Mrs Philips’ ghillie considers the possibility that a Barder landing net might mean fewer headaches.
But then perhaps Mrs Philips is just a large pilchard.
A friend of mine, Jane Body, wrote this many years ago. I think she’s confusing the pilchard family of fishes with the Wahoo and the Baracuda -or is it Bacaruda? I don’t suppose it matters all that much. Anyway, don’t mock Jane for imagining that Mrs Philips has turned into a large fish. Franz Kafka had Gregor Samsa waking up as a beetle and Ian McEwan has given us a cockroach who becomes British Prime Minister.
Anyway, we’re all busy people -you ‘working from home’ in your dressing gown, Colin and me gluing up split cane rod blanks, so I thought I’d mention that at the end of September I shall present for your consideration some irresistible fishing tackle: A superb Barder Rod Co Bernard Venables landing net with a 2-piece 7′ handle, a pair of Barder Rod Co fibreglass fly rods (more on that story later), an Edward Barder 12′ 3-piece close whipped Avon rod with a whole cane butt, a pre-1939 4″ wide drum Allcock Aerial, the prototype Richard Carter Millennium Aerial with its spare spool, an early B. James & Son Richard Walker MK IV Avon and a stunning 1930s Ogden Smith 7’6″ 3-piece 2-top #4-weight split cane fly rod. Oh, and then a Hardy number 1 Wallis Avon and an early B. James & Son Avocet with a whole cane butt. Nothing funny about whole cane butts.
