Grandchildren – Leggatt Family

Early Years

Read more about the early years of Alf and Joan and where they lived when they were first married. Listen to audio recordings when they were interviewed by their Grandchild Sheila, finding out about their live history up until that time. Recorded in the 1990s

The Old Rectory

Find out more about the Rectory years. How Alf purchased this ruin, previously owned by the church for the sum of £1500 and converted it to an award winning Residential Home that became their business after Alf retired from Fishing. This was a family home with so much history.

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Fishing Years

Read about the Fishing years of the Leggatt Brothers, Alf and George. The fleet of Trawlers that revolutionised the fishing industry travelling between Wells next to Sea in Norfolk and Whitstable in Kent.

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Ickham Pond

Alf and Joan made their Ickham pond famous when their Golden Carp breading programmes was under attack by a killer fish. Their antics made worldwide news headlining BBC News at Ten, every national Newspaper and the cartoonist Giles, featured the story twice.

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Leggatt Family Years

The story of Alf and Joan over the years. Family life with their children Barry,Jill, Penny, Kim and Gail. Where they lived and where they moved too. An interesting live that took Alf all over the world as a fishing consultant to the industry. Later retiring at The Old Rectory in Ickham.

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Welcome to the Leggatt Family

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1956 - Alfred Leggatt receives MBE

For services to the Fishing Industry, Alfred Leggatt is awarded the MBE and then in later years, the Coronation Medal for further services to the Fishing Industry. It was said that Alf revolutionised fishing methods by using pair trawling (carrying a net between two boats) and converting the Echo Sounder, previously used for detecting submarines in the war, to finding shoals of fish. He also redesigned the inshore boats that are commonly used today.

Short Family History Sample

Alf Leggatt was keen cinematographer in his early years and produced a great deal of cine film footage including fishing and family life. He owned “state of the art” equipment in his day and one of the first to film in colour. Over time, this footage became unplayable as the film became stretched in the projector. In the 1970’s Alf converted the cine films himself (before commercial converters were widely available) by playing them on a screen and capturing them with a VHS camera. Although the quality isn’t that good by todays standards, it did safeguard the film, preserving valuable memories for the family.

In 2002, Alf’s VHS films were digitalised and made into DVDs. Although this media is still vulnerable to damage, the video is now stored in “the cloud” and made available through this website. A short sample of the footage to Alf Leggatt”s uncut video can be seen here