Return to 1998 SPRING Index
Every now and then life throws up an unexpected blessing - a perfect day, the stuff of fiction. Here's one of mine...
It was an uncharacteristically warm summer and we all sweltered in the close heat of an office without air conditioning. I was doing mind-numbingly boring work for a financial adviser who, whilst one of the nicest people on the planet is also one of the most chaotic. My mission (which I regretted accepting) was to bring some order into his life. Mucking out the Stygian stables was a cynch compared to the mountains of paperwork that needed filing. My darling employer would not throw nothing away and looked to me with simple trust for a miracle. He is also a man who likes to buy gadgets and during the hottest days of the year he invested in two huge fans to blow the warm air around.
Unfortunately they also blew all the filing around, creating a maelstrom of paper. As I watched, somewhat disheartened at this turn of events, I felt like Mickey Mouse in the sorcerer's apprentice bit of Fantasia, surrounded by animated mops and buckets. Once the blizzard had subsided, due to my unplugging the fans, I discovered a piece of paper hitherto overlooked. An invitation for my boss to go fly-fishing in Hampshire.
I gazed at it in longing. Hampshire... the olde England of my dreams, the chalk streams, the glades of the New Forest, tweedy breeks and real ale.
"So," I began innocently,"are you going to this fly fishing thing or not?"
"What fly fishing thing?," he replied.
"A day fishing in Hampshire, you've been asked by so-and-so Unit Trust Managers," I said in my most dreary you-don't-want-to-go-it-will-be-dull voice.
"Oh, yes. Have a look in my diary will you?"
My heart sank. After some searching the diary was unearthed and lo! He was busy on that day. (Hooray).
"That's a shame. It seems a pity to not use the invitation don't you think?"
My hinting came to naught. I'm sure I read somewhere that men have the comprehension of an autistic child when it comes to subtle communication. I dithered about and delayed phoning the company to say thanks...but no thanks. Eventually I just asked in a straightforward manner if I could use his invite and he straightforwardly said yes.
Unit trust managers often think up jolly days out for the people they rely on to sell their investment plans. The assumption being that if you have a nice time you will want to sell more of their product. I was, of course, not responsible for doing any sort of sales in our hot little office and it was therefore with a little trepidation that I telephoned the company and told a whopping fib in order to get the invite transferred to me. To wit,
"So, are you in sales?"
"Oh yes, er...lots"
The invite was mine.
The intervening weeks found me at each spare moment with my Observer book of fly-fishing in one hand and an investment portfolio in the other. I was getting my Tup's Indispensible tangled up with my emerging markets in a recklessly confused way and started to wonder if this had in fact been a good idea. Up to this point in my life casting was something you did after auditions and before rehearsal and as for bottom tackle methods...the mind boggles.
Inevitably the day came and off I went to Hampshire with a boot full of the only fishing gear I possess which I picked up in an antique market for the purpose. It would not have looked out of place on the wall of a themed pub; a split cane rod and Edwardian landing net as well as a pile of reels and line in different colours.
The morning was perfect, a bright and crisp autumnal day beginning as though the earth itself was newly made. Driving across the northern section of the New Forest, passing through God's Hill I drove like a tourist taking a leisurely pace and gazing out of the car window at the show of purple heather under a limpid blue sky.
Only a week before I had been driving to Shepherd's Bush in West London. It was in the evening and the lowering clouds were leaking with an unpleasant oily drizzle that glistened on the tarmac of the road. Stuck in an inevitable traffic jam I looked out of my smeared windows at the traffic ahead and then at the concrete wall at the side of the road. There was some graffiti there, I think that I shall never see a thing as lovely as a tree. It has since been painted out.
Unused to travel outside London I got lost on the way to the fishery but I didn't mind, I just drove around speculatively until I came upon a signpost. It was a very scenic route but by some happy chance it got me where I wanted to be.
Driving up the gravel track to the fishery I emerged to one of the loveliest sights imaginable. Three lakes feeding into one another in silent seclusion, the early morning mist just clearing away as the sun climbed in the sky. I clambered out of the car and just stood and gazed, thinking if this is all there is of today, I will be happy. My reverie was interrupted by a cheerful voice offering coffee - Nirvana! The voice belonged to Chris Ogbourne who is a frightfully big cheese in the fly fishing world, a man of international renown, Olympic fly fisher and the man who was to look after and help us throughout the day. The owner of the fishery, Mike, was also present, as was a gillie whose name, appropriately, was Steven Gill.
Since I was an interloper I had decided to keep a low profile and just quietly skulk about, however I was the only woman there and so this plan never really looked like working. Often, as a woman doing a man thing I have encountered a certain jealousy - never more so than when I went shark fishing. Anyone would think I was going to take away their favourite toy. Still I guess it is hard to keep up a belief that what you are doing is macho when a 5ft 2in girl is doing it too. I had wondered if the same would be true of fly-fishing. Admittedly the fact that I was a woman did have an effect but only in the nicest way. The chaps were extra helpful and encouraging and didn't laugh or anything when I produced my gear. The gillie, Steven, took me under his wing and helped to get my stuff sorted and although he did rather eschew the landing net he seemed to quite take to my split cane rod. After a quick casting lesson I was let loose on the lake.
Cast, tangle, whip, flop, tangle, splash. Cast, tangle, stuck in a tree, rip, spat. Cast, bits of grass, knot, tangle, splish. I was having a great time and I think the trout were having a bit of a laugh too. Cast, swoosh, slow forward, pile of line at my feet. Cast, get stuck in my hat. Cast. Cast. Cast. Splash, sploosh. Mike, the fishery owner, came over for a chat.
"Interesting rod. It's nice to see an old one. May I try?"
"Please do" (aching arm) "Lovely day..."
The rod was in the hands of a master. The line slipped onto the water with hardly a ripple, slow, effortless expertise. I watched in mute admiration as cast after cast went out perfectly. Lost as I was in wonder love and praise I was not fully prepared for the sudden jerk as he struck and then passed the rod to me.
"Here you are, now, keep the tip up and reel it in."
"What?????!!!!!!"
I was up to my ankles in loose line and simply didn't have enough hands to get the line back on the reel and control the rod at the same time. So I just grabbed the line in my fingers and held on. The fish rushed off to the other side of the lake and took a lot of the line though my fingers. Ouch. Still, somehow I managed to get reel and line in some kind of order and started to pay attention to the fish whilst also glancing anxiously up at the tip of my rod being bent practically double by the strain. Please don't snap I prayed.
I had not intended to catch anything. This was not part of the plan. I have often wondered how I would feel to be the direct instrument of death for some unwitting creature. I am a meat eater with a guilt complex, for although the end result is the same there is an emotional difference between going to the supermarket and buying some anonymous packet of meat and actually murdering Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail. I have always had reservations about fishing due to this squeamishness and gave up on it as a hobby early on because I felt sorry for the worm, let alone the fish.
However there I was caught up in a bit of atavistic hunter gathering. I was Ahab with Moby Dick, Quint with the Great White and it felt good. Perhaps it is, as it were, morally healthier to catch, kill and eat and do honour to the fish (in the manner of the Native Americans) than simply to regard such a wonder of nature as a soulless commodity. It was after all a farmed trout and this was its destiny. I was the instrument of karma.
These thoughts occurred subsequently. At the time I was just there, watching the line cutting through the water going this way and that with a violence and speed that amazed me. After a struggle I landed a 4lb 8oz trout which was then dispatched by Steve with a couple of hard blows on the head. It lay on the grass in the shade of a nearby tree, glistening and glaring at me until lunchtime.
Following on the fishy theme of the day lunch comprised one of the biggest wild Tay Salmon I have ever clapped eyes on, beautifully cooked and served with a staggering array of salads, breads and cold meats. I took an uncharacteristically modest plateful, being, frankly, too happy to eat and settled down alongside Steve Gill. I had been worrying about the socialising aspect of the day since the whole point as far as my host was concerned was to talk to me about their investments. In a panic to lower my profile I slumped down into the glass of white wine in my hand and talked with feverish enthusiasm to Steve about his life as a gillie, his Holland and Holland shotguns, his family, his pets, fishing, fishing gear... anything rather than money.
When, inevitably my host did pop over and began in a friendly way to ask my opinion on the current state of the offshore markets I smiled winningly (I hoped) and made a comment on the weather. It was all going well I thought, I had not been caught out and my profile was the basso profundo of the gathering until... the award for the catch of the morning was anounced and it was won by erm,..me. I gulped down the rest of my wine and tottered up to collect my prize and then, horror of horrors I had to give a speech. I have no recollection of what I said other than I know it was probably dull, witless and incoherent.
The heat of the sun and the wine I had drunk at lunchtime took their toll all afternoon but I did manage to get another big trout on the line thanks to Steve. Not as big as the first but you can't expect to win a prize everytime. My head was thumping but I didn't mind as I settled down and splashed the line out into the lake right over a large group of fish who on the whole regarded my attempts with distaste. The afternoon passed by like a slow river, peaceful and sadly inexorable. I didn't want to leave, ever. Eventually dusk started to fall and the rest of our group packed up their gear and got into their huge company cars and sped off back to the big smoke. I lingered like an alcoholic at closing time disconsolately staring at the darkening water.
That night I stayed at a friend's studio flat in Southampton where I found myself up to my armpits in fish internal organs and she struggled to squeeze my catch into her fridge. Driving back the following day I felt my mood darkening the closer I came to London. The profound relaxation and soul-deep quiet ebbed away as I left the M3 and found myself caught up in the swirls and eddies of metropolitan traffic. No time now to stand and stare. Nothing much to look at anyway.
I had a party the following day and the trout were served as a centrepiece appreciated by all but none more so than me. I silently thanked them for their sacrifice, for their beauty and for their part in a perfect day.
Boswell c. 1998