of the Aquarist club. Most of the members knew my Dad and I sort of become the clubs mascot. I learned a lot about fish keeping from them, as well as breeding and showing.

About the time I was 16/17 I bought another book on goldfish, it was an American publication as most were in those days. In it was a picture of some fish, the caption was "A riot of colour aren't they?" The picture was of Koi, sometime in the year after that (1969) I bought my first koi.

They grew (and grew!), they even bred. Even though my goldfish ponds were pretty sophisticated for the time (they had filters) I realised I had problems. I contacted the then fledgling BKKS and was shown pics of how big they could grow. I should have realised, as I knew what Carp were capable of but somehow I had it in mind that Koi were miniatures. So in 1976 or thereabouts I gave up. I returned to the fold in 1985 when I moved into a house with a sufficiently large garden to have a koi pond.

Damn Yanks - they're to blame for everything!
rgds Bern.