A Fishing Rod for Brian • Bridlington 1954

A fishing rod for Brian… wow, of course! A definite must!

He’d been banging on… can I, can I, can I mam…aw… just

like a broken record. So he got one - just because he fussed!

So the mantra switched… "When, when, Mam, when can we go?"

My mam and dad, always busy in the shop, so they didn’t know.

And me dad, he'd never been fishing in his life though.

His own dad had died when he was twelve - so no

he’d not been shown the ropes: but how hard could it be?…So

":OK, we’ll go down to the pier or the harbour in Brid.

Anything to shut him up." And me? Well I wanted to go and so - we all did!

We’re off in our Austin 10… “Are we nearly there yet dad - are we nearly there?

Bait, bait, we need some bait where will we get that? Where?”

“Shut up, sit down, button your coat up and I will get you there. 

There’ll be a shop a bait shop - AND I, I will bait the hook!”

You, pain in the arse, don’t touch anything - all you CAN do is look!"

We parked, got to the pier, unpacked our stuff - just as it began to rain.

my brother was still whingeing, my dad was seething… Brian was being a pain.

The wind blew - horizontal rain. The worm fell off the hook. Dad, annoyed, put it on again.

“Can I do it Dad?” “NO!” This was the moment, the one that we all hoped would be…

the next best thing to catching a fish… The cast! 

When my old man threw the whole effin' lot in the sea!