Reflections part 3
To tell you my story from the start we will have to back track a bit on Dads story and join him with the Deva. As I mentioned before I have several fond memories aboard this boat. As I get older they become a little more hazy but those of seeing her steam back along the beach surrounded by gulls will stay with me forever. Times may have changed a bit but even now when you see a boat being followed by flocks of hulls you naturally assume they have had a bountiful day. I great full not only to my Dad for providing the spectacle but also my Mum for letting me whiteness it. As far as I can remember I always wanted to go fishing. I don’t mean as a living but just fishing, anywhere. I have and would again (particularly right now) fished any available bit of water. I have fished in bits of water you could almost step across. I’ve spent hours catching sticklebacks and flounders from dykes and minnows from flooded streams give me a bit of water and I want to try and catch a fish from it. I was no different as a child and no doubt gave Mum and Dad plenty of grief for it. I can remember pestering to go wrecking with Dad when I was clearly too young. I was allowed on the boat and allowed to fish as I got big enough to actually handle a rod. I’m sure I ruined several anglers plans of a child -free days charter boat fishing. I can remember fishing more on the silver lady by this time I was just about big enough to handle a rod and even peak over the gunwale. Eventually I was allowed on a trip offshore. I can’t remember if it was wrecking, or even what we caught. I do remember it was flat calm and when we got a long way out Dad stopped the boat to show me how clear it was and that we could just about see the bottom. This must have captured my imagination for me to remember it so vividly. It was probably the first time I had seen such clear water as everything close inshore in the Thames estuary is normally coloured with silt. Another trip I can remember is an evening/night trip I went on. I won the whip on the boat for the biggest fish but refused to accept it as I was convinced it was a fix! Obviously now I know it was very likely my natural angling talent shining through! i don’t remember who was on board so please enlighten me if it was you. Looking back we really were lucky not only to have a father and grandfather who not only enjoyed angling but were happy to share it with us. I could recall endless stories of our fishing trips both fresh water and sea fishing. It’s a wonder Dad has a single hair left on his head after loading the car up with enough tackle for me, my two brothers and very often my grandad as well his own! One occasion I am very often reminded of was from when I was quite young. We were fresh water fishing and using maggots for bait. It was a chilly winters day and I had a parker coat on. I don’t remember what we were fishing for but we were getting through bait quite quickly. Dad asked if I needed any more bait as it had been a while since I changed it. A said ‘no its alright I’ve got some in my pocket thanks’. This clever use of initiative wasn’t met with the praise I had expected. As I remember when we got home Mum wasn’t too keen to hear I had a pocket full of maggots either.
I don’t really remember when the silver lady went really. As I mentioned in an earlier instalment we had a couple of trips out on Derek Mole’s commercial boat the talon (although a later later version than the one pictured the other day) . We had one trip in the blackwater estuary with good numbers of codling and one trip further out as far as I remember. Probably the wallet with the odd roker or cod. Dave Weaving also took me on the Jenna D which at that time was a bullet 38. This was for a local charity competition called the golden cod and I don’t remember what I caught I was with Dads friend Adrian, known as uncle Adrian (everybody is an uncle this or auntie that when your young). I remember uncle Adrian had a sea scorpion of some sort which he took back in a bucket for the weigh in. in these years between boats we did lots of fresh water fishing. dad was in a small syndicate that fished a couple of farmers reservoirs. They were stuffed with carp and roach/rudd along with the odd pike. We were truly spoiled fishing here as they would still produce at any time of year provided they weren’t iced over. The water was about 30ft deep in the middle so the temperature was fairly stable in the winter and come the summer they were drained to just 3ft of so deep. I have seen carp litteraly climbing up the banks after ground bait we had spilled at our feet they were that ravenous and densely stocked. We pestered dad into a trip here night fishing and he eventually gave in. I was a little older so I was allowed to fish all night but my two younger brothers had to pack their rods away and sleep. The next morning came and 50 odd carp later I was knackered. Apparently when we got back to Dads and I climbed into bed I pronounced the ‘I never want to go fishing again’ and promptly slept for the next day and a bit.
In part.2 I mentioned how we came to view and then buy the starfish 8 we re-named the Razorbill it was barely more than two years between the silver Lady going to Belgium and the purchase of Razorbill but that time seemed like an age to my younger self. It was only when we started looking through pictures and dates the other week that I realised it was only two years. very shortly after this my brothers and I were to purchase our first boat. I had dreams of getting my own boat for a while before hand but finances were a little tight as I was still at primary school! By now mum had moved to Lawford (just outside Manningtree). Her house was a short walk from the top of the tidal Stour across a road, through a folly and over the sea wall. I had ideas of getting a little boat and mooring it there so I could head off wrecking. We dreamed of lots of little boats, various things with inboards or no inherent buoyancy but at the right price. As it happened Dad heard that one of the local lads was selling his Orkney longliner boy lew which he had used for gillnetting and we could buy it without and engine for £550. Between the 3 of us we scrapped our savings, emptied our piggy banks sold a kidney or two and bought her. Without an engine we were going nowhere though. This is where our lovely Nan and Grandad helped us out and offered to get one. For our combined birthday, Christmas tooth fairy whatever money they bought an old two stroke Evinrude 7 hp from one of my many god parents Richard Parkinson. The shaft was a bit too shaft and it made a right racket as we steamed around but it got us along for a couple of years.
We looked into mooring the boy lew at Manningtree but she would have been afloat for just a short amount of each tide and to be honest mersea offered better fishing. I was 11 when we bought her and the oldest out of the 3 of us and when I look at 11 year olds now I find it frightening to be honest. we learned quickly and managed not to kill our selves or each other. There was always somebody around keeping an eye on us. the Orkney turned out to be our biggest asset to be honest. in all of the time we owned her I never felt unsafe and I cant think of a better 16ft boat. Now between the Razorbill and the boy lew we would enjoy make happy family memories.