My own personal Koi journey

How I found Koi

If you are not familiar with the Waddington name, chances are you are new to this wonderful hobby. I’ve known Tim Waddington personally for over 25 years and he was indirectly responsible for me becoming involved in the Koi hobby. If you are an ‘established’ koi keeper already you probably don’t need me to go into the Waddington’s but I’ll tell you briefly how it led to me keeping koi for the last 25 years and counting.
Back around 1996 I was working shifts with a friend I had grown up with. He didn’t get particularly excited about much but during one night shift he told me about this fish place he had heard about in Golborne (about 8 or 9 miles away) and how they have these massive koi carp. I didn’t particularly know or, if I’m being brutally honest, care about koi but I was a keen fisherman so I was interested in fish in a small way. He went on to mention it a few more times and eventually he paid a visit. The next time I saw him he couldn’t shut up about the place. The koi are HUGE, it’s an amazing place etc etc
So coming from him this is quite the thing. As such I decided to go and have a look for myself and take my then girlfriend (now my ex-wife) along with me. We drove to Golborne and followed his directions and inevitably got lost. We drove past the industrial estate several times before we finally found it. This tells you one of two things, the place is very low key, doesn’t shout about its existence at all, or we are both terrible with directions (for the record, she is, I’m not, of course). We eventually turn in and park up outside UNIT 12. Unassuming, low key, basically a run of the mill industrial unit from the outside.
Now, I’m not exaggerating when I say, from the second we walked through the door we were koi keepers for life. Yes, the first thing that attracted us back then was the sheer size of the koi, the sheer size of the building itself and the sheer size and number of the ponds. It was like visiting the best fish based attraction in the world (think Wigans answer to SeaWorld), and it was FREE and right on our doorstep!!
This was INFILTRATION.
If you have seen 24 Hour Party People and/or are familiar with the Hacienda in Manchester you’ll know how significant this place was when I tell you that in my opinion, Infiltration did for the koi hobby what the Hacienda did for the House and Rave scene. It gives me the same feeling even now that the Hacienda does when I think back.
I only really appreciated how important the place was years later when I started to mix more and more with people in the koi hobby and move in koi circles. Every single time anyone at a show or a dealers in another part of the country asked ‘where are you from?’ they always, without fail, responded to me saying ‘the North West’, with ‘oh my god, you live near Infiltration, you lucky sod’. Pretty much everyone I spoke to had visited the place, some travelling many hundreds of miles. Everyone knew about it, and it was right on my doorstep!
And what of infiltration now? Sadly it is no more, and it, along with its founder, Peter Waddington, are sadly missed throughout the koi hobby worldwide.
Without Infiltration I would never have kept koi, not a chance. It makes me appreciate just how important koi dealers are and I hope that the ones we still have are able to provide that wow factor, that magic, for young people today to help bring them in to this wonderful hobby.

And infiltration is where I met Tim Waddington, Peter’s son. Infiltration closed its doors for the last time in 2007 after working its magic for 25 years, but Tim is still at the forefront of the koi industry in the UK and now plies his trade out of Quality Nishikigoi in Warrington.