Feargal Sharkey

The ex-punk rocker is now channelling his anger into saving Britain's beleaguered chalkstreams and holding those responsible for their decline firmly to account

- JANET MENZIES

A PUNK rocker is nothing without his anger, and Feargal Sharkey, former lead singer of The Undertones, is furious. Sitting beside the sparkling River Lea at Amwell Magna Fishery, with a cuckoo distantly keeping the beat, it is hard to find anything to be even vaguely irritated about, let alone seething. Indeed Sharkey, welcoming and enormously engaging, doesn't seem at all cross. This is because the idyllic scene we are enjoying now has been achieved through the positive, planned application of anger.

Sharkey explains: "When I got involved with the Amwell Magna Fishery club I discovered that the flow of the River Lea here had all but dried up. It was suffering the effects of over-abstraction and eutrophication. Two and a half miles of rare and beautiful chalkstream were in danger of turning into little more than a stagnant ditch. And this was the last remaining stretch where there was a spawning population of wild brown trout."