Post by theoldfart2 on Apr 6, 2014 18:23:35 GMT
Many year ago,when duffle coats and wooly mittens were the winter uniform,along with long socks,short trousers and Welly boots,( anyone remember the Welly rash?) us nippers used to look forward to to summer days,fishing on the piers around the West Wight.
Mind you we needed to look forward to the summer as we had proper winters back then.
Cold! Many a time I remember walking to school in my short trousers and duffle coat, tripping over the telephone wires, as the snow were that thick, only to get to school and find that the water in my bladder was frozen.
I remember vividly the pupils that managed to get to school before they froze solid. They were taken to the boiler room and propped against the wall until they thawed out.
Then after it got to minus 30 degrees we were allowed hot Tomato soup at school dinners, mind you it was so cold that it froze in the plastic beaker (that had been chewed round the edge by some other bugger) before you could drink it.
Cant exactly remember the year either 56 or 58 but they had to cancel Guy Faulks night because it was so cold the flames froze on the bonfire!
Happy days.
Bloody kids today don't know they are born.
Still back to the fishing and the piers.
We had three to fish from, Totland, Fort Victoria and Yarmouth.
I remember as a nipper spending hours with my nose pressed to the planking as we dropped our hand lines between the gaps fishing for Smelt.
We used to go down the Causeway by the Red Lion with a dropnet and get live shrimp then put them in wet rags and cycle along the railway track to Yarmouth or the other piers to fish.
To this day I can remember the smell of that tar soaked wood as we watched the little devils pop up and down chasing the hooks.
I took Nippers ,Nipper to the Causeway last year, with a dropnet.
Nothing, not a shrimp.
I was told that it was because of the fertiliser in the river had killed them all.
it may be true , it may not, but there was nothing there.
Not to be outdone, we went up Yarmouth Pier with some Mackerel skin , but alas owing to health and safety, the gaps between the planks are too small to fish for Smelt.
Having said that, we looked for a while and never saw a single one.
Much the same as when I took the boy out to Brook to get some Mussles on a low spring tide.
Last time I went ,back in the day, you could shovel them up.
We never got a single one!
someone told me it was pollution , someone said it was a virus, but whatever it was it killed all the Mussles.
Now like the shrimp they have gone ,forever.
So in my lifetime, from Welly rash, to I pad, I wonder how many other species have been eradicated that we haven't even noticed.
TOF
Mind you we needed to look forward to the summer as we had proper winters back then.
Cold! Many a time I remember walking to school in my short trousers and duffle coat, tripping over the telephone wires, as the snow were that thick, only to get to school and find that the water in my bladder was frozen.
I remember vividly the pupils that managed to get to school before they froze solid. They were taken to the boiler room and propped against the wall until they thawed out.
Then after it got to minus 30 degrees we were allowed hot Tomato soup at school dinners, mind you it was so cold that it froze in the plastic beaker (that had been chewed round the edge by some other bugger) before you could drink it.
Cant exactly remember the year either 56 or 58 but they had to cancel Guy Faulks night because it was so cold the flames froze on the bonfire!
Happy days.
Bloody kids today don't know they are born.
Still back to the fishing and the piers.
We had three to fish from, Totland, Fort Victoria and Yarmouth.
I remember as a nipper spending hours with my nose pressed to the planking as we dropped our hand lines between the gaps fishing for Smelt.
We used to go down the Causeway by the Red Lion with a dropnet and get live shrimp then put them in wet rags and cycle along the railway track to Yarmouth or the other piers to fish.
To this day I can remember the smell of that tar soaked wood as we watched the little devils pop up and down chasing the hooks.
I took Nippers ,Nipper to the Causeway last year, with a dropnet.
Nothing, not a shrimp.
I was told that it was because of the fertiliser in the river had killed them all.
it may be true , it may not, but there was nothing there.
Not to be outdone, we went up Yarmouth Pier with some Mackerel skin , but alas owing to health and safety, the gaps between the planks are too small to fish for Smelt.
Having said that, we looked for a while and never saw a single one.
Much the same as when I took the boy out to Brook to get some Mussles on a low spring tide.
Last time I went ,back in the day, you could shovel them up.
We never got a single one!
someone told me it was pollution , someone said it was a virus, but whatever it was it killed all the Mussles.
Now like the shrimp they have gone ,forever.
So in my lifetime, from Welly rash, to I pad, I wonder how many other species have been eradicated that we haven't even noticed.
TOF
