Underwater thoughts - A Fascination for Fish: Adventures of an Underwater Pioneer - page 3

The author at age five, with
sister Marcia, catching his first
fish at Durban, South Africa.
(Photo by Harold Clark
Powell)
With my father's help, I caught a fish, perhaps my very first. That night
I insisted on sleeping with it under my pillow, and my tolerant mother
agreed. While this may have been on the fringes of accepted behavior for
“normal” kids, I see it as an omen, the sign of a born biologist. After all,
Jane Goodall, or so I heard, slept with earthworms under her pillow.
My family moved to England in 1932. As a boy growing up in En-
gland, I was constantly drawn to water and would catch newts, water
boatmen, and dragonfly larvae to keep in jars in my room. Using a
primitive microscope, I would study with fascination the beating heart
and developing brood of babies inside the tiny female water flea ( Daph-
nia ). O¤ I would go on my bicycle with my fishing rod, dip net, and jar
to explore the streams and lakes within a wide range of home or school.
This was the early 1940s, and England and Germany were at war. Prac-
tically all food except bread and vegetables was strictly rationed, and my
fishing e¤orts, while fun for me, contributed significantly to our table.
My first job, at the age of fourteen, was at a canoe and punt rental
operation next to Oxford University's Magdelan College on the river