I AM sure you remember about Midge the smoking chimp, owned by Mr Edgar Chorlton, who had a fishing tackle shop on Derby Street. The correspondence on that particular issue is now closed, but Mr Bryan Harrison, of Daubhill (who grandfather Frank also had a fishing tackle shop) tells me that Mr Chorlton was one of the first people in the country, if not the first, to import fish by air.
Previous to that, goldfish and other tropical fish used to come mainly by sea, in heated cans. That used to take a long time, as you can image, particularly if coming from the Far East, and meant that the price here was high (as well as some of the fish dying en route). So Mr Chorlton, in the late 1940s, began to bring them in by air, obviously cutting down the travelling time substantially.
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