The Last Day of the Season

The Last Day of the Season is cast upon all souls and as such we find ourselves on the road to some distant swim to pay thanks for the season almost past and for all those for whom we fished.

Tea Bar in Arcadia

Today, until the hour of 5pm I can be found in the bar of Ludlow Racecourse selling Vintage Fishing Tackle for the Soul.  I look forward to your good company.  I may also be found loitering by the tea bar and staring wistfully in the direction of the Shropshire Hills.

The White Road Westwards

Arcadia is packed in the back of the van and finds itself being driven slowly up the White Road
Westwards to a chalked out space in  the bar of Ludlow Racecourse where I shall be buying and selling Vintage Fishing Tackle for the Soul all day tomorrow and all day on Sunday.  I look forward to the good company of the other angling retronauts over several glasses of Hobson's mild and boxes of old fishing tackle.

Spitalfields

Apologies to all those of you who took the trolleybus to Spitalfields today only to discover that unusually my stall was closed for the day.  I will be open as usual next week but in the meantime I beg you to join me in paying homage to 'Tooke's Fishing Tackle Stores' which used to stand at 614 Fulham Road.  Tooke's was closed 'All Day Thursday' each week when the proprietor Mr. W.G Hermon would either go fishing or change the meat feed for his gozzers.  Thursdays then were also a day off for Mr. Stephen Sorrell my good friend from Spitalfields Market and revered dealer in Mid Century and Modern Items of Desire who informed me this morning that he worked at Tooke's as a boy.   

True Waltonian Angling Society

Ninety nine years ago in Arcadia a gentleman by the name of G.W. Barshell was presented with a bronze medallion or 'plaque' for the feat of winning the T.W Angling Society's 'Challenge Bowl'.  Yesterday at Kempton a gentleman by the name of L. Myerscough presented me with the same medal along with a modest demand for payment.  I was more than happy to cough up as he had found a piece of angling history that left me moved for the rest of the day.  How earnestly the anglers represented in relief on the front of the medal fish, how intent they are upon their floats and lines.  In the one hundred years since they were cast much has changed but that intent has not.

I am also indebted to angling historian and member of the 1971 National winning Leicester side, Mr. John Essex, who tells me with some authority that the initials T.W.A.S stand for True Waltonian Angling Society.

Kempton

The approaches to Kempton this morning shrouded in frost and mist with a few pieces of Vintage Fishing Tackle for the Soul coming out of the back of vans and boxes.  Brisk trade at the tea stall.

The Last Week of the Season

In Arcadia as in other districts it is the beginning of the last full calendar week of the coarse fishing season.  In kitchens everywhere cats and dogs are being fed, bread is being mashed, the tea pot is being drained, Elgar is on the radiogram and the bobble hat is being blessed.  Tight lines!  Tight Lips!