15 March 2015 News/Editorial
THE SCENE: somewhere on the banks of a Scottish salmon river in late July.
THE CHARACTERS: Sir Tim Dalziel-Farquhar and his old friend and gillie, Alec Macleod.
“Mornin’, Alec”
“Morning, Sir”
“Nice one, eh?”
“Ay, so it is”
“Things are changing, Alec”
“How?”
“Well, for one, James the butler is on his last warning, bad business”
“Why’s that, Sir?”
“Lady D-F came home early from some “do” we went to last night, she can’t stand them, y’know, left me drinking with my old mates, good party, I thought. Anyway, James opened the door when she got back “Take off my shirt” she said to James, and he did. “Now take off my bra” and so he did. “Now take off my knickers….. and if I ever catch you wearing my clothes again, we will have to let you go.”
“You can never tell, can you, Sir?”
“You certainly can’t, Alec..... and how is the river looking, will we catch anything?”
“Prime order, Sir, it’s a question of numbers.”
“Bad move, read the Fisheries Review last night before going to bed, a little “refreshed” after the party... which didn’t help”
“How’s that going, Sir?”
“Not good, I fear, Alec, blood pressure pills taking a bit of a hammering…. it’s 40 pages long and do you know “salmon fishery owners” are mentioned just 3 or 4 times?”
“Don’t you mean “proprietors”, Sir?”
“Good Lord no, Alec, you can’t use the “p” word, even “owners” is a tough one for the pc police, you can’t “own” anything, especially not land or fishing in Scotland, anymore, probably why we are only mentioned 3 or 4 times, they’d really like to get rid of us!”
“You’ll be too English, Sir”
“I fear so, Alec, and speaking of the English, do you remember my old schoolfriend Topper and his wife Madge, used to come and fish here a lot?”
“Ay, I do, Sir, and she was a far better fisherman than he ever was”
“They’ve fallen on hard times...apparently poor old Topper is threatening to sack the cook to save money, but complained that he couldn’t because Madge can’t cook an egg….she would have none of it…. “if only you could make love properly, we could sack the chauffeur!” she snorted”
“Not like the old days, Sir”
“No, indeed, Alec”
“Do you see that boil behind yonder rock, Sir, cast over it and he should be there”
“Have you heard about these blasted tags, Alec?”
“No, Sir, not really”
“Well, if you’re right and he is behind that rock, and I catch him and want to keep him to eat, in future I won’t be able to unless we put a tag on him as soon as he’s dead”
“But, Sir, surely tagging was for the nets only?”
“So it was, Alec, but you know how the Government just loves netting, do you remember they gave that big netting company over Ł100,000 a few years ago...and when they changed the law to allow carcass tagging, in the accompanying blurb it said this was only intended for netting, specifically excluding the rods because we can’t sell salmon anyway; now they have changed their minds, pressure from the netting lobby I’d say, and want to use the same law to impose tagging on the rods”
“Breach of faith, Sir?”
“Speaking of which, “faith” that is, Alec, have you heard the one about the Bishop who said to the other Bishop “ I never slept with my wife before I married her, did you?” and the other Bishop said “Do you know, I simply can’t remember, what was her maiden name?”
“He’s not there is he, Sir, let’s go on to the next pool”
“I think I will give up anything to do with running this river, Alec, after 35 years”
“Why’s that, Sir?”
“Well, Alec, the river board is going to be replaced by something else where people like me will be marginalised, and the Government is going to control the purse strings and tell us all what to do. Apparently, the salmon belong to the Scottish people and despite us looking after them pretty well for over 200 years, suddenly “the public interest” demands getting rid of us”
“But, Sir, didn’t you and other owners pay many Łmillions to buy off the nets and save the salmon from being overfished, the Scottish people didn’t do that so how can those “saved” fish belong to the Scottish people when, if you had not paid so much to save them, they would all be dead?”
“Search me, it’s way over my head”
“If you and other owners give up, Sir, who will run this river?”
“No idea, Alec, something about “stakeholders”, not sure who they are, whatever…. they will never love it and give their time as much and as freely as we have ”
“But will you and the other owners still pay all the money, Sir?”
“Of course we will, they want our money, but not us”
“But surely they couldn’t run these rivers without the owners of the fishing rights, could they, Sir, that would be mad, like running a company without the shareholders?”
“It may be our only sanction, Alec, they can’t force us to take part and if they won’t give us adequate representation and drop this ridiculous central levy thing, I for one will walk away”
“Stuff ’em, is that it, Sir?”
“Quite right, Alec, stuff ‘em….now where will I get one here?”
“In the run just by that point, Sir, bound to be one in there, let it come well round, they very often take right below you ”
“Have you heard the one about the man who was worried about his sex life and said
“Doctor, doctor, how often should I have sex?” “Infrequently” said the doctor. “Is that one word or two?” said the man”
“That’s a good one, Sir”
“Thank you, Alec”
“Stuff ‘em, Sir”
“As you say, Alec stuff ‘em, now where’s that fish….?”
“Any minute now, Sir”
“Oh and Alec, you mustn’t call me “Sir” any more, quite unacceptable in this brave new Scotland”
“Stuff ’em all, Sir”
“Thank you, Alec, have you heard the one about the goat, the railway sleeper and the drinking well…..?”.
To be continued……….sometime later.
DISCLAIMER: any similarity either to people who exist in real life or to conversations actually held on Scottish river banks in late July is wholly coincidental.
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