Fishy Tale

I was going out there, where? Nowhere! somewhere! plodding
nostalgically, turning once in a while to see the footprints, trying
desperately to feel alone, me and the sea, which a long, long time ago
yielded flounders for tea.

Dad, brother and me would catch loads on fresh ragworm we'd dug from
the mussel beds that morning. My dad usually did the digging, he'd
strong arms which could lift a ton of mussels with just one forkful and
there would be loads of worms slithering in all directions. Frank and I
would gingerly pick them up by the tail and hurriedly drop them into an
old rusty newspaper lain quality street tin. They had a sort of two
nippers and it was always said how much it would hurt like hell if the
nippers nipped you. It made me very careful putting them on the hook.
the first sign that they even looked like they were about to close, I
would emit that shrieky fearful sound, jump nervously back, dropping
the horribleness to the sound of the scaremonger's raucous laughter and
the subsequent sissyness slandering. And the all too familiar, 'I'm not
spending all my life getting a bad back digging bait just for you to
play about with', if the worm escaped its sacrificial threading. I'd
hang my head sandward to try to show I was feeling the guilt of
reproval but was really screwing my face and lips tight to stop myself
from laughing. He would always come over, ruffle my hair and put the
bait on.

Which reminds me, dad once made us a sling each, out of a bit of
leather and a couple of clog laces, so we could mess about wanging
stones out to sea. He showed us how to use them, wow! he could fling a
stone for miles. He sent us off down the beach to practice whilst he
tackled up. I'll never forget my first attempt because instead of going
out to sea it somehow went whizzing straight for my dad who at the time
was bent over sorting out the tackle. It thudded right into his back;
there was a vociferous explosive of expletives that weren't meant for
such tender ears. We froze, but seeing dad charging towards us and
quickly coming to the conclusion it wasn't with a hair ruffling
intention, we turned and ran for our lives. My dad smoked far too many
woodbine to have ever caught up with us. We skulked back some time
later, not really knowing whether the coast would be clear but because
we were really hungry. Our slings were confiscated and we had to be
content once more with skimming.
Casting out was tricky to say the least, we only had those big centre
pin reels which would always get in a birds nest tangle when I did it.
I was a little afraid of putting my thumb against the line to stop it
peeling off after the weight had splashed down. Some people had those
super-duper reels with automatic braking systems; I was always going to
get one for all of us when I got a job with loads of money, especially
for my dad and I used to enthusiastically tell him so. The rod tip had
a peg with a budgie's bell attached to indicate when the fish was
hooked. My brother and I didn't pay too much attention, getting bored
quickly and would go off exploring, unless we'd caught a fish, then
wild horses wouldn't drag us away. I used to like clobbering the fish
with the special mortal stick. I'll never forget when our Frank caught
an eel, 'hey, look our George, I've caught a snake, I've caught a
snake'. It slipped and slithered all over the place curling and
twisting itself round anything that went near it. It wouldn't yield to
the special stick. Dad, who was busy reeling in another flatty, was
yelling to hit its tail, but it wasn't doing any good whatsoever, how
the hell could anyone kill anything by bashing its tail. Oh! We had
such fun, it seemed to want to want to chase us, it was totally
fearless. Dad put an end to the messing about, he chopped its head off,
he had a special knife.

We didn't really catch loads, just one or two usually, but sometimes we
did, they were good days, everyone would be happy discussing the
captures all the way home.
Never did get those reels, the mussel beds and fish disappeared, dad
died before I got a well paid job and anyway he would have been too
proud to accept it, I know that because I am.