A pensioner was so hooked on fishing that he left his marital home on the day he retired to live in a tent by a carp angling lake - and has stayed there for the last four years with his wife's blessing.
Angler Peter Ralph, 66, cashed-in his pension and moved out of the £250,000 house he shared with wife Paula to start a new life beside the water. Despite being happily married, the retired roofer spends every day and night at Orchid Lake in Dorchester, Oxfordshire, with only his Staffordshire terrier Sugar for company. He forks out £6,000- a-year for his regular pitch on the river bank and only leaves for a week's summer holiday and a few days over Christmas. Mrs Ralph supports her husband's hobby, calls him every day and visits him once a month from their spacious detached home on a leafy street in Luton, Bedfordshire, to deliver his 'allowance', clean clothes, and supplies.
'I went away fishing and never went back,' said the father-of-one. Mrs Ralph, 55, added: 'If he's happy, I'm happy.' Mr Ralph has a small battery-powered television, gas fridge, and a bedchair layered with blankets inside his green bivvy tent. His other possessions also include a barbecue and dual stove cooker, which he uses to cook the pheasant and rabbit roadkill he finds for dinner. Mr Ralph has already caught the lake's 30lb 6oz mirror carp known as Big T but he is still determined to catch more. He has used 486kg of bait since moving to Orchid Lake in 2010.
He even pays workmen to decorate the couple's house and maintain his garden in his absence. Mr Ralph said: 'I've worked hard all my life, putting food on the table and paying off my mortgage. 'When I retired I wanted to escape from it all and get back to nature, finding pleasure in the simple things in life. 'I don't like living in a house, and prefer life in a tent by the lake. It offers a greater sense of freedom.
'I couldn't bear to sit at home all day.'
It's a hobby, keeps him from under her feet
It's a hobby, keeps him from under her feet
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”