Letter: Anglers' old pursuit

Sir: The interview with Chris Yates, author of The Secret Carp, by Andrew Brown ('Carp fisherman hooked on cane rods and semolina', 26 August) coupled with your beautifully serene photograph, will have given pleasure to many.

May I take up one small point? Mr Brown states that 'it was not until after the Second World War that people learnt they could catch carp with a rod and line'. In 1880, when my grandfather was a colonel in the Rifle Brigade, the regimental Sergeant Major would spend a week's leave fishing with rod and line for carp in 'the basin', a small lake in the grounds of the family home, Claysmore at Enfield in Middlesex. My father told me that he would remain, perfectly content, every day from dawn to dusk, speaking to no one and seldom moving. So people did know over 100 years ago that they could fish for carp with rod and line. Of course, the question remains did the two ever connect? So far as Claysmore is concerned, history does not relate.

Yours faithfully,

CHRISTOPHER BOSANQUET

Horsington, Somerset

26 August