Radio
What a whopper
Michael Vestey
Ididn't listen to the radio much last week as I spent every day salmon fishing on the Tay. I went to Scotland with the best intentions, taking a radio with me, but it seemed absurd to lug it down to the fishing huts, disturbing the majestic peace of this marvellous river as well as being rude to others in our party who were anxious to discuss the fish we hadn't caught.
Not only absurd but sacrilegious. No, I couldn't do it to the wondrous Tay. And what would the gillies say? Who is this mad Sassenach who insists on listening to the Afternoon Play or Woman's Hour in the boat in the middle of the river right by the deep pool that might contain a fish? `Awae wi ye, sarrah!' they might have said. So, sod the radio, I thought blithely as I vainly cast into a hailstorm on the bottom beat whilst scanning the silvery ripples for the slightest splash that might indicate the presence of my prey.
Trying to land the worms or the minnow or the floating Devon, a prawn lookalike since the prawn was banned, in the right pool and striving to avoid snagging the bait on a rock was difficult enough in gale-force winds without trying to absorb a radio pro- gramme at the same time. And after a days fishing we and the gillies had to down a few drams to round off our endeavours. What would they have thought if I had switched on Radio Three or Four or had listened to the BBC tapes I had forgotten to bring with me? It might have driven them to join the SNP.
As it happens, after two years of trying I caught my first salmon, a 9-lb beauty that is now being smoked. I have to say it was one of the most thrilling moments of my life. It happened on the last morning when none of us had caught anything. Just as I was thinking that there weren't any in the river, that they'd been captured in the drift-nets out in the North Sea and elsewhere that have so blighted salmon fishing, it took my worm, just when I was least expecting it. With my heart thumping and my right hand gripping the rod so hard it looked as if rigor mortis had set in, I followed the care- ful instructions of Geordie, one of the three glides, and managed to reel it in to the landing net. Geordie bloodied my fore- head and I wore the stain throughout the day. Geordie had asked me if I wanted to have it tagged and thrown back under new conservation guidelines but I would rather have thrown myself into the watery black- ness than my first salmon.
Finally emerging from the trance engen- dered by this experience and returning home last weekend, I suddenly remem- bered I was supposed to be a radio critic. There had not been much to listen to, I thought, on the long drive back on Satur- day but Feedback, the Radio Four listeners' complaints programme (the Sunday repeat), reminded me of an item on the same network's Broadcasting House I had heard on our drive to Scotland the previous Sunday morning.
The programme had sent one of its reporters, Tim Maby, to Clarence House, the Queen Mother's residence, that morn- ing to report on the scene outside. It was meant to be, according to the programme's editor, Kevin Marsh, on Feedback, more of a satirical item directed at the public con- troversy over the BBC's coverage, or the pathetic lack of it (my view) of the Queen Mother's birthday pageant. 1 recalled thinking what boring, silly tripe it was and somewhere on the M40 heading north I had switched it off.
Anyway, some listeners complained to Feedback about what they regarded as a childish and unfunny item juxtaposed with the news of a bandit's bomb necklace which had blown the head off a woman in Columbia who had refused to pay a ran- som. Although Marsh made a good fist of trying to explain that Broadcasting House was an experimental programme that tried to do new things, the fact was the Queen Mother item completely failed to come off. Maby began his piece with the words, 'You join me at a time .. . when there is abso- lutely no sign of movement from Clarence House and there hasn't been in the hour I've been here ..
I don't blame Maby; he was probably the duty reporter who was told by some silly producer what a wonderful wheeze it would be to do a send-up of the fuss about the coverage of the Queen Mother's birth- day, and had to go down to the Mall and produce something, a tall order when the Queen Mother wasn't even in residence. It's a great pity that there is only the excel- lent Andrew Neil on Radio Five Live on Sunday mornings to offer proper news and current affairs. Radio Four has come up with Broadcasting House at 9 a.m. and although it has improved it can still sound something of a dog's breakfast. When I lis- tened to last Sunday's edition it made me wish I'd stayed another week on the Tay.
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