RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32386, 27 August 1970, Page 19

RANDOM REMINDER

CHANGE-OVER

In hundreds of otherwise happy homes, preparations are at present going ahead for the start of the next fishing season, so that small children are crying for bread and women weep Softly, while fathers and husbands tread the primrose path to purgatory. But at least one man has been saved. He is unlikely to join the throng on the river-bank this year, or to splash his way through tumbling streams. He has, almost certainly, had enough. It has taken him a long time, since the end of the last fishing season, to find

the resolution to confess: but his letter reached us seme time ago, and in the kindly, courteous way which is our mark, we have allowed a few more weeks to pass so that wounds may be further healed. The poor man: seasons of experience, and never a fish. At the start of last season, he went to work with rugged determination and a wide-open wallet. He bought a complete new outfit Ply and thread lines, flies of all colours, shapes and sizes, ticers, minnows, the lot . . . even a brand-new fishing hat to wear at a careless angle. He had everything.

His wife, evidently a woman of some character, had no great regard for fishing. But on the sound basis of joining ’em when you can’t beat ’em, she said she would come with him. He had a very old rod and reel . . . and the rest is obvious. He still failed to catch a fish; in no time at all, she had four trout On reading his sad little note, we thought what a shame it was he had spent all that money for nothing. But second thoughts suggest that the gear will not go unused. ’ He won’t mind, this season, staying home to look after the children.