What’s in a name?

Before moving on to the next chapter I should digress again to mention the problem I have with getting Team names right.

 When my first team was entered in the summer of 1987 the entry form lodged by the BarclayTrust Association on my behalf recorded our name as “Trust Company” which was correct at that time. By the time of the match, however, company reorganisations meant that we were, in fact, Barclays Financial Services (or BFS). However, Basil S had assimilated us in his memory as “Trust Company” and, despite numerous verbal and written reminders of the name change, “Trust Company” we remained until 1993 when he finally started calling us “BFS”.

 Unluckily, following the 1993/1994 centralisation of our work we had become known as “Trust Company” again! Since then I have tried to ensure that everyone knows to whom they are referring by covering all possibilities with the name “BarclayTrust”. I should stress that at all times we have answered to anything, particularly the question “What’s yours?” at the bar.

 Other teams have had similar difficulties over the years. Changing “Maidstone” to “South East” or “Norwich” to “East Anglia” does not present too many difficulties but John W has had to put up with Chelmsford first becoming part of Cambridge Region (giving rise to several rude remarks about his team’s prowess being due to Cambridgeshire being a landlocked county!) and then Cambridge becoming part of East Anglia. They have got around this by calling the old Norwich team “East Anglia North” and the old Chelmsford team “East Anglia South”. Many of the London teams have also had problems and while the same people seem to turn up each year I seldom see the same team names twice!

Chapter 7 – 1989 – Great Yarmouth

This chapter may be somewhat shorter on details of actual fishing than those before because my memories are extremely ‘foggy’ due to my having spent the time in some considerable pain!

 I left the office on the Wednesday evening with two days holiday before me and was taking my usual route home through Cambridge on my Vespa T5 motor scooter when a Taxi driver who had been stopped at the side of the road as I approached, decided that 2 seconds or so of right hand indicator was sufficient warning to traffic coming up behind him that he intended to make a U-turn and that they should all stop dead to allow him to do so! Not surprisingly I was unable to stop and ploughed into the front of the driver’s door, putting a huge dent into his bonnet with my crash helmet.

 Leaving aside the subsequent aggravation and attempted intimidation on the Taxi driver’s part (which you can read about in my correspondence with my Solicitor if you are really that interested!) I was left with aches, pains, cuts and bruises as well as very little skin on my shins and the prospect of an eighty mile drive to Great Yarmouth in the car the next day.

 At my wife’s insistence I visited the Doctor the next morning: he pronounced me reasonably undamaged, heavily elastoplasted my shins and gave me an anti-tetanus injection (I guess that you can catch all kinds of nasty things from idiot Taxi drivers!). I was then able to start thinking about loading up the car and heading for the match.

 At the time of writing this I have not asked any of my team for their memories but I think that we all made our separate ways to this one. I recall driving up the A11 from Newmarket towards Norwich which is the most direct route from Cambridge and suggests that I did not pick up David Sh on the way. Given my somewhat shaken state this was probably in his best interests! I did, however, manage successfully to find Great Yarmouth although I was, for once, the last of my team to arrive. Once installed at the Burlington and Palm Court Hotel (if you wonder how we managed to stay at two hotels at once – this is one hotel inside but two entrances and name signs on the outside!) on North Beach Road it was ‘business as usual’ – my doctor had warned me that painkillers and alcohol do not mix so I had naturally avoided taking any painkillers!

 After an evening meal in the hotel we set out to see what Great Yarmouth had to offer in the way of evening entertainment. I am sure that the situation would have been very different two or three months earlier but the answer in November turned out to be NOT MUCH! Most of the large seafront bars were closed for the winter as were the normal ‘amusements’ but there turned out to be many ‘local’ style pubs hidden away behind the tourist zone. We visited several of these, staying longest in those having a dartboard and/or a pool table. I recall that one of these pubs had a quiz machine (which were a consuming passion of mine at that time) and this was probably the only time that even after buying a couple of rounds I arrived back at the Hotel with more cash than I started with! This was probably just as well as the Hotel bar was still open when we got back and stayed so for a couple of hours more.

 Of breakfast the next morning and the normal last minute trip into town for forgotten bits of tackle, extra bait, food and so forth, I remember very little but such trips were necessary every year and I have no reason to think that 1989 would have been different.

 My next clear recollection is of arriving at the cliff-top (the cliffs in question were all of 10 feet high!) car park belonging to the Holiday camp accessible from the extreme northern end of North Beach Road. As at 1997 this was named “The Haven Holiday Park” but I do not remember its name 8 years earlier.

 We had earlier drawn for 2 marked pegs per team on the beach and had decided amongst ourselves who would have which number before finding out just how the organisers had arranged these. The result was that Mike and Ian found themselves straight down the beach from the cars while David and I had to slog through about half a mile of sand dunes to get to our position. Normally I would not have minded this too much but I do not honestly know how I made it this time without passing out! The combination of wading through soft sand in waders and waterproofs carrying tackle box, flask, food, bait, rods, rod rest and an umbrella as well as the throbbing bruises on both shins nearly killed me.

 I like to think now that it was my physical disability as a result of the accident that resulted in my weighing in only one or two small fish but at the time I just wanted to get the damned match over and sit down in comfort! Mercifully I do not remember the walk back to the cars (with darkness as an additional complication) or our position in the results table that year (possibly 5^th or 6^th). The records show that South East Region were the winners to the disgust of the home team (Mr Price and Co.) who, I believe, had to be satisfied with being runners up.

Only one story remains with us to this day from that trip and that has become something of a legend to the discomfiture of one of my team members!

 For the benefit of the uninitiated we fish during the hours of darkness using pressurised paraffin lamps known generically as “Tilleys” after what was once the most common brand. For these to work correctly the pressurised fuel has to vaporise on leaving the nozzle within a mantle of a sort that will be familiar to anyone old enough to have taken a caravan holiday before mains electricity was supplied by sites as a matter of course. This vaporising is achieved by pre-heating both nozzle and mantle by burning a quantity of methylated spirits in a special tray. When everything is adjudged hot enough the pressurised paraffin is “released” and if all goes well the vapour will ignite and the mantle produce the required light. If it is not yet ready smoke and flames will shoot out of the top of the lamp as unvaporised paraffin burns neither easily nor cleanly, and the flow must be turned off at once.

Having explained that it should also be pointed out that the person concerned (who should remain nameless but who, for the sake of further embarrassment I will call Ian H) had a) not only never used a Tilley before but b) had not been given detailed instructions on how to light it by the person from whom he had borrowed it.

 What instruction he had received had included, for some reason, no mention whatsoever of the words “methylated spirits”! Ian knew that he had to preheat the lamp and the only remotely flammable liquid (apart from whatever was in his hip flask) was his reserve supply of paraffin. He duly filled the receptacle with this and after expending the best part of a box of matches was able to light it.

Fortunately darkness was falling and Ian and Mike were well concealed in the dunes so that the resulting sheet of flame and column of thick, black smoke were not apparent to the local Coastguards!

Having no option but to allow the flames to subside of their own accord Ian and Mike continued fishing by the light of Mike’s camping gas lamp. When the conflagration died down Ian discovered that the mantle and nozzle were hot enough for vaporisation to occur and the lamp was duly lit. As I mentioned above, however, paraffin does not burn cleanly and the glass surrounding the mantle was so thickly coated with burned on soot that none of the 500 or so candlepower that these lamps are supposed to emit could make it through to the outside world! As we remarked at the time, at least he wasn’t blinded by it!

Chapter 8 – 1990 – Weymouth (yet again)

Having completed the “round the regions” circuit suggested back in 1985 we returned to the Crown Hotel again.

 The usual team were all available again and were therefore automatically selected (see Appendix 2). I travelled down with David Sh who picked me up from Histon in his own car and we kept a very careful lookout for Colin P whenever we stopped! Mike and Ian were making their own ways down from North London and Brighton respectively after work. As I was the only person in this team who had competed at Weymouth before I had dutifully “faxed” very detailed maps of the town, clearly identifying the Hotel and available car parking, to both of them.

 Mike duly arrived well in time for the evening meal but by about 7.30pm we were becoming rather concerned at the continued absence of Ian who had, after all, the shortest trip of us all! He appeared just before 8 p.m. and I naturally asked whether there had been some problem with the map. He assured me, “No problem, the map was fine” and after a slight pause, “I just couldn’t find Weymouth”! 

Following that Ian’s navigational abilities were (and still are) classed with his lamp lighting skills!

 In the usual tradition we went out seeking pubs in the town and I seem to recall playing darts against some local yokels who turned out to be the Barclays South West region team – they thought we were the locals!

 At closing time it was back to the Hotel via the chip shop opposite the main entrance and into the residents bar which was, of course, still open. Having acquired the taste 2 years earlier we were all into the draught version of Newquay Steam Lager (with the exception of Mike who was, then as now, drinking Guinness) which seemed just as strong as the bottled stuff had been. Being in a playful mood we purchased a measure of Blue Curacao (I can’t imagine what its purpose is in the world of cocktail mixing!) during Ian’s absence in the loo and added a large part of it to his new pint of NSL. The result was a beautiful emerald green drink that seemed to have an inner glow prompting us to refer to it as “Kryptonite”. Ian came back and drank it without turning a hair!

I am told by David T that the barman announced his intention to close the bar at about 1.30 a.m. but generously allowed those present to “stock up” with a few drinks each before he went. I don’t remember, I think I was probably “out of it” one way or another by then!

 Despite winds similar to those in 1984 we had agreed to attempt to fish Chesil Beach at Abbotsbury, the deciding factor being that, unlike 1984 no rain was expected. We set off in a substantial convoy via a tackle shop in Wyke Regis from which we had all ordered our bait and duly arrived on the beach and at our appointed pegs. I cannot recall whether these were set up for pairs or the cosier “team” arrangement whereby a much better shelter could be constructed from several umbrellas. I think it was the latter but will happily be corrected.

Although the rain stayed away everyone seemed to be struggling to cast into the wind and the mountainous waves that loomed over us. I do not have any idea now of what, if anything I or the rest of the team caught but I do recall that there was a record number of “nil points” that year.

 By 3 p.m. it was becoming obvious from the number of people leaving the beach that the match was unlikely to run the full 7 hours and sure enough, at just after 4p.m. Basil came round to the team captains and formally abandoned it. Unwilling to throw all of our bait away unused we elected to go back into Weymouth and wasted a couple of hours fruitlessly fishing in the harbour between a couple of moored trawlers.

Back at the Hotel that evening the results were announced at the dinner as usual – South East Region had managed to weigh in enough fish each to win (their sixth successive victory), someone else (I know not who but it was probably Colin’s East Anglia team) had enough to be in runner up spot and I think that everybody else came in third equal with nothing!

All in all, most of us agreed that this was a year to forget and we left for home on the Saturday morning having agreed to try to move around the country in the same order as the previous “circuit” with the Shrewsbury & North Wales Region agreeing to make the arrangements.

Chapter 9 – 1991 – Llandudno

Once again I was not given any selection problems and, having checked more carefully this time, there were no navigational difficulties identified. Our accommodation had been booked in a small seafront hotel in Rhos-on-Sea on the North Wales coast and as this was not all that far from his native Manchester, Ian thought that he could find it with no trouble.

 My own travel arrangements were a little more involved in that I drove alone from Histon to Sandbach Services on the M6 north of Stoke-on-Trent arriving there at about 11.30a.m. This left me about 30 minutes to have a pie and a cup of coffee before making my mid-day rendezvous with David Sh in the car park. David had been visiting relatives of his wife, Stephanie, in Macclesfield (having taken all of his fishing tackle with him) and was duly delivered by Steph to complete the rest of the journey with me.

When our chosen road, the A55, reached the coast at Colwyn Bay having bypassed the rather seedy resorts of Rhyl and Prestatyn, we began to look out for suitably non-commercial bits of beach to visit later. While we had, as usual, ordered a certain amount of bait David thought that we might do better if we emulated Paul Diment’s team a bit and acquired some local, fresh worms for the match. We spotted a likely looking spot which I see from my map now was probably at Llandulas, a small village apparently situated half under the A55 dual carriageway.  From there I could drive over some rather rough ground to a vast expanse of beach unspoiled except for a high covered conveyor belt contraption which extended out to the sea presumably to drop quarry waste into the bay. We decided that this was worth a return visit with David’s bait digging fork.

 As we drove into Rhos, along the sea front we also noted that the beach ended at a rocky point from which it might be possible to obtain some crabs at low water. As we had chosen to go for lugworm we agreed to delegate this task to Ian and Mike (whether they liked it or not). If you are starting to get the idea that my team and I were starting to get a little fed up with being seen as reasonably competent fishermen and fun people who were never going to win anything – you are getting the right impression! The hotel on the sea front (near the rocks mentioned above) was comfortable but unremarkable and the latter adjective also turned out to be true of the beer served in their bar. After meeting up with Ian and Mike and eating the evening meal supplied we sallied forth to find somewhere better to drink. We did not in fact go more than a couple of hundred yards from the Hotel as a large three or even four storied terraced house nearby had a large sign on the door proclaiming it to be the clubhouse of the “Rhos Sea Angling Club” and giving details of the licence to sell alcohol.

 This was obviously well worth investigating and we had no difficulty in persuading the Steward that our membership of the “Barclays Bank Sea Angling Club” entitled us to some sort of guest membership at his club. He was perfectly aware (probably through contacts with local bait dealers) that Barclays had a large match going on nearby and had wondered why none of our other “Club members” had yet paid a courtesy visit. We explained that many of the other members were “typical bank clerks not given to drinking – unlike ourselves”. Fortunately none of them turned up to make liars of us!

 As the beer was good, plentiful and, best of all, cheap we did not bother moving from this club all evening. It was obvious that Thursday was not the busiest night of the week and we were able to occupy fairly comfortable chairs and play the occasional game of darts before returning at closing time (about midnight) to the hotel. A few of the “regulars” were still around and there was, as usual, some discussion of the drinking places that various people had found. We were suitably vague about where we had been in the hope that word of our “private” club would not get around in case we wanted to go there on the following night. For some reason I find it particularly easy to be vague at half past midnight after a night on the beer!

 As we intended an early start the next day we did not, for a change, stay very long in the bar before retiring.

 I do not remember the exact time that David and I set out for our chosen lugworm beach but it was still dark and the hotel had not started serving breakfast – we hoped to back before it stopped at 9.30. It was necessary to pick our way down the beach (I understand that it is easier to get at worms nearer the water line and the tide was a long way out) by torchlight and after that I took upon myself the tricky task of holding the torch while David did the easy bit. This comprised quickly digging as deeply as possible near to a worm cast and then groping about in mud and freezing cold sea water in the hope that the creature had not heard him coming and burrowed still deeper.

After about an hour during which the tide turned and started to force us slowly back up the beach we decided that enough was enough (it was light enough for me to see that David’s arms were turning blue!) and we returned to the car. I then drove back to the Hotel for a nice hot fry up.

 We did not gather a large number of worms in this way – they certainly would not have been enough to keep even one angler fully supplied for a match – but they were large, fresh and (we hoped) would supplement the ordered bait sufficiently to make a difference in our performance.

While we had been away Ian and Mike had managed to rouse themselves and get breakfast so that when David and I returned they were just setting out with a bucket to gather peeler crabs – a job that they had wisely decided was best left until full daylight.

 I should explain that a “peeler” is, as the name suggests, a crab that is about to shed its old shell allowing the skin that has formed below it to harden off thus enabling growing room. A person familiar with them, as I was from boat fishing off the Essex coast can tell by gently pressing a thumb onto a crab’s back whether it is about to peel or is a “hardback”. There is a certain amount of “give” in the shell of a peeler. It is very uncommon to find a crab that has just peeled as such “softbacks” are very aware of their vulnerability to fish and seabirds and hide out of reach amongst the rocks until the new shell has hardened.

 What I had not realised was that neither Ian nor Mike knew any of the above information – they merely knew what a crab looked like! In any event crabs were rather scarce on the rocks that day; possibly due to the work of a couple of locals also out with buckets. When at last they found a crab they were unsure if it was the sort required and therefore resorted to the obvious solution of “when in doubt, ask an expert”. Calling upon what they assumed to be a common brotherhood of sea anglers Mike duly asked one of these native gentlemen “excuse me mate, but is this a peeler?” The man took the innocent crustacean in his hand, pressed it so hard with his thumb that the poor thing shattered and replied, “No”! Somewhat taken aback Mike then asked how to identify a peeler – the reply was in Welsh but it apparently required no great knowledge of either tone of voice or body language to interpret the response as “If you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you. Go away!” – so much for brotherhood.

 After this singular lack of success they gave up and we did without peeler crab as bait.

After the normal quick shopping trip for the day’s snacks we went off to the match which was to take place on the main beach at Llandudno – a long curving bay with a promenade and old fashioned hotels along its entire length. It was rather unusual for us to fish quite so close to the public gaze especially as, with the tide right in at the start of the match, all of our pegs (we were drawn in pairs a considerable distance apart) were placed in the small wind shelters on the edge of the promenade.

  Fortunately it was a rather damp breezy November day and not many of the mainly retired residents of the town ventured out to try to dispute the occupancy of these shelters with us! David and I, as had become traditional, fished together and had soon accumulated some Dabs and one or two Bass that were just barely over the size limit. We could, however, see that others on the surrounding pegs were also catching regularly. While one can usually spot a fish being reeled in by another competitor it is difficult to judge the significance of this as it is impossible to tell if it is “sizeable” or, indeed, if your rival has surreptitiously thrown it back.

 As the tide fell during the afternoon we became more and more surprised at the amount of sand being uncovered and the shallowness of the water that we must have been fishing in at the start. It soon became necessary to abandon the shelter and adopt more mobile bases following the tide down the beach.

 Some of the more “fair weather” anglers among us, however, decided not to move from their comfortable shelters not realising just how far or how fast the tide was receding. It became quite usual to walk down the sand and to pass the fully baited end tackle of such an idler. The done thing was to pick up the weight and give it a good hard tug before walking on – that usually woke them up! It was good to know that plenty of your colleagues were really not that bothered about winning – it tended to increase your own chances.

 Fortunately for us the match ended before low water so that we were spared the need to come back up the beach at the same sort of speed as we went down it. The weigh-in took place on the promenade at about the mid-point of the pegged area and while I cannot recall exactly what we declared I remember that I was extremely pleased to find that all four of us had contributed.

With the “48 points for top weight, 47 for second, etc.” scoring system this was always half the battle. Even so, as always seems to be the case, we all immediately forgot exactly what had been recorded against our names which made it extremely difficult to guess where we had come. I do not think that we do this on purpose, certainly we have never discussed why this happens but it does tend to make the presentations much more interesting and often results in people forgetting to include us in their own calculations.

 After the special Dinner at the Hotel (in case I have not mentioned it before, we are usually given a room to ourselves for this – except 1992 as will be related) Basil S gave his regular speech thanking the organisers and confirming next year’s venue before revealing, “Oscars” style, the top 4 or 5 positions in reverse order.

 To the obvious disappointment of Paul D and his team they were announced as third place (I think John W managed fourth – one of his best ever performances) and I must admit that at that point I woke up and really started to wonder if we were to be in with a chance of a team trophy at last. Sure enough Basil, getting the name wrong as usual, read out “Runners up this year, Trust Company”. I felt extremely proud as I led my team up to the top table to receive our individual plaques from some Sports Club dignitary who had turned out for a free dinner. I remember that the applause from the other teams seemed to be quite loud and I think that I realised at that moment that people actually wanted us to win something because they quite liked us and not just to break the monopoly (or should that be monotony!) of the “big two” finishing first and second every year.

 Colin P and his team won the competition and what with his breaking the 6 year reign of his arch rivals and our celebrating both second place and beating South East Region a certain amount of fairly loud boisterous drinking followed. I am fairly sure that we did not stay in the Hotel bar that evening but cannot remember whether we went back to our “club” or not. If we did then I’m sure that we wouldn’t have been by ourselves this time. Perhaps someone else can remember and let me know.

 Following all that excitement we departed on Saturday morning and I remember telling Colin P, “We’ll beat you next year!” I then drove David back to a prearranged Service Area on the M6 where Stephanie picked him up to spend the rest of his weekend in Macclesfield. My return home with a trophy was a cause of major excitement to the children and it is still displayed in our lounge. At least it proved that I was really going on fishing trips!

Chapter 10 – 1992 – Hythe, Kent

You will not be unduly surprised to learn that in 1992, once again, the team selection chart did not have to be used and last year’s runners-up set out for Kent confident that we could at least equal that achievement. 

For some reason, when starting this chapter I had not the slightest idea of  whose car we used but David Sh assures me that I drove from Cambridge via his house near Stowmarket, the A12, the M25 and the M20 to Folkestone.

 Accommodation had been booked for us at the Hotel Burstin in Folkestone and while the name was not familiar to me, I realised that I had certainly seen it before, as would anyone who had visited that port in the last few years. When I had first seen it about 10 years previously I had assumed that it was some sort of office block, possibly associated with the port, because the 12 storey building actually resembles a gigantic ocean liner standing only the width of a single road back from the edge of the harbour.

When we checked in we found, somewhat to our dismay, that we had been given rooms on the ninth floor.  Fortunately there was an express lift just for the top four floors so it probably didn’t take us as long to get to our rooms as others below us. While perfectly adequate for our needs these rooms rather confirmed the impression that I had picked up downstairs, that this Hotel seemed to be in need of some money spending on it – something that appeared not to have happened since its building in the 1960’s or early 1970’s. (We were told later that the Company owning the property were in Receivership and it was suggested that Barclays may have been given favourable terms in the hope of some financial leeway! There was very little chance of any of us being able to influence such matters – if it had been a golf competition, fly fishing match or some other sport more favoured by higher echelons in the bank they might have had a chance.)

 Usually, on these little trips, we were accustomed to virtually taking over the whole of a fairly small hotel and hardly ever saw other (i.e. non-Barclays) guests. It was, therefore, with some surprise, that we entered the dining room for our evening meal to find this well packed with, predominantly, elderly people. On attempting to sit down at a vacant table for four we were told, in no uncertain terms and, I thought, extremely rudely that “That table is taken!”

Unfortunately I have very little tolerance for bad manners, especially from representatives of my parent’s generation who were supposed to set great store by good behaviour, and in the absence of any “reserved” sign I smiled pleasantly and replied “Yes it is – by us!” Conversation at the surrounding tables seemed to die away and I caught indignant whispers spreading “They’ve taken so-and-so’s (the names meant nothing to me so I have forgotten them) table!” Things could have turned nasty had not a waiter, realising what had happened and after asking us if we were with Barclays, apologised loudly to us for not showing us to our “special reserved” area towards the back of the massive dining area. I was grateful to be “rescued” in this way as I certainly would not have enjoyed eating in the company of those elderly louts – I just wish that someone had thought to mention that we were not dining in amongst the common herd! Just what these nasty old fogies were doing in the hotel was revealed later.

 Following our meal, we adjourned to the bar for the usual captain’s meeting and I recall that before we got down to the normal business I plucked up courage to raise a matter that had been bothering me for some time – the conservation aspect of our competition – or more exactly the lack of any such aspect. To this end I had prepared and carefully photocopied a paper suggesting a “catch, weigh and return” system avoiding the rather unsavoury practice of dumping long-dead and unwanted fish in the nearest bin. While this was well received in principle, various valid comments were made concerning the practicality of witnessing each fish caught without a number of roving “stewards” available. The idea was shelved for “further consideration” and, now that I think of it, has never been brought up again since. Perhaps sometime soon I can annoy everyone at the Captains meeting by asking “whatever happened to that wonderful idea I had in 1992?”

 When we resumed our more usual discussions we were informed by Paul D that we would be fishing on the promenade at Hythe, moving on to the beach as the tide receded. Parking was permitted on the road running alongside the promenade and it was likely that most of us would be able to park right next to our team peg (fishing in groups of four) – very convenient in that only gear that was required at any given time need be unloaded.

 Strictly speaking it should have been the turn of South West region to host the 1993 match but they were unable or unwilling to do so and Colin P volunteered to host this at Great Yarmouth again.

Business concluded, I rejoined my colleagues waiting impatiently for me in the hotel bar and we went forth to sample the night life of Folkestone. As with most of the places we have visited this turned to be nothing spectacular and the pubs seemed to be smaller and a good deal more packed with people than those in, for example, Weymouth or Great Yarmouth. We did, however find a friendly enough place where we could get a somewhat cramped game of darts and which was reasonably close to the hotel. I recall that the beer seemed to go down exceptionally well and my only other memory of that evening out is stopping at the burger van that seems inevitably to appear close to sites of serious drinking for a couple of cheeseburgers to keep me going until breakfast!

 There seemed to be rather a lot of noise in the hotel when we got back for a few more drinks and by following this towards the large ballroom we discovered my little old friends from the dining room incident earlier, all wearing cowboy hats and children’s imitation six-shooters performing complicated line-dancing routines and other unnatural Country & Western practices! They were, we learned, on a special “themed break” offered by the hotel and I have to say that we gained a good deal of revenge for their earlier rudeness by standing in a group in the ballroom doorway, pointing and howling with laughter!

 Next morning I awoke nice and early, ready for the traditional “Full English” breakfast but was unable to stir my roommate, Mr Sh, who gave me to understand that he was not feeling terribly well and could well do without Bacon, fried eggs etc.. I left him to his own devices and went off to eat by myself. This was not, I hasten to say, out of any callous disregard for his feelings but because I had arranged for John W to give me a lift into Dover where we had both ordered our bait supplies.

 We were at the shop by nine o’clock and I seem to remember that we both suffered from what is something of an occupational hazard with sea angling – our orders had been “cut back” (probably because there was another match on somewhere in the area). There was only one solution to this, to go around all of the other fishing tackle shops in the vicinity in the hope that they had kept some worms back for casual anglers and to buy up enough to get back to a total close to our original specification. We eventually succeeded (thanks to one shop having just received a consignment of worms from Belgium on the early ferry!) and drove quickly back to Folkestone where our respective colleagues were becoming a bit anxious as it was getting near time to head for the match venue.

 It was only a two or three minute drive from the Hotel along the coast road out of Folkestone to Hythe and the stretch of beach that we were fishing was alongside the road opposite a golf course. The fact the we were not too close to the inhabited bits of either town meant that there were not likely to be all that many casual strollers or dog-walkers – all very nice people I am sure but they always seem to want to stand and chat somewhat more than I do and one can only say “excuse me I think I’ve got a bite” so many times in the course of a day!

 Apart from a few half-hearted protestations that his condition was due to a “dodgy burger” rather than the beer intake of the night before (none of us believed a word of it!), David Shoesmith had so far said virtually nothing to any of us that morning. After we had unpacked the rods and other essentials from the car and made our first casts he settled down on the folding canvas and aluminium sunbed that he had fortuitously bought with him. He was quite a sight – several layers of warm clothing, jacket hood up and sunglasses on, dozing on a sunbed on the promenade! Despite all that it has to be said that David still managed to outfish all of the rest of us throughout the rest of the day!

 We had caught a few fish between us while the tide was up (enough to ensure that we would each weigh something in at the end) but things quietened down during the lunch time period and we could take stock of our position. The beach below the Promenade was divided into sections by large concrete groynes and each team had one of these bays to themselves. The drop from the top of the promenade to the beach was more than 12 feet (the length of our fishing rods) and only about one section in five had access to steps leading directly to the beach. There was also a drop of about 6 feet down to the top of the groyne from where one could jump onto the shingle.

 After the tide had receded sufficiently we were, with a certain amount of teamwork, able to relocate ourselves on the beach. This was necessary as the tide was obviously going to go out quite a long way and the promenade’s height advantage was soon going to be wiped out. The alternative would have been to continue in the elevated position until the water had gone down far enough to permit descending by the nearest stairs and walking around the ends of the groynes to one’s own section.

 As darkness started to fall the fish started biting with a vengeance and I remember the last two hours or so of that match as one of the most exciting periods that I have ever spent fishing on a beach! It seemed that every time I cast out the rod tip would begin twitching almost before the weight could have hit the bottom. Many of the fish caught during this spell were too small and had to be returned but we all felt when the finishing time had arrived that we could not have pulled them in any faster! Unfortunately I no longer have details of the weights caught by us as individuals or in the competition as a whole but I suspect that we have not beaten it (on a beach) since.

 Unfortunately it always seems at the weigh-in that many people have caught as many or more fish than you – one just has to hope that they are not all in the same team – and this one was no exception. As usual no results were given away in advance and nobody tended to talk about their own team’s performance to others so the outcome, more by accident than design, was still a mystery as we went through our usual dinner towards the moment of truth. Fortunately, our dinner was held in the large dining room after normal eating hours so the “Wild West show” were away whooping it up in the ballroom well out of earshot (or should that be “gunshot”!).

 Basil seemed rather subdued as he made his annual address and we soon found out why when he announced that the East Anglia team (Colin P & Co.) who had, on the results of the weigh-in, finished second had regrettably been disqualified for fishing off their peg. It seems that as the tide receded Colin’s team (who included that year 2 elderly retired staff members and who were not blessed with one of the few sets of steps in their allocated section) had walked to the nearest section with steps and had continued fishing in that section for the remainder of the match.

This was indeed a breach of the rules and while we could understand why they did this it was rather stupid of Colin not to go to Basil at the time to explain his reasons, insisting, if necessary, upon a vote by the other team captains which would certainly have backed him up. It was particularly dim of him to expect to get away with this in a match organised and policed by his arch-rival Paul!

Naturally all of this caused something of a buzz at the tables and I believe that it was at this point that Colin and his team, not perhaps too surprisingly, walked out. The rest of the proceedings were rather an anticlimax with the home team, South East region taking the trophy as was more or less expected and it was with mixed feelings that we collected our second runners-up shields in two years. In the circumstances I was not entirely happy that my remarks to Colin at the end of the previous competition had proved correct. The discussion in the bar afterwards supported the organisers but everyone seemed to think that the whole situation could very easily have been avoided with a bit of consultation by Colin and/or the host team with the other team captains (although I must say that I would have been most unhappy to have been called away from such excellent fishing to sort out internal squabbles!) and it was generally agreed that we would attempt to solve future problems on the spot.

 Since they had left the dinner, Colin and his team had been drinking and nursing their wounds in the bar and at some point during the evening there was an altercation involving Colin and David T from the home team. I do not know what was said but Colin did tend to become a bit tactless when he had been drinking and I think that the old cheating arguments must have been brought up once too often for David to reasonably tolerate. The two of them had to be physically separated and moved to different ends of the bar.

 It was apparent that Colin was not intending to take his disqualification lying down as much later he came to me asking whether I was aware that David T was working for Trust Company and enquiring whether I had given the appropriate permission for him to fish for South East region. It has to be said that Paul had not, in fact, made the required formal request but it was obvious that Colin was seeking to get the South East team disqualified too and I was not interested in such political warfare at that time. As this record shows, I have never wanted to change my team anyway so there would not have been any problem in my mind with David fishing for whoever he wanted so I did the obvious thing – I lied and told him that I had been asked!

  I think that this saved everyone from all sorts of unpleasant situations but all teams should bear in mind that they should make sure that they are “squeaky clean” before having someone else expelled on a technicality.

 Come to think of it, if I had told Colin the unvarnished truth and let him run with it we could have gone on record as winners that year. However, I don’t think I would have ever felt that I deserved the trophy under those circumstances so it is probably just as well that things turned out as they did!

Chapter 11 – 1993 – Gt. Yarmouth (the sequel)

Fortunately for us Colin P had agreed to host the 1993 match well before the 1992 event had ended so ignominiously for him and kept to his promise even though many of us thought, quite frankly, that he would tell Barclays where it could put its fishing competition, size 3/0 hooks and all!

 The year had been one of great change for all of us as our part of the company was busy centralising in Peterborough – Mike J and I had both started working there on 18^th October, only a few weeks before the match was to take place and if David Sh had not actually commenced at Eagle Court, I think that he had certainly already moved in to his new house in the area. Only Ian H, who had opted to switch from tax work to the Investment side, was still at his former office. It would not be understating the position to say that all of us needed a couple of days away for some serious unwinding!

 I cannot remember just who drove to Great Yarmouth, how many cars we went in or even the name of the Hotel which was next door to the Burlington/Palm Court, the organisers having intended a return to the 1989 accommodation. We were told later that they got the wrong name when looking it up by address in the Yellow Pages and were then stuck with it! (It was the Imperial – I have just seen it on TV in an article about how utterly crap the British Tourist Board thinks Great Yarmouth’s hotels are! Says something about our standards doesn’t it? DJS 1/10/98)

 Things were going to be somewhat different this year as Colin had, possibly in an effort  to lose some of the less hardy “only here for the beer” competitors, arranged for this to be a night match with fishing taking place from 9pm Thursday evening until 3am Friday. The presentation dinner would be on the Friday evening as usual leaving us all day Friday to sleep and/or enjoy ourselves.

 I do not remember picking up any bait on the way so I assume that Colin must have offered his normal service to people with whom he was still reasonably friendly and picked this up for us.

 The exact venue for the match was, as in 1989, North Beach, through the holiday camp and then down from the “cliff top” car park to specific pegs. I could be wrong but I seem to recall that because of a greater than normal need for “lamp sharing” (usually less than half of each match was fished in darkness) the pegs were for whole teams; i.e. a 150 yard or so stretch for all four of you to fish on. Needless to say warnings were passed around (out of Colin’s hearing!) on the perils of fishing “off-peg”.

 If you are expecting this chapter to contain lots of exciting fishing action and tales of massive catches, then you are going to be disappointed. I remember nothing special about it and the only memory that I have of the match itself is of my using the expression “normal for Yarmouth” several times. I have never managed to catch anything worth talking about on North Beach either in Bank matches or while fishing for my own amusement, although I did once nearly hit a Seal with a five ounce lead weight when casting in a “friendly” match for Chelmsford against Norwich! I hope the Seal had more fish out of that stretch of beach than I did – starvation would have quickly followed if it didn’t!

 Anyway I think you will have got the idea that none of us weighed in very much, although I do not recall any of my team “blanking”, and we were left at the end with an eighteen hour wait to find out the result. None of the forty or so competitors were particularly happy bunnies when we got back to the hotel at about 3.45 am and we came to the end of a perfect day when the night porter refused to open the bar for us!

 I do not recall us ever discussing in advance the likelihood or otherwise of a disaster like that happening but I think that we must have, subconsciously prepared for it. At about 4.15 am, after a good wash, we found ourselves in Mike and Ian’s room in possession of four tumblers from our respective bathrooms. We also had a full bottle of Teachers Whisky supplied by Ian and a full bottle of “Redwood” Canadian Rye Whisky which had been given to me earlier by a grateful Barclays Life representative who had, with my help, had some success with his expenses claim to the Inland Revenue.

 Needless to say those bottles were no longer full two and a half hours later when David and I returned, somewhat unsteadily, to our rooms to try to fit some sleep in before we missed too much of Friday.

 We were never going to be in with a chance of being awake during the hotel’s Breakfast period but we did, somehow, manage to be in a Fish & Chip restaurant in the main part of Yarmouth just after midday trying desperately to get our internal clocks working normally again. We all started to feel better after eating and then got ourselves completely back to normal by going into one of the friendlier pubs that we had discovered four years earlier – the one with the quiz machine – which I believe is called the Prince Albert (or possibly the Prince Consort). I can recommend it to visitors!

Obviously the locals had got the hang of some of the questions by now as it was much harder work to show a profit this time. As I was not fully fit for mental exercise I gave it up when only two or three pounds ahead and we played pool instead.

At about 3pm we went back to the hotel and proceeded to the beach right opposite with our fishing tackle and the left over bait from the night before which we had retained against the possibility of our wanting to do a bit more fishing. We referred to this 2 hour or so session as the “BarclayTrust Championship” and I recall this as being considerably more fun than the “National” had been! I believe that we all caught good sized fish, which were all returned to the water, and Ian H came out the winner with a Codling of just over 2 pounds. As we have never competed against each other again since, I suppose that he is still the reigning champion!

 Eventually the time for the dinner and presentations arrived and it was no surprise to learn that Colin P’s team had won, avenging not only last year’s humiliation but also the defeat on their home ground 4 years earlier.

 I do not recall who were runners-up (I expect it was South East Region – it certainly was not us or Cambridge Region) and think that, like myself, many other people had rather lost interest after such a long wait for the result. We have never tried another night match since!

I believe that we were all too tired to do much in the way of drinking that night and left for home on the Saturday with the hope that next year’s match, which was to be a return to Kent, would be better.

 One good thing for me was that David T missed this match because he was moving from Maidstone to Peterborough – David started these events a couple of years before me but because of this broke his “consecutive” run. As the 2004 event will be my 21^st consecutive match I think no-one else comes close to that attendance record! (Author’s note – how could I, when writing the above, have overlooked Basil S, who organised these events up to 1995 AND had taken part in every one from the very first in 1975! Possibly I didn’t actually know that in 1998. Basil still hadn’t missed one in 2008 so I doubt I’ll ever catch him! DJS)

Chapter 12 – 1994 – Deal, Kent

It was with every intention of forgetting 1993 and trying to get back to the fun of 1992 that David Sh and I set out in his car for the Castlemere Hotel, Broadstairs. We travelled along the A14 to Cambridge and south on the M11, then round the M25, over the new Queen Elizabeth Bridge at Dartford and along the M2/A2. I remember stopping at a Service station somewhere in Kent and generously offering to treat David to a burger and a coffee as a reward for all that driving.

 If you know me well enough to think that generosity of that sort does not sound like me you are overlooking the fact that I was in possession of a “buy one, get one free” voucher from Burger King! Unfortunately I had not read the small print which stated “participating outlets only”. The staff at this Burger King did not, of course, tell me that they were not participating until I had to pay up! Don’t worry – I added it to the expenses claim later!

 My prevailing memory of the rest of the trip is the inescapable smell of rotting cabbage that seemed to hang over all of Kent. I think that the cabbage market must have been glutted that year and they were leaving them to rot in the fields!

 We saw a good deal of Broadstairs in locating the Hotel thanks to my fundamental navigational error in turning left at the sea front instead of right but we got there eventually. Mike and Ian joined us fairly early on (compared to other years) and we had a chance, for once, to explore the area a little during daylight.

The Hotel was pleasant but nothing special (well what do you expect for £25 per night!) and was actually a fair walk from the centre of the town. It was situated above a quite impressive cliff but we discovered during our afternoon stroll that the beach was accessible by way of a long concrete slipway obviously intended for launching boats – if all else failed, it occurred to us that we could probably fish the match “on our doorstep”.

 That evening, however, I was advised at the Team Captains meeting that we were to fish a stretch of beach just north of Deal which would necessitate driving down  a private road leading across that town’s golf course and that “team pegs” (i.e. all four team members together) would apply as they had at Hythe two years ago. Some teams objected that the whole team would then suffer if they drew a bad peg but I think that I voted in favour while thinking of the great sport that we had enjoyed fishing together in 1992. We then agreed that we would take up the South Wales Region offer to host next years match with a view to holding it on the Gower peninsula and, in keeping with tradition, adjourned to the Pubs in town.

 I was quite interested in seeing the main beach and harbour again, having first visited Broadstairs some 24 years earlier during a 3^rd Ipswich Boys Brigade camp. This had been the scene of the fastest bit of swimming that I had ever done – I was plodding slowly out to join my friends who were jumping off the harbour wall when a “chugging” sound alerted me to the fact that I was about to be run down by a returning “trips-round-the-bay” steamer. They told me afterwards that I was still doing the front crawl up the beach long after leaving the water!

 Of course, in those days, I was only 17 and was not interested in the Public Houses on offer (at least, not when the Officers were watching) so my previous experiences were not of great interest to my present colleagues. I do not recall the name of the Pub we visited but it is, as far as I can recall the only large hostelry on the seafront in town and I think it had some connection with Charles Dickens, who lived in Broadstairs at some time. (The place must have really made a big impression for me to be giving you that sort of information! – DJS)

 Anyway, it was a big bar obviously intended for summer trade and there were quite a number of our friends from other regions present so we settled in for a pleasant evening. At the other end of the bar the locals were entertaining themselves with a Karaoke machine and as we began to run out of intelligent conversation we started to drift round to listen. We agreed afterwards that we must have overdone the drinking because some of the performers were actually starting to sound quite good! Indeed, I almost overcame my natural reticence and had a go myself thanks to several pints of Guinness – I remain convinced, however, that the point at which Alcohol consumption would actually result in my doing something like that lies beyond the point where I would have already passed out. A lot of people can probably feel quite grateful about that!

 After we had duly been “chucked out” at the end of drinking-up time we walked back along the cliff-top road with John and Andrew W. After that sort of evening one often finds that nearly everything seems funny but that night John was in particularly fine form and that walk stands out as one long stream of jokes all the way back to the hotel. When I started writing this memoir I asked David, Ian and Mike, quite separately, for their recollections of Broadstairs and without exception the phrase “John W’s wheelbarrow joke” came up in their replies. The joke in question is a little bit rude and, as I suspect that my daughters are secretly reading this on the computer as I write it, I will include it as another Appendix at the end. Sorry Girls!

 To digress slightly, I have noticed that this chapter is starting to run on a bit – two and a half pages and we haven’t got to the fishing yet! There are three reasons for this:-

1)   I only have to remember back just over three years and even someone as old and decrepit as me can manage that.

2)   I particularly enjoyed this trip and a lot of it has stayed with me.

3)   I have been able to keep more trivial stuff in mind as I made some notes at the time with a view to writing a diary of events for a proposed office newsletter (which eventually ran for one episode before everyone lost interest!).

 While the notes referred to above have helped with the story so far, I only actually wrote anything up in any detail concerning the Friday morning from waking up until Breakfast so I might as well quote it here in full:-

 Diary of the BarclayTrust Sea Angling Team – 25/11/94

 6:30 am. Wake up same time as on a working day – blast! Read book about fishing to get in the mood. At least the hangover from last night isn’t too bad! 

7:30 am. Cross the corridor and attempt (fairly successfully I think) to wake Ian Hayes who “volunteered” last night to drive me to Herne Bay to collect our bait.

 8:00 am. Down to dining room for breakfast – meet up with David T who has just arrived having set out in his car from Market Deeping at 4am. David is fishing (with my permission of course!) for the East Anglia South (ex-Cambridge, ex-Chelmsford) team who were a man short. We are joined during the traditional Hotel “Full English” breakfast by Ian and by David Sh. Mike J is reported to be awake and sitting up in bed fitting new rings on to Ian’s rod – there’s nothing like being prepared is there?

 At that point both my rough notes and the part that I had written in full come to an end so it’s back to unassisted memory from now on.

 The trip to Herne Bay was only about fifteen miles each way and Ian and I were easily able to get there, pick up our bait order at a shop suggested by David T and return in time for the departure for the venue. As Basil S had already been out pegging the beach for us, and knew the way, a large number of us followed him in convoy (including one wrong turning into a cul-de-sac which must have been entertaining for the residents!) out of Broadstairs. He soon managed to lose us, however, and we made our own way down the coast to Deal. We located the road across the golf course without difficulty and parked up behind a high shingle bank somewhat reminiscent of Chesil beach. Unfortunately we had drawn quite a low peg number and this year the high numbers were those nearest the car park so we had quite a hike with full tackle along the top of that bank to reach our spot.

 In addition to all of the usual extra layers of clothing I had managed this year to borrow from Iain S the one piece thermal suit that he used for his all night Carp fishing sessions. I was confident that this year I would not suffer from the usual draughts sneaking in past badly tucked-in shirts although at a cost of appearing to be clad in a giant blue “babygro”! Having prepared in this way for the kind of weather we all expected only one month before Christmas, the sun came out and the day turned into an absolute scorcher! Within a couple of hours of fishing commencing the suit, a sweatshirt and a thick lumberjack style shirt were off and, until darkness fell, jeans and T-shirt were all that were necessary. It was eight years since I had last picked up a sun tan at one of these matches.

 Of course, Sea Angling is one of those sports where one usually expects the fishing to be worse the better the weather is. This time it was as if we had not left Hythe two years ago and it was not long before we all had something to weigh in. There is always the thought at the back of your mind, however, that if you are doing well it is quite likely that someone, or indeed everyone, is doing better than you. I just tend not to think about it at all now until the results are announced – this avoids a lot of unnecessary fear, paranoia and grey hairs (of which I have too many already)!

 It was during this match that I had the experience, for the first time, of catching a fish that was not on the size limit list that was handed out to each team. This was a Five-Bearded Rockling, a fish that I had not caught since I was a teenager fishing Felixstowe pier.

Not wishing to invoke the penalty for weighing-in an undersized fish (disqualification of the competitor’s entire catch), I cast out again and then wandered over to the next peg where Basil S was fishing to ask his advice. The following rather strange exchange took place:

Me: “What’s the size limit for a Rockling please Baz?”

Basil: (after some thought) “I’ll give you eight inches!”

Me: (being evil) “I’m sure you will ducky – but can we sort out this ******* Rockling first!”

Basil: “Get back to your peg and carry on fishing you dirty sod!”

 The only other occurrence of note (for me anyway) during the actual match was that, for reasons unknown, I suddenly suffered an almost overwhelming urge for a cigarette! I had successfully given up smoking (after 25 years) the previous January and had not suffered the slightest craving since, even though I was with Mike and Ian both of whom still indulged. I was actually taking the first steps over to Ian H to scrounge a ciggy from him when my rod tip gave a lurch and I got into battle with a small Whiting. By the time I had landed it, removed the hook and returned it to the sea the need for nicotine had passed and has never returned since.

I do not actually recall the weigh-in but I do remember that the return to the Hotel was something of a race as there were limited parking spaces and we all wanted to avoid parking on the cliff-top road. Fortunately this had not occurred to everyone and both David and Mike got spaces.

 After the usual hot soak (more this time to ease aching muscles than to warm up) we met up again in the bar to squeeze a couple of drinks in before the dinner. This was the first time we had used this facility at the Hotel (it had all been locked up when we had returned the night before) and it was apparent that we would be going out again later as they had only two beers on tap, one rather watery bitter and one even more watery lager!

After the dinner, Basil proceeded as usual with his humorous speech and then got around to the results. I seem to recall that the South East Region team were represented by Paul D and only one other team member – they had, of course, lost all claims to David T when he left Maidstone for Peterborough and I believe someone else had dropped out at short notice. Whatever the reasons a two man team, however good, was going to struggle with our points system and I do not recall them even getting a mention for fourth or fifth place. I was extremely surprised to overhear someone on another table remarking to his colleagues that he thought the winners would be either Norwich (as most people still call the East Anglia North team) or Trust Company. Despite those two runners–up trophies in the past I did not realise until that moment that we were regularly considered to be a force to be reckoned with.

 Whoever that person was he turned out to be quite right but unfortunately for us the top two positions came out the wrong way round with Colin’s men pipping us to the title again. I was starting to wonder what we were doing wrong to continually (3 times out of 4 years anyway) end up as the “bridesmaids” – it did not seem possible that we could catch more fish than we did, what we needed was bigger fish! Then again having even a second place trophy was better than nothing at all!

We returned to the pub in town again after dinner – even though it was Friday night it seemed a lot quieter without the Karaoke – and when we got back, surprise, surprise the Hotel bar was still serving! We managed to avoid the rather nasty draught beer already mentioned by hitting the small supply of Grolsch – strong German lager in bottles with a complicated wire clip holding the top on. When that had gone and the bar was officially closed we sat around talking until the staff all disappeared and then, as if by magic, Ian discovered a bottle of Teachers which had been lying unnoticed in his coat pocket! I think we went to bed at about three o’clock and the night porter probably couldn’t work out why we weren’t yet sober.

 As we departed for home I was already thinking about the problems that I could foresee next year with the long avoided worry of team selection. After all, if John W felt he did not need David T next year, David would have a perfect right to claim a place in our team!

Chapter 13 – 1995 – Mumbles, South Wales

 

I finished the last chapter worrying, it has to be said, about whether I would keep my place in my own team! Despite the fact that I have over recent years consistently and emphatically out fished him (I bet David would love to argue that remark with me!) in friendly “unofficial” sessions, David T is, in fact a much better organised and effective match angler than I am, and I did not think that I could reasonably drop any of the other three – that would leave only one person to drop and I would probably have had to fake illness to save face.

 The solution, which I have already mentioned much earlier in this document, turned out to be quite simple – find three more fishermen and give him a team of his own to take to Wales!

Asking around the Taxation floor bought interested responses from Iain Saunderson who preferred Carp fishing but was prepared to have a go, and Gary Clark a recent recruit to our ranks who resided in Kings Lynn and was a regular Angler on the North Norfolk coast. There was at least one other person in Investment Management who would have been interested but those of us who had been in the Company for some time did not like him all that much and this event is supposed to be fun! Those readers who used to work for BarclayTrust may like to have a guess at his name – if it helps at all it begins with a “V” and as I write this Iain is trying to avoid him finding out that there might be a vacancy for the 1998 “B–team”!

 As it proved impossible to find an acceptable eighth experienced angler we opted instead to give the final place to a “native guide” – Mike T – who had studied at Swansea University and knew the social amenities of our match venue extremely well. As Mike had never even held a fishing rod before, a certain amount of spare tackle and waterproof clothing had to be found for him but this did not prove to be a problem.

 The transport arrangements were somewhat different this time and the original plan was for Mike J to take his own car, making arrangements to pick up Ian H from Eastbourne on the way (!?), while Iain S and Mike T (who both had most of the preceding week off) would travel to the Hotel on Thursday from the home of one of Mike’s relatives with whom they would stay on Wednesday night.

The remaining four of us, our tackle and luggage plus the gear for the two “beginners” would travel down in David T’s Toyota Previa “people carrier”.

 These plans were very slightly upset a couple of days before our departure when Mike J told me that Ian H would have to cancel. Ian’s younger son Daniel had been taken into hospital in Eastbourne having somehow managed to get the point of a school compass stuck in his eye! Naturally we all wished the family well and told Ian not to worry about missing the match – we all knew him well enough to know that while family comes first he would still feel that he was letting the team down. Fortunately the injury turned out not to have caused any permanent damage to the lad’s sight.

 Anyway we had to do a swift reshuffle, boosting David T up into the “A-team” and leaving the “B-team” one man short, it being too late now to find a replacement. The transport set up was unchanged as Mike J was not intending to return directly to Peterborough after the match and still, therefore, went in his own car – his journey was now somewhat shorter through missing out Eastbourne!

 Gary C, plus full fishing gear, got his usual daily lift in from Kings Lynn and was dropped off at my house from where David T. picked us up. This worked out well as while he knew where I lived, I in turn was the only one of us who knew where David S lived and thus navigated through the countryside to Woodnewton from where we rejoined the A1 heading south and west. I recall that we did not go via London and the M25 but cut across on the A14 to the M6 from where we joined the M42, the M5 and ultimately the M4 on which we crossed into Wales over the Severn Bridge.

 For some reason we had ordered our bait from two separate shops (probably to avoid the risk of being “cut back” and having insufficient worms to go round) and as we approached Swansea we had to look out for the first of these. It was located in a rather run down industrial area and the instructions that we had been given were not all that precise. After quite a bit of driving around we got as close as we could and then called the shop on David T’s mobile phone to ask for more detailed instructions! I don’t think they realised just how close we were, however, as some surprise was expressed when we turned up about five minutes after calling them! (NOTE: in 1995 mobile phones were nothing like as common as they were even 3 years later and most people still expected a phone call to come from a stationary source!)

 Having picked up half of our bait supply we drove into Swansea to look for the Marina, the location of the second shop. This is a rather nice area of dockland redevelopment and covers quite an area – so naturally we parked at the point furthest away from where the shop turned out to be!  This meant moving and the next nearest car park turned out to be that of a large Leisure Centre. As it was mid-afternoon on a working day there was plenty of room in it and we happily strolled across some rather picturesque lockgates to the shop where we collected our remaining worms and a couple of boxes of frozen squid. We bumped into John W in the shop and after a bit of a chat made our way back to the car.

To our surprise there was a barrier across the exit that we had not noticed on the way in but no obvious way of getting through it. We parked again and eventually came across some well concealed instructions telling us to insert in the box by the barrier a token obtained from the leisure centre. As he was the “new boy” we sent Gary over to the entrance with our assorted loose change to purchase this. He seemed to be gone a long time but eventually returned with the token and we headed off along the edge of Swansea Bay towards Mumbles which lies just to the west of the city.

 We asked Gary what had taken so long and he explained that the attendant had not wanted to give him a token because he had not used any of the Centre’s facilities! Gary had thought fast and got around this by stating that he had indeed used them. Somewhat disbelievingly (and a bit foolishly really) the attendant asked “Oh yes, and which facility was that?”

“The car park!” was the instant response! I understand that the attendant was too dumbfounded to argue further and handed over the token without another murmur.

 We got to the hotel without further ado, (rather fortunately for you the reader as I see that this time it has taken me three pages just to get to the venue!) and checked in. I do not remember the name of the hotel which was much smaller than we were used to. While everyone was able to eat (and drink) there I believe that some of the later entrants had to be put up at a similar small establishment next door.

After we had met up with the rest of our party and eaten it was time for the usual Captains meeting and we had already learned that there were going to be arguments this year and some discussion between like-minded people had already taken place.

The problem concerned those people (and they are so insignificant in most respects that I can name neither they nor the teams they represent!) who regularly come on these trips without the slightest intention of suffering any discomfort in bad weather and who, therefore, always try to overturn the chosen venue in favour of a pier with as many comfortable facilities as possible! They are also great “levellers”, trying to inflict on us changes in the points system and other rules which – added to the fact that if fish are about it is hard not to catch them from a pier even if you only flop your weight over the side – are designed to make the competition into a lucky dip where skill counts for nothing.

 As you can probably gather I do not like such people and this year they had heard that the weather on the Gower peninsula was going to be a bit cold and windy and were insisting that we fish on Mumbles pier instead! We had already decided that our two teams along with the two East Anglia teams and that from London Eastern Region (captained by Peter M, one of my old Chelmsford boat fishing colleagues) were going to take the “hard men” line and demand to fish the beach whatever the weather but this still left seven or eight captains who were possibly opposing us.

When confronted by a disagreement of this sort I do, unfortunately, tend to lose my temper and, consequently, the thread of my argument rather easily. I therefore empowered David Tress to represent both of our teams at the meeting. David totally agreed with our viewpoint and would, I thought, be rather more eloquent than I would under these circumstances. The rest of us adjourned, grateful to be spared the aggravation, to the bar to await the outcome which on the basis of previous such meetings would be forthcoming in about fifteen minutes.

 David and our allies must have fought a terrific battle as no-one emerged from that room for well over an hour! Democracy, of course, decrees that the majority is always right, however stupid their decision may be, and we were advised that we would be fishing Mumbles pier on Friday on drawn pegs, two anglers to a peg with the two pairs permitted to swap positions during the day if required!

Having got the nasty political stuff out of the way we belatedly availed ourselves of Mike T’s familiarity with the area and set out on what is known to Swansea University students as the “Mumbles run”. This apparently involves drinking your way along the numerous pubs beside the coast road along Swansea Bay and, presumably, not passing out at the end! I hasten to say that we had neither the time, the money, nor the inclination to do this properly and, therefore, stayed within the bounds of Mumbles itself, starting out in town and working our way back towards the hotel. This cut our choice of drinking places down to a mere dozen or so but you will be pleased to know that we did not intend to visit all of them – unless we felt like it!

 It was only about 8.30 p.m. when we got to the first pub in town but already there seemed to be young customers the worse for drink (fortunately, none with violent tendencies!) and this trend for what we referred to as “oblivion drinking” became more apparent as the evening went on. There were, in fact, only seven of us present, Iain S having remained behind to catch up on his sleep. We gathered that he had experienced some difficulty in “lasting the course” with Mike and his old friends the night before!

 Before leaving this establishment I had the misfortune to need to use the Gent’s toilet! Some youth had been sick all over the floor and when I reported this to the barman he sighed and called to his assistant “Get the mop! Someone’s done number threes in the Gents!” He was obviously used to giving instructions of this kind and “number threes” is an obvious name for it when you think about it.

 We moved on to several other pubs in fairly quick succession and these seemed to get fuller and louder as we moved back towards the Hotel. I remember nothing in particular about these except for the difficulty of getting a seat and the sight of various locals, usually in their teens or early twenties, throwing up or urinating in the car parks! After we left the final pub the walk along the pavement was like an obstacle course, the ground being liberally splashed with “pavement pizzas”.

 Just before we arrived back at the Hotel, and probably to demonstrate that our own stomachs were stronger than the locals, we stopped off at a Chinese Takeaway and took various items back to eat in the Hotel’s games room where numbers of our colleagues were playing pool.  The Owner/Manager did not seem to mind and did not object to keeping the bar open as long as we wanted. I got the impression that he welcomed having customers who were somewhat livelier than his normal class of guest.

On Friday morning we were all up and about getting ready (why is it that drinking that sort of amount “back home” gives me a dreadful hangover while doing it on these trips just gives me an appetite for a big greasy fry up?!) and after breakfast we went out to David T’s car to sort out the bait between us. We had left the worms (well wrapped of course) in the car to keep them cool but had not anticipated just how cold the previous night had been. A fair number of the best worms, obtained from the first stop on the previous day, had frozen solid and, when thawed, were not going to be much use. We separated these into one pile and wrapped them up again for “emergency supplies” in the event of running short in the match. Fortunately the bait had been ordered for eight and we were now only seven so this was not as big a problem as it might have been.

 Having sorted out that small difficulty we had time to pop into the centre of Mumbles to collect the usual Pork Pies, fizzy drinks, crisps and that sort of thing to sustain us during the day. It was during the walk into town that I apparently had Mike Thomas in stitches with what he said later was the funniest joke he had ever heard. It was so memorable that neither of us can now remember what it was! As he recalls it being a long joke and I do not know many of those there are limited choices – in fact, as I think about it while writing this I have come up with an idea of which one it may have been.  To enable me to recall it myself – it involves a milkman! (Actually you can find it at http://littlealfie.wordpress.com/2009/12/09/another-milkman/ )

 Back at the Hotel it was time to collect our vacuum flasks of boiling water from the kitchen and drive the half mile or so to the car park outside the pier.

The flasks were not strictly necessary as the pier did have a nice cosy cafeteria serving hot beverages for most of the day – what a surprise!  The pier was not in bad condition as these structures go, it had a solid metal framework and well maintained wooden decking and we were told that we did at least have it to ourselves for the day. I still have some suspicions about just how long in advance this pier would have had to have been booked for the word to be passed around the locals that it was not available – certainly somewhat earlier than the night before when the decision to fish here was arrived at so democratically!

 Hey! A new record – six pages and we haven’t started fishing yet!

 The luck of the draw had Mike J and David S of the “A-team” along with Gary and Mike T from the “B-team” fishing pegs on the end of the pier with the rest of us situated much nearer the shore end. Unlike the previous year, this was a time when nice weather meant rotten fishing and, while those at the end caught a few sizeable fish, nothing at all of any consequence was caught from the side rails.

 At about 3pm we swapped over and David T and I moved out to what we hoped would be a more productive peg having absolutely nothing to show for our earlier efforts. Unfortunately, the fish did not appreciate that they were meant to stick around for David and I because the moment we got to the end of the pier everybody stopped catching! That is not to say that the situation improved in our former location, it simply stayed the same – no fish at all.

With about 30 minutes to go panic started to set in, David T had managed to get on the score sheet with a small Dab, fractionally over the 9 inch size limit for that species but I was still “blanking”. I then caught, with successive casts, two Dabs – one measuring just over 8.5 inches and the other almost exactly 8.75 inches, so a serious moral dilemma ensued! Should I try to weigh-in either or both of these or maintain my team’s unblemished reputation by scrupulous honesty?

 I have to admit that I had quite a tussle with my conscience while trying, frantically to catch something that would make the whole thing academic. At some point I recalled stories of desperate anglers actually severing the spine of an undersized fish in order to apply some “stretch” to it and remembered thinking at the time that this was spoiling something that is not, in the great scheme of things, all that important! Therefore, for the first time since the Weymouth debacle of 1990, I weighed in with absolutely nothing – not the only person in either of our teams to do so but I can’t remember who the other was!  Incidentally, during the weigh-in I saw fish slightly smaller than mine recorded unchallenged. I do not know whether or not that would have made me feel better if I had decided to take a chance.

 Back at the Hotel we gathered as usual in the bar for pre-dinner drinks after the normal hot soak to remove aches and pains and get rid of bits of lugworm from under the fingernails! I was, just for a change, able to relax and enjoy myself secure in the belief that we would be untroubled by any need to make that embarrassing walk to the “top table”. This was rather a problem this year as we effectively had the guests of two small hotels gathered into the dining room of one – space to even move ones elbows was at a premium, never mind trying to get from one part of the room to another!

 There was one empty space at the table, however, as Mike J had left for home! Mike had been given a message to phone his neighbour on getting back to the hotel and was given the unpleasant news that his house had been burgled the previous night. Mike packed and checked out immediately and, I understand, set a new speed record for Swansea to Peterborough!

 Basil S got around to the results in due course and told us that this year there was a new winner, being the only team to have all four members weigh in. While this, of course, ruled out both of  the BarclayTrust teams we were both in with a chance of being Runners up. Since doing my first draught of this have found the results sheet sent out to Captains afterwards and can say that only one team, in fact, had three members scoring and we were quite surprised when Basil announced “Trust Company A, runners up!” Mike J didn’t believe it when we told him about it the following Monday: not until we gave him his wooden plaque anyway.

 The winners were (according to the engraving on the trophy)  “City Corp Group” (I don’t know who they are but it sounds like they’re from London!) and I realised when they collected the trophy that the captain and one of his team had been fishing next to David T and I during the latter part of the match. I remembered how jealous I had felt when, right at the end of the match he had pulled in a Dab just over the size limit and had announced how relieved he was as he had been the last member of his team to “score”!

 It depends upon what the rest of his team caught but I am sure you will have realised that if I had weighed in my two dabs we might have just pipped them to the trophy. Would we have felt right about it though? No, of course we wouldn’t!

 There was one final presentation to make this year before we all went back into town and that was to Basil S himself. After many years with Barclays and many years organising our matches Basil was retiring from both jobs and we had contributed to a small present for him. This was a decanter with an engraved silver plate hanging around its neck on a silver chain – for some strange reason we thought that he might associate the Barclays Sea Anglers with drinking!

 In his “thank you” speech Basil assured us that, while the match would be organised in future by his colleague Mike S, he would still try to attend as a competitor and was indeed still taking part (and still not winning anything!) as at 1997.

 Such was our surprise at finishing second that we went into Mumbles to celebrate. It is just possible that we may have done that anyway but it would have been more like drowning our sorrows! As it was we went back to a couple of the better pubs that we had visited the previous night and found that the locals got even worse on Fridays – we now had to avoid stepping on the unconscious youths themselves, not just their various excretions!

 After we had acquired a suitable “inner glow” we made our way (carefully!) back to the hotel, stopping this time at the Kebab shop next door to last night’s Chinese takeaway. Whatever the stand up comedians may say about it there is nothing quite like a Doner Kebab with Chilli sauce to finish off nicely an evening on the beer (except, of course, that we hadn’t finished – the hotel bar was still open)!

 We had an extra passenger next day for the long trip back to Peterborough; Iain S had travelled down with Mike T, who was staying on in Wales for a few days, and was stuck unless we squeezed him in. This made David’s Previa rather cosy and I think many of us had reason to regret our Kebabs from the previous night!

 The three “new boys” had all acquitted themselves pretty well and professed to be happy to have another go in 1996 when we would be going back to Kent. So, all in all, not a bad year – an unexpected trophy and no team selection problems as I had envisaged this time last year.

Absent friends

Another little digression before we move on to 1996:- 

While mentioning Basil’s retirement it occurs to me that other characters in this play have dropped out without a mention. 

The last time we heard of Colin P he was winning the trophy on his home ground in 1993. After that Colin came down with some affliction similar to osteoporosis (brittle bones) and while he was seen at the hotel in Broadstairs in 1994 he did not take part and has not been seen at this event since. He made a memorable last impression at the 1994 Dinner when he sent back a packet of Danish Blue cheese as past it’s sell by date! Was he, we asked, worried that it would go mouldy?! When I last heard he was trying to obtain retirement on medical grounds – something that Barclays Bank in its humane caring way always resists on the assumption that if you are alive you can still work! 

 Paul D fished the 1994 match with a two man team as has already been stated but has not attended since. David Tress lost touch with him and when trying to make contact by phoning his last known Branch, discovered that Paul was on extensive sick leave. Apparently he had some sort of mishap with molten lead while making his own fishing weights and sustained facial burns. Given the other nasty effects of that substance he may also have damaged his lungs to some extent.

 John W has retired from the Bank and I believe that the Mumbles event was the first he attended as a Bank Pensioner. John was around, though much quieter than of old, in 1996 but did not attend in 1997. He reappeared in 1999, however.

 Geoff T, the fruit machine king, had retired as far back as 1993 (or possibly even earlier) and was, I think, in attendance up to 1996. When I spoke to Andy W just before the 1997 match, however, Geoff was in hospital with heart problems. His comrade from the High Street Chelmsford branch messenger’s desk, Frank C, retired at about the same time and decided that he did not feel sufficiently fond of this annual match to continue. I do not recall the last match that Frank attended.

Chapter 14 – 1996 – Dover

Before I get going with this year I should, perhaps, warn you that I still have ALL of the correspondence needed to get a team (or two) entered in the competition, attending the right town on the right day and carrying sufficient quantities of the right bait. I do hope that this will not result in me getting bogged down in tedious detail and this chapter becoming even longer than the last one! Fortunately for you, I had no idea that I was going to write this when I cleared out all of the earlier papers.

 There were, in fact, rather more letters flying about before this match than ever before largely concerning problems with the proposed venue. 

The original plan for the match was for this to be fished on “Dover breakwater” the long concrete structure which appears to block off most of the harbour. Obviously it does not in fact do so (or no ships would be able to enter or leave!) and as you look out to sea from the town beach there is a gap between it and the main harbour wall to the left and between it and a similar long concrete wall (the Admiralty pier) to the right. The inside of the Admiralty forms one side of a smaller “inner harbour” the left hand arm of which is the “Prince of Wales pier”. If I have described the layout correctly you will note that the outer wall of the Prince of Wales faces into completely sheltered waters – it also has toilets and a cafeteria. Now does anybody want to make any wagers at this point concerning which pier you think some people might want to fish from?!!

 Dover Breakwater can only be accessed by a ferry service run by the harbour authorities and this has to be booked in advance for a party as large as ours. The times for taking people to and picking them up from the Breakwater are something like 8 am and 4 p.m. respectively unless the weather worsens in which case the ferry may come for you early and you have no option but to leave. You are, assuming no such interruption, effectively abandoned on this wall facing out into the English Channel with little in the way of facilities for up to 8 hours. Needless to say the rugged, hardy men of BarclayTrust and East Anglia (North and South) were looking forward to this with some relish!

 The potential problems with this venue began early when Mike S wrote to me on 31^st July 1996 advising that some parts of the Breakwater had suffered damage and that the Dover Harbour Board had closed it while repairs proceeded. David T also told me that he had heard from friends in Kent that one of the problems was that workmen had discovered Blue Asbestos (the toxic sort!) in the construction.

As this was still 4 months ahead of the match we did not think too much about it and in a letter dated 19^th September confirming our hotel booking Mike told us that the Board had found the funding needed to carry out the work needed and that “with luck” this would be finished by 29^th November.  On 22^nd October Mike wrote again advising that the latest news on the Breakwater was “not encouraging” and I asked for more details knowing that the asbestos problem had been cleared up. He phoned me and pointed out that further damage had been sustained by recent storms and while he was still hopeful, Deal was mentioned as an alternative venue – happy thoughts of 1994 stopped us from being too depressed about losing our first choice!

 Three days before the match I received a “fax” from Mike S advising that for insurance reasons we would definitely not be on the Breakwater but the plan was now to fish the outer stretches of the “Admiralty” also known as a “hot-spot” at this time of year. While we wished the organisers would make their minds up we were fairly happy with this arrangement.

 So, at last, the stage was set! Another new departure (sorry!) was the use this year of a hired 15 seat minibus arranged by Gary which was just about big enough for eight of us and all of our gear. Gary picked this up in Kings Lynn and then covered quite a few miles in picking us all up (Ian H had now moved to Orton Brimbles and was working at Eagle Court)before heading down the A1, round the M25 and over the Thames to Dartford. Here we stopped for lunch at a pub known to David T from his frequent visits home to Kent. In fact we had a couple of drinks in the pub, the “lunch” comprising fish and chips picked up from a shop next door and eaten in the pub car park!

 There was a certain quietness about the trip as rumours of an impending “important announcement” by Taxation Senior Management were going around. We had asked if we should cancel our trip but were told to carry on as normal. An announcement of some sort was going to be made on Friday afternoon so we made arrangements to phone colleagues who were in the habit of working late from our hotel later in the day. I think that the rumours had got to us more than we cared to admit.

 At about 4 p.m. we arrived at the County Hotel, Dover having first cleared out the cobwebs and stretched our legs by walking out to the end of the Admiralty pier (it was extremely cold!). We had spoken to some local anglers and confirmed that if you could not get on the Breakwater, this was the place to be. The only problem seemed to be finding room for an additional 48 anglers tomorrow – we expected to get around this by making an early start (as, indeed, we had expected to do if the Breakwater had been available). On the way back to the bus we met Basil S, also out reconnoitring, and somehow managed to squeeze him into the bus for a lift to the hotel.

 The hotel was quite smart but we soon spoiled that by taking rather more than usual of our gear in with us, making reception look rather like a Fishing Tackle shop! This was because the bus would have to remain several hundred yards away in an open “pay and display” car park all night and thefts from vehicles in that area were not unheard of. It did, however, give us the opportunity to check those little important things – like whether Ian H had any rings on his fishing rod this year!

 As the “package deal” this year did not include a Thursday evening meal we decided to set out into town rather earlier than usual, have a few drinks and eat later – we would not wander too far from the hotel at first as David T and I had to attend the Captains meeting at 7.30.

 Our first stop was an intriguing little place just down the road from the hotel which bore a sign proclaiming it to be “the smallest pub in Kent”. It was about the width of a small terraced house and we were rather squashed but we like to try places like this when we can. The beer, we soon found, let the place down rather badly; several of us like Guinness and several pints were ordered. I am sure that most people picture a pint of Guinness as being black except for the last half inch which looks as if someone has poured thick cream on it. The landlord had obviously not seen those pictures, however, as what came back to us had no head on it whatsoever! I think that the gas bottle had run out and he was hoping we wouldn’t notice!

Needless to say we did not stay for a second one and I seem to recall someone remarking  “No wonder it’s the smallest pub in Kent – he’s never going to make enough money to expand it selling s**t like that!”

 David T and I left the others in a more normal pub and returned for the “Captains meeting” at the hotel. There seemed to be rather more people there than usual and we thought that this was just other team members waiting for their Captains to do what was necessary so that they could go out. The regular annual business such as where we were going for next year’s match (Great Yarmouth again, groan!) was soon dealt with and debate turned to exactly where we were going to fish tomorrow. Several objections were raised to fishing on the Admiralty most of which could be boiled down to people either not coming fully prepared or being unwilling to fish in amongst the general public. David T and I, supported loyally by Andy W and Chris N (for many years Colin P’s friendly and quiet spoken deputy) fought for abandoning Dover entirely and resorting to a previously mentioned option – Deal beach. Our opponents wanted….… you’ve guessed it! The Prince of Wales pier!!!

  After quite a verbal battle a vote was called for and we were heavily defeated. I asked rather pointedly why, with only twelve teams competing, over thirty people had voted. I thought that was rather a good question and the answer showed just how well prepared some people were to get their own way and out-manoeuvre us. It turned out that the Sports Club had asked pointed questions about just why we had to spend the Thursday night in hotel accommodation each year and the only acceptable answer that could be found was that it was necessary to have an “Annual General Meeting” and that was the only time available. Our adversaries had taken an AGM as meaning something open to all team members but had somehow forgotten to communicate this to the BarclayTrust and East Anglia teams who had, between them, left twelve crucial voters in their rooms or in pubs!

 We returned to our colleagues in a mood that could, inadequately, be called “somewhat cross” but neither David nor I gave in to the temptation to thump somebody! I hope you are proud of us. It should be said that when we spoke to Chris N later he informed us that he had been thinking of holding the next match somewhere else (possibly Walton or Frinton) in the East Anglia region but would now be sure to use Great Yarmouth because “There isn’t a bloody pier big enough for us to use for fifty miles in any direction!” As someone once said “don’t get mad – get even”! Mind you, the thought of forty odd drunken bank clerks running amok in Frinton-on-Sea certainly has considerable merit!

 Now that our worst fears had been realised we tried to forget about it and enjoy our evening and after a few more beers we began to cheer up quite considerably. The highlight of the night came when we decided to eat – the majority was in favour of an Indian meal, only Iain and Gary did not like Indian food and elected instead for MacDonalds. The remaining six of us duly found a restaurant and were given a table.

It soon became apparent that the waiter was having difficulty understanding a single word we were saying (No, not because we were drunk!) and it turned out that he was Portuguese and spoke no English! Somehow we found out that he spoke Italian as does Mike T (who is, we learned, half Italian – which would explain it!) so we had an interesting situation. There we were, in an Indian restaurant in Dover, ordering Indian food via an Italian speaking Welshman to a Portuguese waiter – what a wonderful world we live in!

I have not tried much Indian cuisine and so trusted my colleagues to guide me. I still do not know exactly what I had, except that it was delicious, not too hot and contained an incredibly large amount of meat – just right for me.

 We rejoined Iain and Gary back in the hotel bar and looked around for someone to argue about the venue with. The only people still up and drinking, however, were our allies – it appears that people who like to fish on comfy piers also have to go to bed early!

 Next morning I was up and about first as I had all of the details of the shops from which we had ordered our bait and had agreed to go out to get this. Both shops were only a short walk away, just a bit further than the fabled “smallest pub in Kent” in fact, so once I had finished breakfast I put on my waterproofs (it was pouring with rain, causing me to regret volunteering!) and set off to try to be first in these shops as they opened. I did not quite manage that but did manage to get my orders without being “cut back” as, I believe did happen to some teams.

 Having delivered our worms, squid etc. to the bus I then rounded everyone up and we drove the half mile or so to the parking area near the Prince of Wales pier. From there it was necessary to walk around the outside of the Hovercraft terminal to the fishing area and to the initial shock of the day – they expected us to pay £3 per head for a ticket! I recall remarking sarcastically to one of the organisers that Deal beach would certainly have been cheaper!

As it turned out, Deal beach would undoubtedly have proved more productive as well! The score sheets show that 45 anglers caught 126 fish between them in 7 hours, the average weight being a fraction over 8 ounces per fish!

 As well as that underwhelming excitement, it rained, there was a strong cold wind blowing across the pier on to our backs and the hovercraft produced nauseous clouds of black diesel fumes every time one started up behind us.

 That is all that I can honestly put down about the actual fishing that day – it rather ranks with the 1993 Great Yarmouth debacle in my memory. The score sheet shows that we all caught fish (I had four for a total weight of 1 pound 15 ounces) so it could have been worse – like last year.

However, the worst (as they used to say in the old Batman TV programmes) was yet to come!

 Back at the Hotel we did not go immediately to our rooms for the traditional “hot soak” but instead, clustered around the public telephones in the foyer while someone (I think it was Iain S) called the office to find out what the content of the announcement had been. It turned out that nearly thirty Tax administrators (about one-fifth of the total) were to be “shed” during the coming months at all levels. No final decision had been made as to names and those affected would be notified during the coming week.

 Not surprisingly this left us all feeling rather stunned, even Ian H, who had already left the Tax department three years earlier. I thought privately that Mike J would be unaffected in his training role and hoped that I would also be OK as my job had only been created six months earlier to deal with matters that only one other person in the whole place knew how to do. Besides that, Barclays had at this point in my career, already closed three offices around me so I suppose was accustomed to this sort of shock!  I tried to keep this to myself, however, as some of the others were plainly shaken up although trying very hard to give the impression of “business as usual”.

 We then got around to baths and what had suddenly become the rather trivial business of the fishing match results.

 On gathering in the bar in advance of our dinner we learned that David T had suffered somewhat more than everyone else from the earlier news. David lives in Market Deeping along with a sizeable percentage of the staff in both the Taxation and Investment departments, including his next door neighbour who is in the Investment Training department. This gentleman, who was entirely unaffected by our cutbacks, had singularly failed to “mind his own business” and had blurted out half the story to David’s wife who, of course, knew nothing about it!

He also failed to mention that nothing was to happen immediately with the result that Mrs T became almost hysterical with worry and called David at the hotel in an extremely distraught state. David was, not surprisingly, desperate to get home to comfort her but as he did not wish to put the rest of us under any pressure to go home early had arranged to return immediately to Peterborough by train. The first we knew of this was when David turned up in reception with his bag to call a taxi for the Railway Station. I understand that, what with having to get to London, travel across London, get to Peterborough and, finally, to get a taxi to go 15 miles to Market Deeping, it was well after midnight when David got home!

 So it was that for the second year running we went into the dinner with one less person than we expected and got to the final disappointment of the day!

For dramatic effect I have withheld from you details of one other matter “railroaded” through in the “AGM” of the previous evening and this concerned a revision to the scoring system.

As has been previously mentioned the long-established system was open to abuse by teams prepared to practice “catch sharing” to maximise their individual points scores. You will also have noted that, as far as we were aware, no-one had ever actually cheated in this way – we certainly hadn’t even though we could have benefited more than most as I have shown. We were quite happy to continue to believe in our colleagues using similar self restraint but others (mainly in teams that had never won anything ever!) wanted changes to the rules which made the individual scores less important and the team total the important thing.

The new system arrived at was to award one point per fish and one point per pound of weight – any odd ounces remaining from an individual’s score would be taken up in the team total giving a maximum of three extra points (i.e. the number of whole pounds in 4 x 15 ounces). Obviously any new system needs to be tried out before anybody can comment on it but there were some aspects that we did not like – e.g., a single lucky individual (and there are Regions which only manage to send one man to this event!) could win the competition on his own. This is not my idea of a team competition!

When the results were announced, East Anglia North were runners up and the winners were the same as last year, City Corporate Group even though only three of them had caught anything – but that no longer matters! Why they had suddenly become so successful I don’t know but they were obviously the “new Maidstone” who everybody wanted to beat.

As you will no doubt wish to know, I did manage to get a brief look at the score sheet after the dinner and it pains me to record that the B team finished third while my own A team were seventh (out of eleven), the worst we had ever done!

 As you may imagine the after dinner trip into town for a few drinks was not as cheerful as normal and I must confess that I was asking myself quite seriously whether I really wanted to carry on doing this competition any more. The aggravation and pettiness seemed to be taking all of the fun out of it!

 We drove back on the Saturday morning without incident and Gary dropped David T’s rods and tackle box (which he had not wanted to take on the train with him!) off at Market Deeping on his way home.

 This record concludes somewhat longer after the match than usual as some loose ends need to be dealt with.

 Firstly, the staff cutbacks affected the eight people in attendance only minimally – Iain S effectively saved someone else from the “chop” by taking up an offer by the Investment Department to return to his old line of work (Iain had been on Investment at Norwich prior to the 1993 centralisation). For the rest of us, internal moves as the Department was restructured were the worst that happened.

 Secondly, I was in due course sent a copy of the full results sheet for the match to peruse at my leisure. Purely as an intellectual exercise I recalculated the results using the old method which we had been using (except for 1988) since before I joined the competition in 1984. To say that I was not pleased with the outcome is a massive understatement! It showed:

 Winners (by quite a large margin) BarclayTrust A

 Runners up (equal 2^nd) BarclayTrust B and East Anglia North.

 I wrote to Mike S pointing this out and my displeasure at the way the rule changes had been bulldozed through. He did not reply directly but obviously listened as his early letters on the 1997 event will show.