Willie Euman shared memories of Peebles in the 1930s, which were recorded in the early 2000s and are reproduced here by kind permission of The Tweeddale Society from their 2005 publication ‘Peebles Remembered’. Whitie’s Books and Crafts in Peebles have copies.
There was a stretch east of Tweed Bridge on the north bank of the river where the sand martins came year after year. There must have been thousands. We would stand there and they were flying in and out of their holes while we stood there, under our feet. It was marvellous. Everything was just fresh and wonderful. The river itself, the water that was flowing past was almost drinkable, untainted, unspoilt.
Talking of fish, I frequently walk by the river, and I’ve discovered there’s hardly any fish left in the Tweed. One never sees a rising trout. It used to be something we all looked forward to, the dinner-hour rise.
I did a bit of angling. In fact I did too much angling. I feel a wee bit guilty when I think of all the lovely trout I killed.
I still see people and visitors coming with fishing rods and going up the Tweed for what they get. What they’re fishing for, I don’t know because I never even see a rising trout anytime I’m near the river.
I never see the clouds of beautiful duns in great variety, which hatched on the bottom of the river, reached the top, fly off, mate and, before we know it, they were reproducing, landing again in the river. And of course the trout knew about this, and they would rise at various times of the day. We would get what we call the dinner-hour rise. And there used to be a surge of people who would stand with a fishing rod and a cast and a fly on the end, a dry fly with a hook. A dash down to the Tweed to get a go at the dinner-hour rise until it’s passed, and then we would get the gloaming rise. That’s towards the evening.
There was rarely a night we weren’t out with a fishing rod, fishing on the Tweed. The Tweed was running pure and every spring the abundance of fish it gave was unbelievable, despite the fact that everybody – yes, everybody, nearly everybody I know – had a fishing rod.
The fishing rods stood at the back door and the line and gut cast was never removed. Usually they’d keep a gut cast with a fly at the end. It was important to try and match the flies that the trout were taking.
It was thought the trout, an intelligent creature, could distinguish if the type of fly it was feeding on at the moment wasn’t the correct one. And you could fish all day with the March Brown, but if they were taking the Blue Hen then they would never look at your March Brown however well it was tied. I myself used to make all my own lures and I knew where to get all the feathers.
Willie Euman was born in Innerleithen in the 1920s and moved to Peebles in 1932 when he was at primary school.
