A Pit and pond.jpg

 When we were kids we spent hours in the spring catching toads from the 'A' pit pond(s). We didn't do anything with them, we caught them because we could. I remember there was competition to see who could catch the most. We put them back when we were hungry and went home for something to eat. We were never challenged by any blokes for being there.

 Every year my uncle wanted one in the spring for his greenhouse to catch the slugs that appeared overnight and the odd insect during the day. The toad he got that had fed well over the summer disappeared early winter. It didn't reappear the next spring. Did it get the urge to breed and dig its way out or escape through the open door, I wonder. 

 We never caught any frogs in the pond and we didn't see any frogspawn, only the long strings of toad spawn. Frogs mustn't have liked the water taste or there wasn't any food there for them.

Can't remember any catching any toads from the pond but do remember we spent hours catching fish, sticklebacks I think, from the pond with a long piece of grass plus a worm threaded through the end of the grass. Like you Jammy my memory says we never took them home we put them all back when the day was over.

Another memory is of the pile of wooden pit props close to the pond and my two brothers and me  used a few in an attempt to build a raft. Can't remember what we used to try and tie the props together just that it only worked for less than a minute and I ended up in the pond, surrounded by props, and wor Dek & Den having to get a pole to reach out for me to grab and they pulled me back to the edge. And yes I was in the dog house when we all got home - me still dripping wet, and probably stinking