There was, for a while, a time when if you were looking for an interesting place to visit in Oxford you’d be directed to a rather unexpected attraction. For in the top five tourist destinations in the city on lastminute.com, alongside the more familiar Christ Church, the Bodleian Library and the Sheldonian Theatre was a shop selling ‘everything for the fish keeper’ in East Oxford called The Goldfish Bowl. I know this because the owner Barry Allday tells me so when I meet him there amongst the vast array of bubbling tanks containing aquatic creatures of every shape, size and colour, along with the vibrant corals and flowering water plants that make up what is called amongst fish owners ‘aquascaping’. This is also, he proudly adds, the first ever aquatic shop to be subject to a parliamentary review, an accolade given only to those who are considered to produce the best practice in their industry. I’m not surprised. Because a more enthusiastic champion for all things fishy than Barry would be hard to find. And a more knowledgeable one too. For he is one of those rare people who has managed to transfer a childhood passion into a lifetime’s work. And all power to him.
I’m rather tickled by the fact that my journey to Magdalen Road where The Goldfish Bowl is situated, starts from Magdalen Street in the city centre and takes me over the elegant Magdalen Bridge with its 15th century college tower. A trio of Magdalens that couldn’t be more different. Magdalen Street is flanked on one side by a traffic island holding the Anglo Catholic church and churchyard of St Mary Magdalen (celebrating its 950th anniversary this year and looking beautifully scrubbed up for the occasion), the memorial to Oxford’s Protestant martyrs, and some underground public lavatories. And on the other by a line of chain stores, Tescos, Five Guys, Sainsburys and the like as well as the now defunct department store that was Debenhams. Magdalen Road is another thing entirely. Part of Oxford’s 19th century expansion, it is now one of those roads everyone would like to live near – a swathe of over 100 independent shops and businesses that celebrate the diverse and the unique. Here you will find the Magdalen Arms, famous amongst foodies for its local organic produce, a short walk up from Best Buys, a convenience store that sells everything from sanitary products to the most deliciously crispy samosas. The road houses the headquarters for the Oxford Samaritans, The Porch (daycare for the homeless) Helen and Douglas House (respite for terminally ill children) and Pegasus Theatre (community performing arts for young people). And while the family-run hardware shop Silvesters is sadly no more, the Magic Café, and Wild Honey remain alongside some promising new kids on the block, including a charming bookshop I’d not seen before called Caper.
And then there’s the Goldfish Bowl, not much to look at from the outside maybe but step through the doors of this warehouse building and you are transported into a watery wonderland.
“I fell in love with fish when I was 12,” says Barry standing next to a tank of long nosed elephant fish from Nigeria that use their oversized proboscis to feed and to swipe at one another as well as to find their way through muddy water, sending out electrical impulses a bit like bats use sonar. His mother had bought him a tank of tiny multicoloured guppies, sometimes called rainbow fish. “I couldn’t believe how fascinating they were. I loved watching their different mannerisms. I was hooked, if you’ll pardon the pun.”
By 14 he had found himself a job after school and on Saturdays sweeping up and making tea at The Goldfish Bowl, then in a different location but still in East Oxford as it has been for the last seven decades. He left school at 16 to work full time. By 18, now having accumulated over 68 tanks of fish at home he was made manager. 50 years later and Barry is still here.
“I think I made the right decision,” he beams.
While Barry claims to be a shy man outside of these four walls, amongst fish fans in the shop he is something of a celebrity.
“Fish keeping is about two important things – keeping good water and feeding the fish correctly’ says Barry, as a lady stops to thanks him for sorting out the water quality in her home aquarium. 36,000 gallons of water are circulated through the tanks hourly at the Goldfish Bowl to keep the fish stock healthy. And then there’s the kids. “I came here as a child, and now I am bringing my children,” says a dad who is here as a half term treat.
There is certainly something of the inner child that emerges as Barry shows me around. An excitement and a wonder at the sheer variety of not just the anatomy but the behaviours of the different fish species. Here is a male Siamese fighting fish or betta, its beautiful bright blue tail and fancy fins belying the fact that if he were to be put together with another male, they would kill each other. Indeed, for centuries they were used in gambling matches in Thailand as cockfighting was in this country. And yet it is the male who builds a nest on the water surface out of bubbles and when the time comes wraps himself around the female, squeezing out the eggs, then catching them in his mouth, and transporting them up to the nest where he will look after them until they hatch.
Then there the mouth breeders or cichlids. There’s a tank full of them and Barry points out one with a large throat pouch. This he tells me is because it is filled with eggs. For this species it’s mostly the female that does the incubating, sometimes lasting for as long as four weeks without food, until the babies spawn. This gives them the best chance of survival. “If she spits any eggs out the other fish will eat them,” explains Barry. “That’s nature for you.”
And so it goes on. Generally, I’m there with the kids, watching the clown fish (or Nemos as they are now called) swimming amongst the sea anenomes, and the domino fish, so shy it was a good half hour’s wait before they would come out from behind the coral to have their photograph taken. So different to the fantail goldfish who line up to show off, their mouths opening and shutting in unison like the fish equivalent of the Four Tops.
As someone who finds the very idea of deep-sea diving likely to bring on a panic attack, this is as near as I am ever going to get to these extraordinary creatures. And although choosing from the shelves upon shelves of kit that you can select to make your own personal living reef (shipwrecks, Roman amphitheatres, and the like) may set you back a few bob, just looking is for free. You will learn a lot. Especially if you can get Barry to show you around.
Contributing photographer John Milnes
©The Goldfish Bowl
Common clownfish or Nemos
A sucker fish feeding off algae from the glass walls of the aquarium with a red eye sailfin looking on.
A lion fish – tipped with venomous spines
© The Goldfish Bowl
A cowfish – recognisable by the horns protruding from the front of its head. They like to gain attention by spitting water. This became an instagram sensation. But they are toxic and have a nasty bite.
Oscar fish.
Domino fish
The bubble eye goldfish were bred in China, so they would look good from above, in the days when ceramic bowls were used to keep ornamental fish.
© The Goldfish Bowl
A Siamese fighting fish or betta.
Barry’s birthday cake made by friends and family of his Malaysian born wife Ping Low, who also helps with the shop.