Ok I have never been one of life’s popular people, then again if you want to be popular go on big brother with the rest of the freaks, you know like, "contestant number 7, its cash the boxing carp scientist," sorry son you were just like asking for it for so long .

Ok so you can take not wanting to be popular to the extremes I guess that the Yorkshire blood in me, Schorfield, is only 6 generations old and is a direct change of surname to escape tax and death duties in the eighteen hundreds, now you can't get more Yorkshire than that.

Schofield, dweller in a hut by a field.

We had to move south because you try saying Schorfield with a Yorkshire accent and everyone thinks your trying to be above yourself as soon as you tell them your name. Like people that pronounce howton spelt Haughton Horton, anyways what’s in a name and what’s important is my son will play cricket whether he likes it or not and I play them close enough to my chest that you won't believe your eyes.....abrcadra Slappemtony reveal yourself.

look If the lad wants to dance let him, dont impose yourself on him let him blossom... he is his own self

and if you are truly northern stock lose the "slappem" its "slappum"

Spasholt 86, there huddled together was this years crop of wannabe fish farmers from the north, trout fishing townies from the south all 16 and fresh outta school. Me seventeen and had about as much in common with the above as p1ss and champage but thats the beauty of sparsholt.


I spent that summer working with Jason Heygate brooklands original A2 specialist Mrk 2 escort stunt driver on Naris lemonade rounds delivering the finest pop from around the world to the estates of south london. It payed well and was four days a week, the other three i fished, i really thought i had cracked life and was happy as a pig in copyies of carpology*, (*i hear paper has execllent thermal qualities thus making the pig warm and indeed contented).

Then outta the blue, we get mugged....in peckham....twice.....in the same day......and they had guns the second time.... were not the words my mother wanted to be hearing. After much argueing and teenage anxst a deal was struck that if i gave up my job and went back to college at sparsholt to learn fishery management, i got a motorbike, ok i thought show me the rd 125 solo seat Stan Stevens tunned micro splitter pipes and i'll do it.

"Hello lads i shouted to em", if you were there, you will ubdoutedly remember me i am the guy that got chucked out that christmas for riding round winchester naked on a motorbike, why? i never really told the full story. I feel i owe it to the class of 86 the college and certain outside influence to finally explain what really happen......

look i've nothing against that elliot lad and if my boy wants to do ballet no problem, it will imporve his footwork when he's down the wicket at um no end.

More more they cried.... tis better than the eurovision song contest

I was not happy, kieth the teacher had singled me out as the trouble maker he was going to make an example of in the class, me i went to the ruffest south london comprehensive of the eighties, three teacher threatened to resign if i were allowed back into to my a'level, that was the reason i did the lemonade game in the first place, class room theory and a copy of turbot keepers weekly were not really gonna win a classroom battle of wits with me especially when the lifecycle of the trout is about as interesting as picking fluff outta ya belly button.

Cards, my wallet was nicked induction week, one of the kids that was involved admitted he mis judged me when we roomed together, taff said i was not the spoilt little git my dads bmw seven seris implied and he should have told me about it the first place as the other kid involved was he biggest [censored] he had ever met. Taff was from the vallies, saw me big as brass and twice as shinney i guess, anyways we agreed the kid that did the theiving could not know taff grassed him up, taff could scrap alright he was small but he would have murdered the middleclass tory boy that stole my fecking money but tory boy was local towny mafia star junior angling hero and had friends, ones who rode motorbikes and more interesting to our young welsh lathario one who rode horses.

Me and taff ruled the week the townies from sleepy hampshire were cunching carrotly stupid and the sheffield lads were into keeping there head down and staying out of trouble. We organised a little game of cards that week where between us, we not only redressed the balance of the previous theft, we took the thief and his mates to the proverbial cleaners.Friday a week later we said our goodbyes and headed off to our placements for me, the Royal stretch of the Test on the Wills Estate in Longparrish hampshire with five generation of riverkeepers before him MR Alfred Groves as my tutor in ways of the keeper, he chose me wry ole bugga, called me nippa to, ex sandringham officer training school instructer, special constable and one of my hero's.

Now some tales of the river bank please slappum, this is good stuff.

but you didnt say how you ended up bolocko on the bike ?

I lived in a place called eggbury corner with ole mrs cook, she cooked a mean sunday roast and was cannier than a cat at a cheese factory. It was 4 miles to nearest shop and pub and a further 7 to longparish thru the most awe inspiring countryside hampshire can provide, i had not recieved my rd 125 solo seat stan stevens with micro splitter pipes as group d entitlement had to sent off for on my licence, instead i had a raliegh maverick mountain bike to get me about.

I cycled happily to and from work, i was loud south london and a pain in the arse but my heart was in the right place and Alfie had bored of fish farmers company, he had to take a boy from the college and i was it, he did not want a trout fishing nut case who would idolise him, i was there to cut grass and beat pheasants and he payed cash for the latter. I explained carp fishing to him once he laughed at me and said "whats the point of putting em back nipper, theres no reason to it it will never catch on..."

In three months he taught me more than i could ever learn from sparsholt, i cut a sh1t load of grass and learned the ways of the wild, well i would have except it was late october and the first campus block of my y.t.s at hampshire colledge of agriculture was looming bright on the future.

Alfie told me this story about the college when we first met,

The man from the college comes here and tells me about keeping a river, he's read some books about it whilst five generation of my family have done it for a living before me. My great grandfather came from an estate in oxford that got closed down walked hundred and thirty miles to the Wills estate to offer his services as a keeper, he took half pound of cheese and five woodbines for what was a fair old walk, us Groves was riverkeepers for three generations already, and old man wills was so impressed at the fact he walked all that way and only smoked one ciggarette cuase he was saving four for the journey home he gave him the job. I'll teach you to be a keeper nippa, you tell em nothing deal .....

watch your spelling tudge might have a go at you about it

cool story though