Bowling decides to use the money on a 'trip down memory lane', to revisit the places of his childhood. He recalls a particular pond with huge fish in it which he had missed the chance to try and catch thirty years previously. He therefore plans to return to Lower Binfield but when he arrives, he finds the place unrecognisable. Eventually he locates the old pub where he is to stay, finding it much changed. His home has become a tea shop. Only the church and vicar appear the same but he has a shock when he discovers an old girlfriend, for she has been so ravaged by time that she is almost unrecognisable and is utterly devoid of the qualities he once adored. She fails to recognise him at all. Bowling remembers the slow and painful decline of his father's seed business – resulting from the nearby establishment of corporate competition. This painful memory seems to have sensitised him to – and given him a repugnance for – what he sees as the marching ravages of "Progress". The final disappointment is to find that the estate where he used to fish has been built over, and the secluded and once hidden pond that contained the huge carp he always intended to take on with his fishing rod, but never got around to, has become a rubbish dump. The social and material changes experienced by Bowling since childhood make his past seem distant. The concept of "you can't go home again" hangs heavily over Bowling's journey, as he realises that many of his old haunts are gone or considerably changed from his younger years.