Even today, I have to confess that I’m not as careful as I should be. If your hands get dirty, you have water right in front of you. It seems logical to use this handy facility.Thinking carefully, I don’t know one angler who is scrupulous about the unhealthy link between food, water and bait. Because we were permanently hungry, the usual response was to chase the likely culprit, then scrape out as best you could the offending filling and eat the rest.We knew nothing of Weil’s Disease, though we saw plenty of rats, which cause the lethal illness. It meant that you never put any item of food into your mouth without first checking the contents. I’ve found such delights as a ragworm and a live crab (very crunchy, that one) hiding between two doorstops.The giveaway, of course, was when your mates all stopped talking and watched as you opened your sandwich box.
It seemed that Fenner had thawed out some sardines and used them for pike bait. He had put one on a hook, casted out and tucked into his sandwiches. A health authority spokes- man is quoted as saying: “We believe that Mr Fenner ingested a small amount of the bacteria from his bait, which made him very ill. Baits such as sardines provide ideal conditions for salmonella to live and grow.”This cautionary tale brings back uncomfortable memories of the japes we played as kids. (Sensitive souls should probably skip the next two paragraphs.) One favourite game was to lure away an unsuspecting victim, while others delved into his sandwiches and added an extra filling. And I have to admit that it was a great moment to watch someone bite into their doctored lunch, then see their face change to horror when they discovered that the filling was cheese spiced up with a sliver of dead roach.Goodness knows how we avoided salmonella. If it was someone you didn’t like, this could be something really disgusting like maggots or worms.I’m afraid we discouraged girls from joining our fishing trips by such underhand means Ah, if I knew then what I know now…
If you were one of the gang, you got off lightly with a sprat or finger-smeared bread paste. “At first I didn’t know where it had come from, as I’d eaten the same food as my family for the last few weeks and they weren’t ill,” he said.
His doctor solved the mystery. Personally, I wouldn’t be seen dead in a pair of pink Marigolds (wouldn’t go with my fishing jacket anyway). But according to Angling Times, it’s what any sensible fisher sports to avoid Fenner’s fate. According to the story, Fenner spent 14 days quarantined from family and friends after contracting the potentially lethal disease.
THE fate of Bo Fenner, an Aldershot pike fisherman who is recovering from salmonella poisoning, should sound a note of warning to any angler who doesn’t wear plastic gloves on the river bank. Bear that in mind when it comes to the vote for the Sports Personality of 1998.. This received the ultimate accolade from the Sky producers, who normally cut away to adverts before the umpire’s index finger is even halfway vertical.For Ramprakash, though, they kept the cameras rolling throughout the weary trudge back to the pavilion, meaning that he not only saved the game for England, but picked Rupert Murdoch’s pocket too. You could only admire him for trying, and Holmes deserves some credit too, for managing to resist making the obvious comparison between the Spurs back four and a Swiss cheese.Out on the field of play, meanwhile, the achievement of the week was undoubtedly Mark Ramprakash’s century and a half in Barbados. Fergie took it all in exceptionally good humour, even the deeply embarrassing interruptions of Shane Richie, whose qualifications to take an active part in a sporting debate are about as credible as .. well, a Daz commercial.
Still, his presence did at least show a little imagination on the part of the producers.Most talk shows have an irritating prat in the audience, but here they had one on the panel instead.Less amused by the proceedings was Ramon Vega, who must have drawn a very short straw indeed in the White Hart Lane dressing-room to find himself thrust before a deeply sceptical crowd, attempting to explain the goings- on at Tottenham. Post-match interviews tend to portray him as a sour-faced whinger (unless, of course, United have lost, in which case you probably won’t see him at all). Yet here he was all smiles, and thoughtful, clever and entertaining too – in short, the perfect guest.The questions were not bad either, although it has to be said that most of the best ones arrived from the audience. It was also a little unfair to ask Merson to open the programme trying to look relaxed while standing alone at a bar with a glass of mineral water. This is difficult enough for anyone to carry off but particularly so, you suspect, for him.In the end, though, Inverdale was the one who really deserved better – someone, for example, like Alex Ferguson, who was on the other side later in the week with Holmes and Carling, and doing wonders for his image in the process.