Page 53 - Koi Net - On-Line Koi Magazine - Issue 12
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pride and joy, and set off to Japan where he lived and When Mark came back from Japan he got a job at
worked, with the rest of the farm hands on the farm. BritKoi working for Eric Devis and then from there went
Very few people spoke any English which meant Mark to work for the Kent Koi Company. Mark ran their Koi
had to learn some Japanese! farm but also got involved in pond construction and
was involved in some very large projects. It was here
His bed was a futon, with no pillow, in the fish food
that he learned all the basic techniques of building a
store room, and dinner was a bowl of rice with a raw
good Koi pond and the skills involved from pipework to
egg cracked over it. He had no preconceptions about
filtration and fibreglassing. It was also during this time
Koi, never having kept them as a hobby, but his
that Mark did the benching at the BKKS National Show
Mark with Mr. Kamihata. education at Yamazaki was all encompassing.
three years running. Mark and I first met during this
Much of his time was spent on the most unpleasant period – it was 1988 and I was working in IT sales at
jobs on the farm usually involving pond management. It the time.
may have been mind numbing, back breaking work but
The Farm
the result of this is that he really knows how to keep a
good mud pond! Mark was allowed to take part in every About a year later, Mark decided that it was time he
aspect of running a Koi farm. He sat for weeks with the started his own Koi farm and with a backer he set about
farm manager, Tanaka, carrying out selection, looking for a suitable site. He looked all over the South
constantly asking questions and checking that his of England and on his way back from looking at a site in
selection technique was correct. Hertfordshire, he got lost and ended up heading into
Thame in Oxfordshire. It was March and as he
Mark learned Koi appreciation from an expert farm
approached the town he could see the flooded water
manager, Nushimura, and also from Mr. Kamihata
meadows – it looked an ideal area for a fish farm. He
himself. He asked lots of questions and made copious Work on the ponds begin at drove into Thame town centre, parked in the car park
notes. He even worked in the auction house too. Mark Cuttlebrook Koi Farm.
and the first building he came to happened to be the
learned Koi farming Japanese style from the bottom up
local land agent. He went in and told them what he was
and the techniques he learned are as relevant today as
The son of the well known they were then. looking for and the agent said that just that morning a
Nishikigoi breeder, Isa, who piece of land just like he had described had come onto
came to study culling at the market in a village called Towersey, just outside of
Yamazaki at the same time
as Mark. Thame. Mark went to look at it and it was perfect!
To cut a long story short, Mark set up the farm in 1990
only to discover that the money his backer had planned
to buy the farm with had disappeared in the recession
that had just hit and wasn’t available after all, so the
bank had provided the finance – this meant that we had
to start selling any fish that he bred as soon as they
From left to right: were big enough and we couldn’t keep any to grow on,
Himeji high grade breeder
(name not known), Tanaka we were throwing out the baby with the bath water so
San (General Manager for to speak!
all Mr. Kamihata’s farms),
known to the other We knew we could never make the business work on
employees as ‘the culling this basis and after a couple of years made the painful
machine’!, Nushimura decision to fold the business.
(Yamazaki Farm Manager) Mark and myself carrying
and Kesuge Yamaguchi, out one of our first ever Mark now found himself out of a job and so started
Mark’s colleague and best harvests in 1990.
mate at Yamazaki. pushing a lawnmower and doing garden maintenance.
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