A Tribute to John Jones and Friendship

John Jones RIP

At the beginning of 1970 we, the family, moved back from Scotland to Birmingham, having moved there shortly after leaving the Royal Navy in 1962. After suffering withdrawal symptoms for seven years I could at last get back to some proper river fishing for proper fish.

At that time coarse fishing in Scotland was virtually nonexistent and though I did have a bash at fishing the local river Garnett which ran through the town where we lived it was strictly a trout and salmon only river and to be perfectly honest never really interested me. It was somewhat ironic that the small town where I lived I later found out was the site of a prime roach water, namely Kilbirnie Loch, holding very large roach to well over 2lbs and in huge numbers too; how galling is that?

I happened to notice in the angling press that a weekly match on this loch was producing large weights of prime roach and I was firstly amazed that there was even a match scene let alone that roach were there in such large numbers. This is Scotland we are talking about after all. I knew plenty of people that fished both lochs and the local river but apart from admitting to the existence of pike they never ever let on that proper fish even swam in those waters, and to think I thought of them as friends too!

Within months of returning to Birmingham I was offered a house in Redditch which was in the process of being developed and we jumped at the opportunity to have a new house of our own. Moving there quite obviously meant finding new pubs because I was a keen pint enthusiast who also loved his game of darts and Studley proved to be the best and nearest place for that. One of the pubs that I played darts for was the White Swan and not only was it the best pub in the county but was also the home of a good fishing club which I wasn’t slow in joining.

One of the guys I made friends with, Jim, was also a Brummie, a keen dart player and a cracking good angler too and so began a friendship that still exists to this day, though I don’t get to fish with Jim quite so often these days. One day Jim asked me if I fancied a day’s fishing with his cousin John and Johns father Jack, both of whom still lived in Birmingham and being no snob I said I didn’t mind fishing with a load of Brummies.

And so it was that I met Johnny Jones for the first time.

We fished regularly after that, at least once a week and always midweek when there were less anglers on the waters and what a great time the four of us had. John’s dad Jack was retired and the three of us worked nights as self employed private hire drivers in Birmingham, so we could fish virtually wherever and whenever we wanted. Not only did we fish the local midland rivers but we travelled to the Trent and Wye on a regular basis and we also had access to a stretch of the Bedfordshire Ouse at Harrold which was a stretch to die for and all it cost was £ 1 each. We also joined a syndicate carp water at Bourton on the Water near Stow-on-the-Wold which held carp into the thirties and reputedly a forty pounder as well, though no one ever caught it and remember this was the early 70’s when carp of that size were virtually unknown to most in the angling world. The yearly subscription was an amazing £ 7 – blimey, you can’t even buy a day’s bait for that nowadays can you?

To say we had a whale of a time would be understating it because not only did we fish some wonderful rivers and catch some wonderful fish but we drank the country nearly dry in the process and rarely did a fishing trip end before the early hours of the next day. No matter where we fished we always seemed to end up in ‘The Fish’ at Wixford, the owner of which seemed to have no knowledge of the fact that licensing hours actually existed and most times it was getting light by the time we dragged our weary bodies home, John and Jack to Brum and Jim and I to Redditch.

Eventually in 1976 I had to move back to Birmingham due to the failure of my marriage and that coupled with the fact that I had to get a proper job meant midweek fishing was out. It also resulted in a temporary cessation of those great days out with my wonderful fishing mates. I also had my first heart attack at the end of 1976 and what with one thing and another it was to be a while before I got to fish with Johnnie Jones again, by which time poor old Jack’s fishing days were over and I never did get to see him again before he died. Jack was one of life’s characters and though his approach was rather old fashioned, if you can call porcupine floats and cane rods old fashioned, he caught his fair share of fish and possessed the patience of Jobe when waiting for a bite. More than once he caught more than us young, modern whippersnapper know-it-alls. He was also at one time the Midland tench record holder. He had a turn of phrase that would have the three of us in stitches, I had tears of laughter running down my face on many occasions and because I was a few years older than John and Jim he used to say of me “he is of indeterminate age ya know,” in a broad Brummie accent. A lovely man and I still think of him after all these years.

Eventually John and I got in touch again and we got to fish the rivers that we both love so much although we lost the access to the Bedfordshire Ouse because it had been taken over by a syndicate and we were persona non grata. Apart from my match fishing at weekends, which John just can’t abide, I think it is true to say that we only ever went fishing together. From then until spring last year when disaster struck him in the form of the big C, we were constant companions and I could write a book on some of our exploits on the rivers and pubs of our fair land. Thanks to John I have enough memories to last two lifetimes and to say I miss his company on the river is putting it mildly; 30-odd years of truly wonderful fishing experiences that will stay with me forever and maybe, just maybe, a miracle will happen and he can once again get on to the rivers that he loves with a passion just like me.

Sadly my great fishing mate is in the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham now, he is paralysed from the waist down caused two weeks ago by God knows what. Both his kidneys are failing but still he has the spirit to laugh heartily when I went to visit him last Sunday. He is totally aware of his predicament but said to me and my wife, “I am going to beat this you know.” And never was a lump in my throat so big as it was then. I reminded him that after I die he has promised to take my wife and my ashes to where they are to be spread on the river Wye and a promise is a promise and I am holding him to it. Oh! how I wish that he gets to carry it out.

John joined this site about five years ago after a bit of cajoling from me and he contributed a couple of articles plus a poem he wrote about the Severn which Graham kindly put on (see below), but he lost interest for one reason or another and rarely came on over the last couple of years. Shame really because he loved writing about fishing and nature and for some strange reason had an affinity with poetry which was regularly read on the local radio in a programme presented by Dr Carl Chinn, a local professor with an interest in Birmingham’s history and the broadest Birmingham accent you ever heard in your life. Even more bizarrely he took it upon himself to learn to speak Welsh a few years ago and very successfully too, so successful in fact that we were never bothered by sheep on our river Wye jaunts after shouting something that sounded suspiciously like “wellies bach” in their direction.

I wrote this article a few weeks ago but somewhat fortuitously Graham never got round to editing it so rather than re-write the whole thing I will just add this, what is for me very sad news that John died as a result of the cancer last night. No more will we share a day on our rivers, no more will we share a couple of pints in the pub afterwards and no more will I get the weekly phone call asking “where d’ya fancy going Graham?”

It is the end of a near 40 year era for me, forty years of good company and good fishing and I feel completely and utterly empty, I shall miss Johnny Jones, my mate.