Turn on, tune in, drop out

I had to look back through my journals to find exactly when it was that the paths of Nigel Fennel Hudson and myself first crossed. I was somewhat surprised to find it was in the 1990's at Jade lake in a forgotten corner of Wiltshire - the diary entry made me smile as I had forgotten most of it (one of the reasons why I keep a fishing journal). Both of us had no idea the other was fishing the pool on that dark, wet and windy night. I was protected from the elements by a gentleman's brolly and a cape. My lonely vigil was cheered somewhat by a candle in a jar and hourly brew ups with my Kelly Kettle..............I didn't catch that night.

The lake is haunted. I only had one occasion where I really was scared and knew I had to leave, which I did, but this was not such a night. More often than not the atmosphere was interesting and would take a turn in some strange direction to make the catching of carp easier or impossible - I always felt something unseen was watching me there.

Anyway, on this particular night through the rain I saw the occasional flicker and glow of a naked flame through the herbage on the far bank. I wasn't alone. I had always fished by myself here, never actually met another angler and hoped I never would. I had in fact turned back for home on more than one occasion if I saw another car parked on the dam. After the initial phantom thoughts I soon realised there was in fact someone else fishing this night. I had not seen this person arrive. 

In the morning, a glorious sunny morning where everything steams after a wet night, I did spy my fellow piscator re-casting. After catching two feral carp I decided by lunchtime that perhaps I might go and investigate. I crept across the dam and found someone like me, a tramp under a brolly........it was Fennel or Nigel as I knew him then. I heard it was his first season on the lake too, how he cycled on opening night from his home near Hungerford with all his tackle, bait and provisions (took him a whole day), he was a gardener and he liked the things I liked. Whoever said that these are the times that likings are made is quite right. We are friends to this very day.

I heard a few years later that I too had freaked him out that night. Not only with my glimmering candle but the sudden volcanic eruptions from my tea brewing activities and then whilst he was dozing I crept up on him all monkish through the mud in my sandals and frightened the living daylights out of him...........probably why the name Angelus has stuck. I digress - this was meant to be about Fennel and his Priory which is a fascinating place (lots of nooks and crannies for the lover of all things vintage). Have a poke around at Fennel's Priory and if you like what you see I can heartily recommend Issue 1 of Fennel's Journal. 

Fennel posted a few lines from a letter I wrote to him on his guest book:   In this mad, chaotic world, the ethos and beliefs of the Priory make us stop and think and hopefully appreciate and evaluate what is important and what can wait. Slow is good - should be good. Take time to stop and drink everything in..... enjoy the small things in life which get neglected because some say fast is good. Appreciate this and life will be good. The Priory appreciates this - we appreciate it too! We all have to work and get caught up in the grind, but remember that if you remember to stop, unplug, escape, enjoy, your life will be all the more better.

Cello Song

Iv'e drifted in and out of Nick Drakes music for years now - never being a huge fan, but certainly appreciating his gift and enjoying his music at times when my hand just hovers near one of his CD's - the mood has to be just right.

Billy Bragg got it so right when he described him as follows: “The great thing about Nick Drake is that you have to meet him halfway. You have to lean in to hear what he is saying.”

I'm glad I don't live in London, but at times wish I could be transported to some of the 'events' that take my fancy - the Strange Face Project exhibition at Idea Generation Gallery is one such event. A series of photographs by Michael Burdett.

Michael was working as a postboy at Island Records in the 1970's when he came across a boxed tape in the skip and was allowed to keep it. On the box was written "Nick Drake Cello Song - With Love X" - what he had found was a version that had not been released or heard before.

Many years passed and recently Michael set off with a CD player and headphones in hand, for nearly two years he travelled the length and breadth of Britain with the aim of offering random individuals an exclusive opportunity to hear the recording. City workers, farmers, scientists, hairdressers, musicians, tattooists – he asked them all. Randomly stopping them in the street, at their places of work and in their homes, whether they knew of Drake’s material or not. He then photographed them listening to the song.

He even photographed a man listening to the song fishing for Grayling on the Itchen in Hampshire - how perfect is that! There is an interview with Michael on the BBC 6Music site.  

Three Cheers For Shindig!

My reading pile is getting huge, I can't stop adding to it! One read that always goes straight to the top of the pile is the wonderful Shindig! magazine. It appeals to me on so many levels from the glorious thud as it hits the floor when postie shoves it through my letterbox to articles on bands I adore such as Kippington Lodge, Soft Machine and The Pretty Things to name just a few. Coupled with genuine knowledgeable writing by a friendly team of enthusiasts you almost feel part of the gang when reading it. Imagine my delight to hear the news that from the next issue it's coming out six times a year - Yahoo!

The latest gigantic issue is a Mott The Hoople special with some super writing by Kris Needs. It also has features on The Alan Bown Set, The Critters and The Twilights - the splendid thing about Shindig! is you keep going back to it and find nuggets you missed on your first read! It's the only mag I keep - I never recycle it!

There is a small feature that me old mucker Overend Watts (Mott bassist) did for a fanzine I put together back in the 1990's called Wig Out - it's about his love for the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band and how they had such an influence on his pre-Mott bands and still do for that matter - I won't spoil it for you, check out the article here.

One amusing story that relates to the above article when it first appeared (1997) - some months after Overends Wig Out piece his phone rang....."Hi, this is Michael Lloyd here from the WCPAEB, just leaving a message for Overend".....phone gets picked up by Overend "Is that really you? Is it really you? It can't really be you" it turns out it really was Michael Lloyd who called to say how much he and the other band members loved the article. A long chat ensued and some myths are put to bed about the group and some new gems unearthed! Great story. Imagine the excitement!

The good news is that in addition to being a subscriber magazine Shindig! is back in the shops - the next issue (on sale 16th February) will be on special promotion in WH Smiths so it should be pretty easy to find. Enjoy!

An Idle Interlude

I have yet to cast a line in 2012, so I have been reflecting on years gone by from the leaves of my fishing diary. I hope the early days of 2012 are not so grim as those in 2011……..this day, from January 2010, turned out to be just the tonic for the January blues.

Sometimes just being there is enough. And being there was more than enough for me this week. More than enough to ease the pain of a troubled heart. For January, that most torrid of months, had delivered all manner of disasters and all without warning.

I needed some persuading – even to spend a day by the Wiltshire Ebble. I was more than happy to stew in my own juice at home, but I was assured it would be the tonic to get me through these difficult days. Not a day to angle alone, so a day akin to a tale from that most glorious of books “Hot Pot” by Francis Francis was in order for my pal Jim and I.

Think Dickens, happiness, feasting, Christmas, joviality, pies, tramps storytelling by the river, ale, beef tea and the lady of the stream and you may get the picture.

The Ebble is a joy to behold. It glistens like a stream of jewels - you can walk its banks, hop and skip across it and wade wellie deep, but what wonders it has in its shallow waters.

Walking the banks of this truly wild Wiltshire stream would have been tonic enough and I would not have been troubled for one moment if my cane had remained straight – just being there and following in the footsteps of my angling and naturalist hero Ollie Kite, who we would indeed toast later in the day, was a simple enough pleasure to see me right.

My lovely grayling float dances down the tiny stream and plunges so quickly it startles me with the ferocity in which the grayling takes the bait. I walk and fish, walk and fish for hours totally lost in my thoughts totally forgetting Jim who is doing the same somewhere else on this river.

These little silver darlings or ladies of the stream as they are affectionately known twist, turn and search for every nook and crannie to evade capture - grayling are lovely to eat, but who could take one on such a day? This is a day for reflection and they are to be admired and returned to glisten once more.

The church bell tells me it’s time to meet up and exchange tales of our mornings adventures. We will eat, drink and go our separate ways again until tea time and then meet up again at dusk in the Radnor Arms for a farewell libation in front of a roaring fire.

We both greet each other with child like smiles and tales of grayling large and small, both caught and lost, mentalist wild brown trout that greedily devour our maggot cocktail, the wildlife we have observed, but for now lunch is the order of the day.

Kelly Kettle beef tea, smoke, soot and fire, Bridport pie, mustards, fruit cake and all manner of delights are greeted with oohs and ahhs as they emerge from our secret bags. The joy of fishing, friendship and just being there has recharged and rejuvenated me.......reminded me of the small things that matter. The small things in life that help keep my world spinning round.

All is well again with my world.

Christmas 2011

Time and tide and buttered eggs wait for no man

The wonder of Christmas through a childs eyes is something to behold especially when you see them take part and consume the rituals that have been with a parent for many a moon. We have many - the specific Thomas Hardy location where the holly is cut, the yule log and Christmas Eve Kelly Kettle brew up and fire. There is one other however that brings more excitement than all the others put together and that is The Box of Delights.

If we are lucky we get to read the book by John Masefield (1935 - also known as When The Wolves Were Running) but the most eagerly awaited ritual is the delightful 1984 BBC adaptation starring Patrick Troughton as Cole Hawlings and Robert Stephens as the evil Abner Brown. A perfect BBC production at the time of the Radiophonic Workshop.

The central character is Kay Harker who, on returning from boarding school, finds himself mixed up in a battle to possess a magical box, which allows the owner to go small (shrink) and go swift (fly), experience magical wonders contained within the box and go into the past.

The owner of the box is an old Punch and Judy man called Cole Hawlings, whom Kay meets on a railway station. They have an instant rapport, and this leads Cole to confide that he is being chased by a man called Abner Brown and his gang. For safety, Cole entrusts the box to Kay, who then goes on to have many adventures which are set with a magical Christmas backdrop.

I can remember, back in 1984, excited beyond belief as on Christmas Eve the final episode was transmitted. The excitement begins a few days before we start the first episode and we finish on Christmas Eve with the last. The screams of excitement are just as loud as those on Christmas morning. Long may it continue - whatever our age. 
  

Buried Treasure Part 2

This could so easily have ended up in a rubbish sack somewhere between 1968 and today. Thankfully it remained hidden away until recently - I can just about remember it from an early birthday and hope that somewhere there is similar wrapping paper being produced today. Delightful stuff. I particularly like that badger in his party hat!

Christmas 1932



Eric Ravilious - Calendar Design, December 1932

Reading Matter

My ever expanding pile of books to be read has just got bigger - a visit to two of my favourite Wessex bookshops yielded a volume from each by the most excellent Little Toller Books of Wimborne Minster. 

The Cross Keys Bookshop in Salisbury never ceases to amaze me. It hasn't failed me yet. I find books on the shelves of this orgasmic shop that I didn't even know had been published - new Edward Bawden and Eric Ravilious titles that I hope and pray may reach my Christmas stocking. I came away with A Shepherd's Life by WH Hudson (originally published in 1910) - I am ashamed to say I have never read Hudson, he is now firmly in my reading pile. I know of him through the writings of "BB" and that is as far as it ever got with me. I do have an interest in shepherds though - the Gabriel Oak and Barclay Wills sort and this was my reason for purchasing this lovely Little Toller edition.  

The other book I have read and will do so again. I originally came across Kenneth Allsop when I first read In The Country back in the 1980's when bunking off from college studies. I found a 1970's edition and I couldn't put it down - it's strange looking back now as I sit only a couple of miles away from his Mill at West Milton, West Dorset that our paths would cross in some sort of way. Such an interesting chap (known to millions in the 1960's through the Tonight programme on the BBC which was the first early evening news programme).

I have him to thank, for if it were not for him I wouldn't spend so much time enjoying the delights of Powerstock Common with my children. He fought bitterly with the Forestry Commission to stop them clear-felling Powerstock Common (now a most lovely Dorset Wildlife Trust nature reserve) which follows the old Bridport to Maiden Newton railway line and it is now enjoyed by many thanks to him.

I came across the new edition quite by chance in Bridports delightful bookshop (one of the top 50 bookshops in the UK - The Guardian and The Independent). I also found out that the recently cancelled Kenneth Allsop memorial talk, as part of the Bridport Literary Festival, will take place in the new year with Ronald Blythe. Certainly something to look forward to in the dull days of new year!

Look after your local bookshops, support them and love them. Support the Indie Bound Get Local campaign and keep books on the high street - keep money in the local economy, embrace what makes them unique, help the environment, create more choice, benefit from their expertise, make them a destination and importantly keep the high street healthy!

Buried Treasure Part 1

We are currently in the throes of decorating and general decluttering ahead of a house move - I'm not too keen on the decluttering side of things as it usually means I have to decide whether to keep, throw out or charity shop something which ordinarily I would like to keep for a rainy day.

I have treasure scattered everywhere. Sheds, garages, lofts, in the boot of my car, bags under sofas........I'm sure you get the picture. More often than not I do forget what I have and this was the case when the magnificent haul you see here was recently re-discovered in a box in my parents loft.

Everything you see in the pictures (bar the rod stoppers) belonged to my grandfather. After he died, my father presented me with a carrier bag which contained this and much more. The joy of finding long forgotten treasure like this is certainly something that gives me the utmost pleasure.

The leather wallet is a coarse fisherman's compartment wallet by A. Carter & Co. Ltd of Roseberry Avenue, St Johns St Road, London EC - in perfect condition it contains many packets of hook to nylon including the delightful Bombyx hooks to gut, Milwards Cormorant, Express using finest drawn Spanish silkworm and the ever reliable Allcocks Model Perfect!

I was particularly pleased to reacquaint myself with the lovely bait tin which I shall use for worms. I have many of the bigger diameter tins for maggots and find them more pleasing on the eye than a plastic tub. You will also see a split shot tin, pike trace, various implements for removing hooks and attaching bait, two porcupine quill floats and little packets containing hooks and float rubbers.

The rod stoppers are my own and these were also tucked away and long forgotten. They will soon be reunited with their rods. The brass stoppers are from a B.James whole cane Avocet and the aluminium stoppers are from my Allcocks Lucky Strike.

Buried treasure indeed!