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

tell you what mate this

Alfie once saw a carp in the river, last mistake it ever made being seen by Mr groves, ok i hear you say the mans an animal killing a carp but in the royal stretch anything swimming except the hand reared brownies is a slur on the charicter of our Man in proffesional terms. He told me some idiot from the college had stocked them at broadlands which he had no problem with, but then the river had flooded and they got in his bloody stretch,
he returned to it the estate office at broadlands with a bone handle knife sticking out of its head. One less simmo dink in the world ain't a bad thing and lets face it these guys had permission from the queen to shoot swans if they interfered with the fishing so no-one really argued with a keeper.

I say no-one but there was once this publican who owned a pub next to the river, he knew little of villiage life and the position Alfie held as keeper. The guy had a good sunday trade going with folks from the town comming with their kids and feeding the ducks. The situation had got to the stage that duck's were not only everywhere they were finger tame and were bothering the angling gentry aswell as getting run over. The final straw came when the guy started selling bread and advertised it with a picture of a ducks drawn on a chalkboard sign, Alfee told the guy that it had to stop and the guy told alfie to get knotted.

He was calm as a cucumber as the publican, boyed up by alfie's apparent wish not argue , challenged my guv to do his worst. "So i guess we is duck shooting tonight guv?" i said knowing the old man well enough by then. "thems bread ducks nippa, no good for eating, they have a bit of bread then gulp down water and sh1t there guts out, no meat on em see and no reason to shoot em"

It was friday afternoon and the night was drawing in and the weekend beckoned, maybe the old man was going soft who knew, but me i was off to the villiage disco, the only chance i had of meeting girls, and my mind was on other things. The next week i did the usual rounds, saw a few ole gals right with logs and ate some apple pie, he had me at all sorts of dumb jobs whilst he hammered in his garage, chicken wire and frame for the pheasant chicks rang no alarm bells in my head, ok he was throwing himself into it, i remember going to the bakers and i remember seeing him with bin linners of stale bread, i remember lugging the biggest pheasant coup i had ever seen up to the river by the pub but i swear i had no idea what he was going to do.

He turned up at the pub sunday lunch with a landrover full of stale bread, He then proceeded to lay a trail of the bread peices a foot wide down the side of the bank by the pub to a clearing where that pheasant coup was and tipped in five sacks of yesterdays loaf in little bits. Well the ducks thought it was christmas and they charged into the pen Alfie had fashioned that week. When they were all inside he shut the door and waited for the publican to arrive.

"you can't catch all the ducks alfie the guy said as longs as there kids and bread there will be ducks"

Alfie looked him dead in the eye and said "i know " and went to his land rover to fetch a gerry can of four star, showered the ducks and flambeyd the lot of em right there infront of the polite sunday family lunchers and there kids.

" i don't think they will be bringing there kids back now" said Alfie with a smile.

Did all this happen before 'care in the community' schemes had been introduced Tony?

Mad? most thought he was and that was the way he liked it..

"Mushroom people, feed em sh1t and keep em in the dark nippa and i like the dark cause i might not be able to sees them but they can't sees me either"

i returned late that november to winchester and a month block of classroom expierence, kieth and i sparred and my father presented me with a t-80 yamaha step thru that was in no way shape or form a RD 125 with a solo seat stan stevens tunned and micron spitter pipes.

The walet thief was shinning brightly in class and i was lagging behind being almost comatosed by the fishfarming stuff, when i signed for fishery management i was thinking carp, i was now learning fish farming. Kieth explained several times it was a joint course and it was important that the fish farmers were taught properly.

I had never even fished for trout let alone wanted to know how to toss em off into a bucket but rather than spoilt the chance some of the sheffield lads believed they were getting to earn big bucks on scottish locks rearing salmon i stayed stum. We learnt to swim in waders, we learnt to pick out the dead eggs from a tray off trout eggs and thats about all i can remember, except thief boy was shinning and knew everything possible about trout.

A free afternoon period was turned into a fishing debate and i suddenly woke from the back of the class, they all reeled of personal best and what they had caught, i had not caught a carp except for an eight pounder but then again i had only fished one venue seriously and it was granite. Thief boy pipes up he had had a fourteen in a match on three pound line and i called myself a carp angler, matchman of the year was obviously still smarting over his card losses.

I should have just kept my mouth shut, but instead i gave it the Yeah better than you mate and you know it response and was dully challenged to put my money where my mouth was. I tried the no tackle excuse as i did not own a match rod but he was more than happy to supply the neccesaries and it was set.

So there was junior matchman on his home club water, he even chose the swims and me next to him using his mates tackle for a tenner, I fished well had a nice tench(if there is such a thing) and coupler of pounds of silver fish. I had fished enough to know i was about lb behind when my tench came and i knew thief boy was worried so i started a little game of, well i guess confidence. I knew he was a thief and he did cheat at the card game, admittedly he did not have a duplicate pack like me and taff but he tried.

After about an 1/2 an hour i had him so worried i felt a little alone time was neccesary for our man to show his true colours, so i left for a ficticious dump and sure enough when he weighed in there were two extra tench in his net. He had won it fair and square without em, but hey cheats never prosper as my old gran used to say so his extra fish, which came from a club member fishing behind him not wanting to see the home boy lose were gonna be his downfall.

"wow nice tench" picked em up at the end whilst i was in the loo huh?", "yeah", "damb if only i had not gone to the loo" i laughed. "ok wiegh em up" . I got him to wieght the tench seperate under the guise i wanted to see if i had cuaght more until his lucky last minute tinka's. Ok I read them heavy, no-one cared much about the fact as it was like a consalation for me to think i at least came close and it eased thier guilt about letting tory thief boy cheat me, even though i used a bit of a mind game to make him think he had to.

I came up 10 oz short and his moody tench wieghted 11oz according to me but 7oz in reality, ok this may be starting to sound like Bob Nudd's blog so i will try and cut to the chase.

I handed over the tenner every-one felt it ok to agree if it were not for the tench i would have won, i knew i had not but cheating? well no, just gameship, cheating is what that git did.

liked the "crispy duck", and actually had an rd 125 top bike.

pual could you sort something out about me editing my post it seem i have gone over a time limit, ok i can see why the its too late thing is there but i have to do spelling mistakes and grammatical errors after i write, its like a process man, create then put straight

Write in, then copy and paste from Word till/ if its sorted Tony

Ok monday morning, tory boy waltzes in and gives it the large like you won't believe, me a tenner was no big deal, but the mouth on this kid was untrue. Usually i would have battered him but i was looking forward to a winter with ole Alfie and knew punching the hell out of him would just serve his cause more than mine.

Thief boy lived in winchester, he decided to have a party and i was invited along with a few of the others, got there and it was wall to wall carrot crunching teeny bikers, not one girl except for a the girl friend of some thirty five year old plummer that was like the gits uncle. I got there and was instantly invited up stair to a bedroom where tory boy had a table seven chair and a green visor like the poker dealers in vegas wore at the time.

My dad taught me not to play cards when i was young, i got double pocket money if i played him at cards for it and i was left busted nearly every time. I knew the score play cards with six strangers who are all friends having previously skinted two of em at college. No thanks where are the women and where's the party, tory boy stared goading me after that and i could not hold back and told him i knew he cheated in the match and i was not really into gambling with cheats.

He would not admitt it until one of his mate, funnily enough, said just admittit and give him the tenner back, then and we will see how good a gambler he really is. It suddernly became very threatening so i decided to take the cards out of the equation. I said lets do dares for money you think of a dare, i will tell you the price and if you come up with the money i will do it.

1st drink a pint of vodka straight down for forty quid, no problem i thought i went for it and won, i should have spewed it up in the toilet for sure as i did not really drink but the next bet drink an egg cup full of chilli powder and wd 40 for a cool hundred quid was already being prepared. I had won £140 from him and in those day twas a lot of money when he announced the third and final bet £ 300 quid to ride round winchester naked on a motorbike. Whether it was the vodka or the fact i don't give in easily i don't know but i did make one provison, i made them let me keep my shoes and socks on, first so i could change gear and second so i could tuck the £600 quid into my sock.

We got back to his place after the dead, i was followed by a mini flottila of bikes and a plummers van all beeping there horns and flashing there lights through the hottest town centre for a pull in history totally pisched. I guess if the roller disco had not burnt down that night i would have surely been arrested but it was all hands to the pumps and there was not a copper in sight. It was about half eleven on december the 18th minus 2 and ice had formed on the seat when we returned. I got of the bike and got decked by the plummer, nice huh.

So with blood pouring from my nose i went to tory boys house and asked for my clothes back, no sorry six hundred quid or we call the old bill was his response. What choice did i have especially as whilst i was down someone stole the keys for my bike i was naked and no-where near my lodging. You choice he said, i looked him in the eye and said if i live one day i will get you i swear.

That night very drunk naked i broke into his nieghbours shed who luckily had a red old water boiler insulation jacket, it saved my life for sure, took five years to finally get rid of the fiberglass shards that imbedded themself in my skin but i lived. I found a bag with a towel and some trunks in it from a swimming trip in the shed the next morning, left twenty pounds in the middle of the shed floor to cover any damages and the swimming kit, made a poncho rambo style out of the towel slipped on the shorts broke the lock on bike rode back to my digs.

I was sick all that day and the screaming wd 40 poos kept me on the loo for most of the day but i was £600 pound better off and i was not going to let the the thieving little [censored] think i was ill. That night he told kieth i got drunk and rode round naked on a motorbike the slimly little git, with tears in my eyes i had to face my parents and alfie for getting chucked out i day before the end of block.

Bitter yeah funnily now i think about, sparsholt hey lets face it there was i saying Carp fishing the next big thing on the horizon folks teach me about carp please and was laughed at even made a fool of by the head of fishery management infront of the whole class, erm who's the muppet now kieth me you or tory boy.

i guess the moral, well sometimes its better to let a cheating bully win than it is to beat him at his own game, 20 years ago now so i should have mellowed. Taff walked 8 miles up to the college that night in sleet and snow just to tell me that the whole class knew you grassed me up son and that he and the sheffield lads would teach you a lesson for being such an utter prick, lets face they did not like me but everyone hates a snide.

After a while my parents forgave me, the step thru died, the plummer and tory boys mates pissed all over it when i was in the shed and covered it in sugar trying to fill up the petrol tank. I broke my arm in three places when the 2pence piece someone put in the shaft drive finally found its way to the gears and siezed the whole engine whilst doing forty down redhill high street a week later. bitter yes twisted nah, idiots the lot of em, but if mr welsh and mr scott at sparsholt want to know why i was so against their involvement in carp angling they need to only look at how the colledge treated the first Carp angler to walk through thier doors. Bit ironic and a sad but i had to start somewhere and its nice to get it off my chest. I may just check friends re-united website out now sparsholt colledge 86 now, who knows. I smashed my rods that week sportex 11foot 1 3/4 glasses the original players rod, its my only regret

A year or 2 passed and i concerntrated on my cricket at weekends, worked for my uncles landscape gardening business in sussex, When i finally returned to bromley my parents had moved to keston.


Del was a big boy from a rough family off the rough estate at the bottom of bromley common, his brothers were always riding around on nicked motorbikes and parental control was non existence in the Spiller household. Del was a bully and feared, a fact i did not know when i first met him one heady day in june 1982 when i was thirteen years old.

The sun-shine was bright, the birds were singing and i was fishing keston ponds for the first-time when an the fifteen year old Del approached me and said "your in my swim mate". I responded it was a free fishery and no-one actually owned anything, Dels response was to point over the lake and say "see that sign over there?".

As i looked over the lake the older boy blind-sided me and broke my nose, i was floored and winded from a kick to the stomach which was administered with " now you understabnd whoes swim it is". The years past and i was often the butt of Spillers joke or taunts but as long as i kept my mouth shut and did what he said i got no further injury thankfully(for him).

Sparsholt beconed and i spent a further year working the land on ronald fergersons (fergies dad) estate before returning home at 18 a larger and more muscular youth. Things had changed since leaving, i had grown both pysically and mentally something that Del failed to notice....

I was up the ponds early saturday morning, Adam, Roley and Dave were all there and we instantly started to catch up on what we had been doing for the last few years. Dave was pushing trolleys in sainsburys, Adam was working at a garden centre and Roley was landscping for the council it was like old times. Suddenly a screemer had me jogging down the bank and i was into a monkey (monkey wrench=tench).

A beaten up old ford cortina turns up on the road and out gets my childhood nemisis Spiller un-loads his tackle, he was like a lion survey its domain, confident in his king of the jungle status. Spiller walked over to Adam and started to chat, Adam instantly pointed to me and explained i had just had one. Adam was always a [censored] like that, so Spiller marches up to me like Rambo and those immortal words found my ears for the second time in my life.

"Your in my swim" was the challenge but things had changed and only Del boyed up by his previous victory could not see i stoood his hieght and width now. "I can't see a sign saying its yours" i said making him aware i was not going to be blindsided like before and the incident as children was not forgotten.

"Pack your tackle up or i break your nose again you cunse" came Del shakespears Spiller's reply. I simply fixed him with what is known as the schorfield stare and said " no you won't".

Del almost bent down to pick his fist of the floor such was the ferocity of the right hand which he threw, it had accounted for nearly every kid on the ponds at some stage or another and was comming my way. I swayed back my head and it pasted harmlessly in-front of my eyes, i stepped forwards neck locked him and dragged him out the pads where i thought he needed a little baptism to wash away his sins.

A crowd of kids gather on the bank in my swim not knowing to cheer for Me like their hearts told em or for Del like their noses did, after about fifteen seconds i dragged him up and said " had enough yet" to which he bit my arm hard. A right hand to the face and an he was having a first hand look at the bottom of the lake again.

"go on tony drown the c'nt" "do him tony" " kick his fecking teeth in" were all being shouted from the bank ten foot away but i was oblivious as i concentrated on bathing the un-clean bully Spiller. Its funny i felt so free and warm inside, i was unaware that miller had been submerged for nearly a minute. Only when Adam wadded out and started to wrestle me and roley bit my hand to make me let go of spiller hair that i realised Del spiller had stopped moving.

He spluttered for a bit and then cryed and only returned one more time to fish and of course get laughed at, the legend of Big Del Spiller came to end and the legend of Tony Schorfield began.......

loved that slappum very entertaining on a wet non fishing weekend, just as i finished reading the last installment the rain stopped and the sun started to shine it allways shines on the good

wonder if they do placements on the old rivers any more ? or is it all geared to the carp scene nowadays.

anyway respect to you sir

even if you are slightly madder than an adder

totally brill there pal nothing but........







TO YOU

ballax,i missed out who, why where, and when i started carping.


In 1981 at age 12, i purchased from penge angling penge, 1 11 ft diawa specimen hunter 2 rod and a shakespere sigma reel, i had not fished before, my grandad lived behind brooklands and i walked my his german sheperd round, i was a bright kid and found it easy to make friends. I liked walking the lakes and as it i did that from about the age of 9 if you can't imagine why a kid with no-one in his family to teach him wanted to be a carp angler you don't know what its about. 78 was the year and brooklands was the venue everything else before is chris yates and a crust and after is what you lot do now.


Mr mr what are you doing? whats that mr?, mr why do they do that then? the times i was nearly reported missing to the police for staying to long punishing the hell out of the start of what is now so huge, but hey lets face it guys you never liked me then either . Credentials? until i was thirten when my grandad moved from dartford, i moved to keston where richie beaufort saved me from a certain beating and sold me the best rods in the world ever.

Ok Me 15 fishing away at keston and this kid comes up sits down and walks of with my stainless 2 way buzzer bar, it was my pride and joy, i had the specimen hunter 2 and the sigma 40 on a magnetto buzzer and a nine foot 1 1/2lb downham tackle spinning rod with a handle convertion and a cream and blue cardinal 754 but the old style with twin underneath drags on the other. Worm and floaters on the lefthand boilies on the right, green catfood specials from the freezer by richworth from downham tackle black dacron and kamatsan chemically sharpened hooks hair rigged with a lead tube. sh!t i am 36, now anyways back to the chase.

i certainly hooked em but you try stopping twenty plus leenies in a lake full of pads on size 8 rubber japanese hookes and rods that flapped around like wet celery in a force 10 gale, it was murders. Tench on the other hand i named everyone in the lake, we called em monkey wrenches n all, keston wryming slang.lol

Hazwell was calling it ceasars in the first editions of carpworld, even young mr adam wilkinson did his little turn in the mags, someone once said we all agreed not to do publicity erm Adam and Chris did, ohh right cause they called it ceasars not keston becuase it was a secret, yeah cause fecking rod huchinson turned up the second summer i was on it, I caught a lovely tench that day he blanked.

I must admit never really read much at thirteen my dyslexia was very bad, so i did not know him from adam except he was from up north.

I saw pete garvan use dog biscuits before anyone else had ever seen em, fact we the keston boys spread the word on dog biscuit anyone want to argue???? so when reading what i have to say about carping don't think i am some wannabe, i ain't no i was not doing it in seventies but in the eighties i knew what the enzime baits mr broughton is now producing and even what different amino compounds were about i knew where to source high grade milk protiens and lactalbumin and also dabbled heavily with natural ingredients such as liver, lumpfish cavier, frankfurter flavouring, erm yeah i know, garlic banana's and smoked salmon they were all used in 70 percent protien mixes. I could never make that bloody floater cake though[Email]cr@p[/Email], lol.

I said to one of the few remaining original d.d.a.p.s carp anglers tonight, carp fishing now is like a diamond mine full of sh!t, i was depressed as hell, he smiled and agreed the diamonds are worth all the [censored] bobbing though.

anyways back to the karate kid as i called him, he had it off with my buzzer bar and would not give it back, i did not know what to do so i told richie, he went over and got it back, i was a bit scared as the kid was meant to be a marshall arts expert and his dad a champion instructor.

So richie hands me back the buzzer bar and i tell him i did not want to get my head kung fued in, he says "if you wanna keep your tackle you will, even if you lose he won't bother you again". Richie was walking round and marched off into the sunset. 20 minutes of creating brown bricks later the kids dad turns up to collect him.

The kid packs up leaves and then the father walks round drags me over to his car and there is no-one but us on the lake
"is this the one?" he barked at his son
"yeah dad said he had a knife." squarketed daniel saab,
" Right son no problem," came back daddy myaggi
me i a shitting big bricks now and can taste the tarmac already,
" he's not go a knife now son" he mockingly assured the boy
"why don't you fight my lad now then, coward without a knife are we?" he jeered

I did not want to fight him and said so," look mr i just wanna fish"

Mad dad then goes to his car-boot, produces a golf bag and hands me a golf umbrella,"

I am stairing at hin in amazement when pushes me on the chest and shouts "right he's got a weapon get him son." to the boy.

The kid came at me with a spinning back kick and i twated him quite hard in the head with umbrella and side stepped, the kid was not impressed and winged" that really hurt dad," whilst rubbing his ear,I acted in fear i guess but before i knew what was happening the dad evened the odds up and grabbed the umbrella off me.

"Now get him" he said to the boy who decided another spinning round house kick was in order about the time i decided to let him know what a rugby tackle from a kent U-15 rugby tight head prop can do to a guy sanding on one leg.

The kid was crying by now and the dad grabbed me by scruff of the neck and told me i was gonna get it i closed my eyes and prepared for what i was sure was going to be the biggest beating of my life when i hear,

" oye c'nt put the kid down" the ever smiling richie waltzed into view,
" you got a problem mate?" shot back the kids dad.
" Nah" said richie "you have beating up little kids"
"pardon did you you see what he did ?, hit him with an golf umbrella"
"yeah and you fecking gave it to him c'nt, ive been watching you since you got here, now put the kid down, get in the motor and do the off before i kick the living feckk otta of you" said richie as casualy as ordering a packet of fags from the news agent.
" i must warn you i am a mershal arts instuctor" came the cleched reply
richie says " stay there chief i be back", goes to his van produces a pick axe handle with the hadle fully covered in insulation tape, and says simply;
"go before i hurt you"
the guy just twitched a bit at first then started to shake and then he wasv off faster than lenford chritie on hearing the starting pistol,

we rolled up, laughing of course and richie became my another of my hero's even showed me pitures of his girlfriends tits in holiday snap jeez and she was fit, followed her home to bondi beach before i left for sparsholt felt i let him down too. I guess now i understand what i have done at keston he must be brimming over, i told him it would still be open once when left....

your twenty years is up son come home and wack a leeny, we even sorted the toilets son, maybe not the way you would have wanted insulation tapped up digging impliment handle style but the super loo's are warm clean and alway have paper 20 pence is well worth the admission cost. she is still there all thirty pounds of her and maybe she waiting to see yah to, who knows how much longer she can hold out, one of th top pond fish chris and sprayer has did 28lb last year two thirties again in the ponds is a possibility.

Just remembered i siad i smashed those rods, well not both of em just busted the butt section of one, the other is in australia with mr beaufort. tenious link here, i sort of got to remembering the below and just went with it, i was thinking about heros and this sort blurted out..

John the son at downham tackle always saw me comming, or thought he did, i guess he never trusted me, not that john ever really trusted anyone but Pops, johns dad also called john, god rest his soul was an inspiration for me as a kid. Never judged a book by its cover and was one of the last of a dying breed, he regularly spent hours chatting about everything from the crowds at hampton lock in the fifties june 16th to baracudda fishing off the coast africa.

John could reach kids, a roll up hanging of his lip he could have you marching on wards to victory on a monday night after school planning your next weekend trip when you were to tell him about how you caught nothing the weekend just past in the blink of an eye. He was straight never hard and read minds, ok he forgot who the hell you were after your sixtenth birthday but trust me the geezers truely was a hero. best rod builders of his generation, he had no equal when it came to the fancy work on split cane, well no equal living when i knew him.

He subsides the kids with no money and showed them where they could fish for free, would get maps out draw diagrams work out bus changes and routes, you always got extra maggots and he served one person at a time. John would holla "dad!!! the gentleman would like to purchase the blah blah blah super deluxe whatever" trying desperatley to run a business there could be ten pople in the shop and john running around like a mad thing arms legs everywhere clutching at reel boxes or balancing on step ladder. POps would wave him off with a hand and give say when i am finished with this customer john i'll serve the next one. Whilst for a quid's worth of floats you got Pop's undivided attention for as long as you neded it. I guess young john would have been happy if his till actually saw the quid, today young john carries on the tradition and of his dad whilst john's daughter watches the till. quality people and i know Pops would be proud but as i said we moved from downham when i 17 back from college maybe i found it hard to face pops who would not have me go in anything except a real barbour and proper rubberised chesties, he did not want me looking shabby, yeah bitter you [censored] can't believe how much talking about this hurts.

john dicounted the best waders and barbour even though he knew my parents was not short, 90 quid in those days for waders and the same for the barbour was not seen as the necessity john felt it was and young john's till suffered heavily they nearly kicked off about it if my memory serves me, i guess thats why i bigged young john's club work up heavily in my south london newspaper column. maybe the old man did not forget, i certainly hope he just knew i was not ready to explain what had happened and i really regret never being able to tell him.

well as for all men it monday morning and i am late for work....

had the day off, meant to work mon, tue, weds, thurs, now have to do friday, were was i?, heros, i think i cover those that stood out the most when i was a kid. I did not read the angling press, there is enough cr@p talked about fishing in the first place before the barrrow boys and shiesters get pen to paper to tell you they are the best carp anglers but really are they, is terry all that, do you prebait for the topboys by giving em a taster of whats in the sponsered guys bait, erm think about it, lol.

So i drift around and then i finally found wonderful you, anyways on my return the kids at keston rebelled, ok i dealt with spiller but ginge was worse you know son i should let it go. Remember when you payed terry marriot to beat me up, erm you don't, c'mon you must remember that son. See marriot was a wrong un but you remember he was bromley common and you were biggun hill, i ain't gonna say what we did with the money you payed him and in some ways we would never have been on the roof of the old hospital if we weren't under it influence of it but those cuts and bruises were due to a loose support joist impaired reaction time and a loosening of inhibitions not a skwelboy contract bash.

Terry hated you, yeah he took your money when someone you felt unable to tell just how much you disliked them beuase of the perminent [censored] eating grin you wore, needed teaching a lesson you wern't quaiified to give.

Then we had when you convinced Mr pesscot to lamp me, dave (dearly loved by us all but sometime even though very intellegent is not the sharpest chistle in the box when it comes to being manipulated) Dave just jumped out a bush a belted me one me one, i stumbled (slightly ) and looked at him In disbelief

" dave you [censored] [censored] what was that about,"
" c'mon i can take you" said the farmers son,
" Ok dave calm down whats the problem,"
"i saw you flerting with roley's bird,"
" go on "i said,
"well adam said you were going behind a mates back but everyone was scared of you so i...... ,
"ahhh,", the penny dropped,
" right first things first, the bird was andy watson,s called nadine seeing each other for two years and i aint the one she's up a lake to see....."
" 2nd roley ain't scared of no-one i have ever met"
"and 3rd and finally Adam is a dirtbag, got it??/".

last time i say you, you swaggered over and said "am i big enough yet?", and i turned round and said give it a few more years, ahhh shucks you thought i had forgoten, yeah cats and ways to skin son.
Are you big enough me i don't really care but as i am putting this down for the record i bet some other people out there, who got a savage beating off marriot for no apperent reason having never even really talked to the guy but upset you just before they got it....ooooerrr mrs thats it finished and you got off lightly listen you were right i was a disgrace to what julian taught you to do, but as i said i was there whilst you were jeering me saying carp angler ruin fishing etc sat on your seat box, and they called me noddy.....

just nod your head son and say nothing

I've had to put up twenty years of dave thinking he "did me", do you know even though dave is big enough a polar bear would think twice, hands like shovels and could throw a can of beans the length of a football field. Bean chucker was his nick when we were small, roley was just called roley and me i was called sony tony cause you heard me in sterio, i had such a mouth back then especially fo a youth. There was clment and andy watson tel marriot adam ginge the and some kid called jay whoes parents oned the camping shop and timmy killock and leon seagers, scally on the old rmc site and bob he caught heather the first night he did on the cp lake crawford the original keston boys.

Bob well we all looked up to him, even me even, though we have always looked at each other sideways and smiled mr crawford and i, none more so we were up to our necks last summer clearing the rubbish in the same swim we met as boys on a south london free fishery, work beckons gotta go.

Exorcising your demons slappum.

love it

You'll feel better when you get it out in the open.

A problem shared is a ...........

i know keston quite well go not a bad pub opersite the shell garage on the cross roads

many downed there the landlord used to a some good lockins

Here's one, it was just after the storm of eighty seven and me and tel were doing a night in the bay, the road that runs adjacent to the ponds was blocked as they are about 6 miles from westrum the worst hit part of the great storm. Me i do have a stunner of a storm expierence but it not fishing related, all you need to know is i was off from work at the frozen food warehouse cause the power was out and they were scared opening the door would speed the defrosting process.

I had an instamatic camera and i will post the picture of the carp i had the next day but we were expecting female company that night and we were preparing the love bivvy. I had brought loads of stuff from my mums house a rug some throw cushions etc , it was pre bedchair days and there was a pole in the middle of the umbrella f.f.s. .

schoo we were antisipating the arrival of beautiful young maidens when
"terry says what are you wearing mate"

To me the powder blue track suit was the hight of fashion see photo of next day and redmire common, yep it was nicked from redmire , don't ask me who nicked it cause that would be telling but it does just under twenty now and is awesome.

A bit of banter between us you know your mum is so fat cut her and strawberry jam comes out instead of blood type thing before terry said he would document my dress sence for eternity with my new instamatic. As he lined up i pulled a moony and he took a photo of my lunar display (he wanted a photo of me kecks so i showed him me arse), i was laughing at him and he was saying" don't worry mate when the girls see this you are gonna be stuck with the mad one, something we both noticed about one of our female bivvy guests when we met them on the bus earlier that evening.

Not wanting to get the mad one and stop terry from showing the photo of my arse to evryone which not a pretty sight even thru rose coloured specticles, i grabbed the photo and slung it in the lake.

So we met the girls, i did indeed end up with the mad one, terry disappeared with the nice one and stole her a car sterio from capri that had crashed into one of the fallen trees from the storm as she could swap it with a cab driver for a bottle of malibu, yeah i know.

So we give the girls the sterio the cab pulls up, we are ready for malibu and girls a combination we/terry had actively encoraged enough to risk going to jail for, and they just drove off. Terry well he never really changed ended up doing three years for burning his girlfriends school down as she did not want to go anymore, but i digress.

Now i know what your thinking, nice yarn but where is this going son. SO there i was june the 16th 1997 with phil the postie and we are fishing sweetcorn lift style on quils, ok i know but tench fishing during the day was the norm, no one ever got a run during the day so why bother if it wern't sunny and floaters were out of the question then we went for the tench.

Now I have heard people say i new i was going to catch that fish i even said i was, but i say i am going to have the "x" tonight everytime i go, it has come true more than once and thats why i say it. sorry Anton i always say i am gonna have the biggest fish in the lake, no ever bet me before or believed me either except jay gill lol how much was it again son yeah i bet that stung. Remind me to tell the anton story when i catch up to the right time please.

I say to phil next cast i will have a 3lb tench, i get a bite and strike, no tench but on the end is a polariod instamatic photo, shocked but totally oblivious of the memory of the night me and tel met the girls.
Phil "looks over and says what it of"
i say "i don't know maybe its a dirty one from the doggers that use the woods." So delicately i wipe the snails and the silt to reveal my arse moonying back at me powder blue tracky n all.
Phil hurried me "can you see any tits" yet he enquired"

"mate " " you are not going to believe what this picture is of" i said he says "if its a picture of a 3lb tench i give you a grand refering to the earlier claim" i made about what i was gonna catch.
"No mate its my bum and it ain't pretty"


will post me and redmire common tuesday when io am back in london, tommorow christening monday n.w. mere recky, tueday two weeks off and time to fish and write,

15th june midnight we see just how well pete's enzyme works, done three kilos at lb a night for the last week five different spots fishing opposite the most favoured swim trying to draw em away from the usual area they get nailed first night. Redmire common is my target fish for the season, but either single scale or the plated fish will do, snout or starburt would be excellent but five and four years respectively since the last capture. must dash the bivvy dog is expecting his mcdonnalds and i would not mind the pet 1st night something that i don't think has ever been done the quickest capture in my memory is 2pm pete garvan 1985 chum mixer june 16th. let you know how i get on monday, i tell you the buzz of the sixteenth without the crowds well could you ask for more

well i am nearly there, everyhing is ready for the great park just got to do it.....16th june perry my aprentice whacked trevor the leather at 14lb first time out in five years and the next week i lost the biggun. heres the photo of that common will start a proper session blog then.........