From the heart

I had an ambition to breed maggots.

I had come across the idea in the pages of some publication such as the Angling Times. It appeared to be quite a straight forward procedure but the sort of thing that, at age 14, you had to get some type of parental approval to do. It did make sense, perfect sense to me. A reasonable proportion of the cost of going fishing on one of the two rivers that ran through our town was for a measure of maggots, expressed in volume at half a pint or if optimistic, a whole pint. These were bought at the tackle shop where the proprietor would, for a pound, disappear into the back of the premises with my small round plastic bait box and return with it full to the brim with squirming life. There was always a musty, damp and organic smell from the grubs which promised well for a day on the riverbank even if, and it was usually the case, I caught nothing at all apart from perhaps my thumb on a barbed hook. If I could become self sufficient I would be quids in.

Maggots were everywhere. I had come across them in a natural setting when finding the rotting carcass of a rabbit deceased from myxomatosis which was epidemic at the time. The combination of death and fresh teeming life although in a fatalistic and morbid way was ultimately fascinating to a young and inquistive mind.

Old and discarded food was also a good place for maggots and more than once a forgotten sandwich from a packed lunch would issue forth a few live wriggling ones or if trapped in a sports bag, the dried almost fossilised remains. A brief headcount of the contents of the bait box, in a brief respite from the intense concentration of watching the fishing float for any actual or imagined interest, always revealed a small number of mahogany coloured maggots which had progressed to the hard shell larvae stage. Of course these were useless in any angling capacity.

The fridge freezer in our garage, packed full of food, somehow became disconnected from the power supply and the door was left slightly ajar. I am not sure how that actually happened but questions were inevitably asked of the younger offspring as there were no ice pops found amongst the otherwise seething and odorous mass of fly blown and maggot infested foodstuffs. It took a long time even after repeat washing and disinfecting to completely eradicate the smell from the appliance.

Anyway, in practice my maggot farm was well into the planning stage. I would require a bucket, enough bran to fill it and the main catalyst of a sheeps heart.

The theory was that, left somewere under cover but outside the house the animal organ would attract the right type of flies and provide an ideal receptacle to nurture their eggs to the maggot stage.The cash crop could then be separated from the bran by using Mothers metal colander.  I managed to get a bucket. I told everyone of my intentions and at every opportunity. It was always met with the same sense of horror just at the thought of it.

Thereafter the scheme fell apart as my parents learned of the intended scheme and how it would operate. Bran and a sheeps heart requiring adult co-operation for purchase were essential elements that never made it into the bucket.

That ended my ambitions in maggot farming.