Cliff Hatton
Well-known member
http://www.fishingmagic.com/feature-articles/18450-a-profitable-day-s-fishing.html
I always knew that Chris would succeed in life. I once owned a genuine Richard Walker MK4 carp rod, one of three prototypes made by B.James in 1952 and signed by Walker himself. The bagged rod hung from a nail in the garage, not unloved but deserving of better accommodation given its rare status.
I was in there – the garage - concentrating on a fiddly woodwork job when I became aware of my small boy, just five years old at the time, waving the sacred rod light-sabre fashion. I quickly abandoned my carpentry and leapt to its rescue. “Chris...” I looked at him a little too sternly I think, “…if you damage that rod I’ll never forgive you”
My beautiful boy stood and pondered my words for a few seconds then looked up. “That means you love your fishing rod more than you love me”. I thought about it and he was right! That’s what my words meant though, of course, that wasn’t what I meant!
Clearly, his words of wisdom have lodged within my soul for a very long time – he’s now 34 – and my belief in him has been justified time and time again.
One day in the early 80s, with Chris now a teenager, we found ourselves drifting almost imperceptibly on a glassy, sun-lit Loch Awe. We’d spent a comfortable night in Ardbrecknish and had hired a boat with an outboard motor to explore both the water and the island at the northern end. The fishing-bug had never bitten Chris but he was happy to be with me, enjoying the glorious weather and his unfamiliar surroundings.
Before our unhurried launch that morning he’d purchased from the village store a copy of Computer World (or similar) and was now engrossed in its pages while I did far less cerebral things with mackerel and polystyrene. We spoke only occasionally, each of us deeply immersed in our special interest.
After a time, Chris broke the silence and lifted his head from the magazine. “There’s a competition here, Dad” and I turned to listen. “A company called MDK wants you to produce something that incorporates their initials…a story or a programme or something…any ideas?”
I didn’t initially give his question much thought, mindful still of the enormous internet bill he’d recently run up and left his mother to pay.
“Well, whatever you decide upon, make sure it doesn’t involve another bill three foot-long…your mum’ll go bananas if she gets another one like it” My concern was for him rather than his mother; we’d parted a few years before.
“So…it can be anything, can it?” Chris confirmed that it could and we went about making daft suggestions for what MDK might stand for: ‘Madonna Does Karate!’…’Marmoset Delays Kick-Off’…’Milk Distributor Kidnapped!’…it honestly was very funny but like all good things our game grew stale and soon we were back doing our own things.
I had a run. Chris grabbed the camera and snapped an action-shot or two of the feistiest 10lb pike I’d ever encountered; the fight was out of all proportion to its weight and size and it certainly doesn’t look like a double-figure fish in the photo – but it was! I was just pleased to have shown ‘ma boy!’ a genuine, toothy Scottish pike in all its stroppy glory.
Our last night north of the border was spent on the island. From the warmth of their sleeping bags, father and son laughed themselves to sleep with ridiculous talk of the Marauding McTavish’s, haggis, shortbread, tartan, loch monsters, ‘heavy’ and every other hackneyed old reference to things Scottish. I hope Chris’s memory is sharp as my own.
Months later I got a call from Chris. “Hi, Dad…you remember that MDK thing? When we were in the boat in Scotland?
“Oh, yes! Massive Drooping Knockers ‘n’ all that!” I conjured from nowhere, “what about it?”
“I won!”
“You’re joking”
“I’m not! I was at mum’s yesterday when a delivery lorry turned up with four boxes addressed to me. I told the bloke I wasn’t expecting anything but he pointed to the labels and said ‘that’s you, isn’t it?’ Well, yes, I said, and here we are!”
Christopher went on to tell me he’d been awarded top prize in the MDK competition: a brand new PC complete with monitor, speakers, mat, mouse…the lot. “So…what did you do?” I urged him.
“I’ve got it on CD. I’ll bring it round this evening”
Around 7.30 I was seated before my monitor with Chris at my side. He laid the CD in the drawer, hit the button and stood behind me, hands on my shoulders. “Watch this…” he said.
From blackness, the top of the infamous BT bill emerged to the haunting, hushed voices of the London Philharmonic Choir singing Carmina Burana. Slowly, the camera took us down the list of itemized charges, the quietly menacing female choristers searching the damning lines for their victim; hunting, hunting, and urging the camera ever further down Christopher’s register of shame. Seemingly without end, the list scrolled-up and up as the voices grew urgent and the lens zoomed-in on entry after diabolical entry. As the tally ascended the screen, so the charges increased – ten pounds, fifteen pounds, sixteen pounds fifty-five, twenty-one pounds eighty-eight…. thirty-three pounds ninety! Cymbals clashed in shock and kettle drums roared in anger; the list kept coming, invoking the ire of the booming baritones and the awful dread of the mezzo sopranos…oh, my God – THIS was terrible! Faster and faster the lens descended, scanning and exposing sin after sin, the terrible truth of my son’s transgressions! At last, at last, the choir’s demonic strains reached their harrowing climax and the bottom line exploded like an air-bag to fill the screen – ‘£481.90’!!!
Then, from the ether – ‘Mother Didn’t Know’
Cliff Hatton
I always knew that Chris would succeed in life. I once owned a genuine Richard Walker MK4 carp rod, one of three prototypes made by B.James in 1952 and signed by Walker himself. The bagged rod hung from a nail in the garage, not unloved but deserving of better accommodation given its rare status.
I was in there – the garage - concentrating on a fiddly woodwork job when I became aware of my small boy, just five years old at the time, waving the sacred rod light-sabre fashion. I quickly abandoned my carpentry and leapt to its rescue. “Chris...” I looked at him a little too sternly I think, “…if you damage that rod I’ll never forgive you”
My beautiful boy stood and pondered my words for a few seconds then looked up. “That means you love your fishing rod more than you love me”. I thought about it and he was right! That’s what my words meant though, of course, that wasn’t what I meant!
Clearly, his words of wisdom have lodged within my soul for a very long time – he’s now 34 – and my belief in him has been justified time and time again.
One day in the early 80s, with Chris now a teenager, we found ourselves drifting almost imperceptibly on a glassy, sun-lit Loch Awe. We’d spent a comfortable night in Ardbrecknish and had hired a boat with an outboard motor to explore both the water and the island at the northern end. The fishing-bug had never bitten Chris but he was happy to be with me, enjoying the glorious weather and his unfamiliar surroundings.
Before our unhurried launch that morning he’d purchased from the village store a copy of Computer World (or similar) and was now engrossed in its pages while I did far less cerebral things with mackerel and polystyrene. We spoke only occasionally, each of us deeply immersed in our special interest.
After a time, Chris broke the silence and lifted his head from the magazine. “There’s a competition here, Dad” and I turned to listen. “A company called MDK wants you to produce something that incorporates their initials…a story or a programme or something…any ideas?”
I didn’t initially give his question much thought, mindful still of the enormous internet bill he’d recently run up and left his mother to pay.
“Well, whatever you decide upon, make sure it doesn’t involve another bill three foot-long…your mum’ll go bananas if she gets another one like it” My concern was for him rather than his mother; we’d parted a few years before.
“So…it can be anything, can it?” Chris confirmed that it could and we went about making daft suggestions for what MDK might stand for: ‘Madonna Does Karate!’…’Marmoset Delays Kick-Off’…’Milk Distributor Kidnapped!’…it honestly was very funny but like all good things our game grew stale and soon we were back doing our own things.
I had a run. Chris grabbed the camera and snapped an action-shot or two of the feistiest 10lb pike I’d ever encountered; the fight was out of all proportion to its weight and size and it certainly doesn’t look like a double-figure fish in the photo – but it was! I was just pleased to have shown ‘ma boy!’ a genuine, toothy Scottish pike in all its stroppy glory.
Our last night north of the border was spent on the island. From the warmth of their sleeping bags, father and son laughed themselves to sleep with ridiculous talk of the Marauding McTavish’s, haggis, shortbread, tartan, loch monsters, ‘heavy’ and every other hackneyed old reference to things Scottish. I hope Chris’s memory is sharp as my own.
Months later I got a call from Chris. “Hi, Dad…you remember that MDK thing? When we were in the boat in Scotland?
“Oh, yes! Massive Drooping Knockers ‘n’ all that!” I conjured from nowhere, “what about it?”
“I won!”
“You’re joking”
“I’m not! I was at mum’s yesterday when a delivery lorry turned up with four boxes addressed to me. I told the bloke I wasn’t expecting anything but he pointed to the labels and said ‘that’s you, isn’t it?’ Well, yes, I said, and here we are!”
Christopher went on to tell me he’d been awarded top prize in the MDK competition: a brand new PC complete with monitor, speakers, mat, mouse…the lot. “So…what did you do?” I urged him.
“I’ve got it on CD. I’ll bring it round this evening”
Around 7.30 I was seated before my monitor with Chris at my side. He laid the CD in the drawer, hit the button and stood behind me, hands on my shoulders. “Watch this…” he said.
From blackness, the top of the infamous BT bill emerged to the haunting, hushed voices of the London Philharmonic Choir singing Carmina Burana. Slowly, the camera took us down the list of itemized charges, the quietly menacing female choristers searching the damning lines for their victim; hunting, hunting, and urging the camera ever further down Christopher’s register of shame. Seemingly without end, the list scrolled-up and up as the voices grew urgent and the lens zoomed-in on entry after diabolical entry. As the tally ascended the screen, so the charges increased – ten pounds, fifteen pounds, sixteen pounds fifty-five, twenty-one pounds eighty-eight…. thirty-three pounds ninety! Cymbals clashed in shock and kettle drums roared in anger; the list kept coming, invoking the ire of the booming baritones and the awful dread of the mezzo sopranos…oh, my God – THIS was terrible! Faster and faster the lens descended, scanning and exposing sin after sin, the terrible truth of my son’s transgressions! At last, at last, the choir’s demonic strains reached their harrowing climax and the bottom line exploded like an air-bag to fill the screen – ‘£481.90’!!!
Then, from the ether – ‘Mother Didn’t Know’
Cliff Hatton