I did not succeed in qualifying for the Norwich District team in 1982 and by 1983 two important things had changed. I had been transferred to the Trust Company office in Chelmsford in the January of that year and had become a parent in the April. Even if I had been able to make contact with the Bank’s local Sea Anglers by the Autumn it would have felt rather unsporting, not to say selfish, to disappear for two nights leaving Faith, my wife to do all of the “night duties” that little H. required.
Over the winter of 1983 I did, however, get to know most of the Barclays fishermen of the area through several boat trips in the Thames estuary and discovered that there had previously been insufficient interest from that region to enter a team. After some discussion it was agreed that John W of Maldon branch would organise an entry in the 1984 ‘National’ and that he and I would take part along with Frank C and Geoff T, both messengers at High Street, Chelmsford branch.
For transport John arranged, through his involvement with the PTA, to borrow a minibus from Hatfield Peverel Junior School to take the four of us and our gear to Weymouth. Because we did not know our way round the maze of Sports Club expenses claims and entitlements we did not realise that we could have done what most other teams had done and stayed for Thursday and Friday nights at the hotel. Consequently we arranged to drive down overnight to arrive in time for the match on the Friday morning.
I was duly picked up by John at about 1a.m. and we proceeded via the Dartford Tunnel and the still incomplete M25 towards Dorset. It was a bitterly cold night and as we travelled west below London towards the M3 we were surprised to see that, despite steaming along at a steady 70mph the engine temperature needle was moving slowly towards ‘cold’! Eventually the engine died and we drifted to a halt, suspecting electrical failure. Geoff disproved this, however, by lifting the bonnet and slapping his hand down on to the engine block! It was stone cold and we then realised that with the sub-zero external temperature and the heater on full blast we had been drawing off the heat faster than the engine could produce it! All that remained was to put on lots of extra clothing (luckily we had brought plenty for the match) turn off the heater, apply lots of choke and restart the engine.
We reached Weymouth at about 6 a.m. without further incident and decided to go straight to the Crown Hotel, not with any expectation of booking in, but mainly to use the toilets and to try to get a cup of coffee. A very kind night porter took pity on our frozen state and after checking to see which rooms we would be booked into later he took us to the dining room and told the kitchen staff that it was OK for us to have a full breakfast. This never appeared on our bill!
As the morning progressed the wind increased until by about 10am a full blown gale was roaring in from the south-west meaning that it would have been blowing straight at us on Chesil beach. The organisers, not having an alternative venue arranged, declared that this would be a “free range” match meaning that we could fish wherever we liked provided we were back at the rear of the hotel for the weigh-in by 6 p.m. Not knowing the area we opted for the pier at the entrance to the harbour as this had shelters on it. While this meant slogging round the outside of the security fence surrounding the ferry port it did, at least, provide some shelter. Some braver souls, the Maidstone team (of whom much more later) set up on the other, unprotected wall of the harbour while yet others ranged far afield to try to find a sheltered beach. They mostly finished up trying to squeeze in onto our pier later!
At the end of the match we found that we had finished in 5th place (I think) out of 12 which we regarded as a creditable debut. The match was won by my old friends from Norwich rather fortunately, Maidstone having effectively thrown victory away by their chosen location mentioned above.
They had been catching steadily in their exposed position and were quite happy with things until the arrival in the harbour of the daily ferry from the Channel Islands. This huge vessel, which was no less than ten hours late because of the bad weather, cruised sedately into the harbour causing no problems at all but then, in order to make contact with the mooring it put its side thrusters on at full power! This displaced an enormous wall of water around both ends of the ship creating a surge towards the other wall where the Maidstone team was fishing.
We were surprised afterwards to learn that none of the team had been carried away by the wave that washed over them but they did lose several of their best fish as well as a certain amount of tackle. They still managed to finish second! David T, then working in a Banking Branch in the Maidstone area, who was a part of that team told me later that, such was the amount of water involved, their Tilley lamps were completely submerged for some seconds but continued burning as if nothing had happened.
Back at the Hotel we had time for a nice hot bath before the presentation dinner and (quite) a few drinks. I was in the fortunate position of knowing another team (Norwich) as well as my own and we soon made the acquaintance of many others. It is a curious thing, however, that after 13 years (written in 1997, DS) of seeing some of these people each year I still cannot put very many of their names to the faces even though we all tend to greet each other like long lost friends. I am not sure whether this says something about them or about me but I am given to understand that many others among these ‘once a year friends’ experience the same thing.
My other enduring memory of that first trip concerns John W who drove the minibus as mentioned above from Chelmsford to Weymouth and back without a “relief” driver and with very few (intentional) stops. He managed to keep himself (and us) awake through both trips by an absolutely non-stop barrage of jokes. These were almost all jokes that I had never heard before and he did not repeat himself in nearly 400 miles of driving. To this day I do not know how he did it or, indeed, why he has never taken up Stand up Comedy professionally!
