Chapter One.

I started work on my first garden pond in early 1972 as a home for some water plants, a few goldfish, a small fountain and possibly a small waterfall.

When it finally came to fruition it had an oval shape around 18 feet long by 10 feet wide and 18” deep at the deepest part.

In truth this was a relatively large garden pond at the time.

The man who sold me the pump showed me a strainer at the front of the pump and explained that this was the filter – so I believed him. There were no U/V’s in those days but he explained that the water plants would keep the pond clean – once everything had ‘matured’.

As you can imagine, everything that could go wrong did go wrong – I was about to leave it as my ‘garden sewer’ – and then I saw my first Koi.

I became hooked immediately and gradually became addicted to them.

Thus followed five years of being a member of the BKKS; writing experiences and articles for the monthly magazine; becoming Chairman of some Koi shows and being one of the founder members of the judging and standards committee.

(Incidentally, in 1975, the very first Koi show held outside of Japan was held in my back garden).

In those days – the garden pond enthusiasts frowned upon Koi keepers and many considered that Koi keepers were snobs. We had no information, no real knowledge and the best we could do was learn from each other as to how we could continue to keep our Koi alive – finger’s crossed!

In 1977 I joined a party of BKKS members for my first visit to Japan, I was 34 years old at the time and the trip turned out to be a disaster for me – but the same trip also gave me a real desire to become a full-time Koi dealer.

By then many of my contemporaries considered me to be somewhat of a Koi expert and had christened my ‘Waddy’ – thankfully I always knew I was still absolutely clueless on the subject of Koi.

In 1978 after a perfectly horrid divorce, I left my job as manager of a huge record store in Manchester in favour of becoming a full-time Koi dealer. Although I didn’t know it at the time, it later turned out that I was the first ‘Koi-Only’ dealer outside of Japan.

I decided upon using the name ‘Infiltration’ for my new Koi business. The reasons for this name is that I was ‘infiltrating’ several other aquatic outlets in the UK; the subject of filtration was ‘IN’ at the time and I flatly refused to have ‘Koi’; Waddy’ or ‘Peter’ in the title.

(If you are reading this and wondering when the pond story starts? This IS the lead-up to the pond story – it would make no sense if I left all this out).

To continue, initially I started trading from home, knowing it was illegal to do so – but it was successful – very successful. Back in those days Koi enthusiasts would welcome a return trip of 500 miles if there were Koi to be bought at the end of it all!

It wasn’t long before my local council gave me 6 months to stop trading from home and find business premises instead.

To cut a boring long story short, I did find business premises at a place I’d never heard of before – the village of Golborne near Haydock also near St. Helens.

I moved in there in early 1981 to face the coldest winter I have ever experienced in my life and finally opened to the public in May 1982.

Here is how my new Koi shop looked – do remember this was 1982.

There were thousands of Koi and every Koi-related item imaginable in that outlet – but, by then, I was flat broke!

Not to worry, after adding up all the sales from the first two-days of trading at the outlet – I had to count it three times before I realised it was true.

So, the very next day I visited my local Porsche dealer and (after two further days of impatience) bought a brand new 911 SC Sport in champagne gold.

More soon

Waddy 16/01/16.