A National History - Into the 90's

As a new decade dawned upon the National show - 1990 saw the largest visitor attendance so far with 8573 people going through the gates to see the 341 koi that 72 exhibitors had entered. A size 5 showa took grand champion – and yes you guessed it Joe Wilmington was the proud owner again – his fourth win in eight years – amazing!

In 1991 the show was held with a new record amount of koi entered – 613! This was also well supported by the visitors with 8010 of them passing through the gates.
Eric Sida of the East Pennine section took the grand champion prize with a 7 year old 70cm Sanke who he called Mary. The koi was supplied by PWL Fish Industries. This company was run by none other than Peter Waterman (record producer) – the koi was bred by Sadazo and supplied to PWL in 1988 through Megumi Yoshida.

The PWL pond pictured above were approx 10,000 gallon UK each. The filters were the entire sections under the decking. He had an amazing collection for a while there and could have made serious in roads into the koi keeping Industry  / hobby but lost interest and then he moved onto owls (live) and trains (not toys- real train engines).

Koi ’92 was staged as an “English Style” show for the first time since 1985. Planning and preparation for the show was hampered by poor drainage at the Billing site and this was coupled with torrential rain and thunder storms in the week leading up to the show.  total of 55 exhibitors entered 508 koi for judging and Joe Wilmington emerged with the grand champion prize for the fifth time, this time with a Showa.

Joe Wilmington who is sadly no longer with us as he passed away a few years ago was a former Lord Mayor of Liverpool and a senior Koi Judge. His pond held around 9000 gallons and was 7ft 6in deep with three bottom drains going to a settling chamber. Main filtration was two 5ft square chambers containg filter mat and than a sand filter for polishing. ne of the most beautiful things about Joe’s pond is the impressive collection of planting around it. Apparently many of them were sourced direct from Holland.

The 18th National Koi show in 1993 was held at a remodelled Billing aquadrome with a new mains water supply exclusively for the show which enabled the water quality teams to stay on top of the water changes much easier.

Public attendance was much the same a last year and the weather was kinder to visitors over the weekend. The only slight problem was that the show was now using more power than Billing could supply and this kept causing electrical failures.

Grant Clifton took the grand champion award with his size 6 Dainichi Kohaku supplied by a koi company I’ve never heard of “How Kang Koi”.

1994 saw the National open it’s gates over the weekend of 13th / 14th August. 469 koi were entered by 59 hobbyists a massive total of 9615 members of the public came through the gates to visit the show.

John fallows a first time exhibitor at the National took grand champion with a 28” Kohaku bred by Sakuma. The koi was 11 years old. He bought the GC koi off Pete Waterman when he decided to close PWL fish Industries down.

John Fallows pond is 7000 gallons and pictured below aswell. Incidently he also took Mature Champion with a Sanke also supplied by PWL.

The 20th National held over the 12th / 13th August 1995 was one of the most successful in terms of visitors through the gates.

77 koi were entered in the show and Ian stewardson took the GC title with a Sakai (Matsunosuke) Kohaku of 25” and four years old. Again supplied by Infiltration this was to begin a winning streak for the supplying company of 7 years ( 8 if you count this missing show to come) in a row.

Ian Stewardson who worked in the transport buissines has since retired. He is part of the Mid staffs section and again this section was to become linked with winning the national for some years to come. Ian’s pond is 11,900 gallons and is pictured below. Built in the usual way of block, render and fibreglass the pond is approx 7ft deep and was originally built in 1981 with a filter upgrade taking place in 1995.
Filters are large vortex settlement chambers with Japanese matting afterwards. The pond has featured in the Living Jewels series (pt6?) and also koi keepers 3.

From his humble koi keeping beginnings nearly 30 years ago when he started with Orfe Ian stewardson has given much to the hobby including being part of the JSC as a Koi judge. You may also notice in the picture of the pond the Bonsai on the brick built pedestals – he is a very keen Bonsai collector aswell.