Laurel had Hardy,Morecombe had Wise...er..Keith Harris had Orville,all trusty sidekicks.I have been angling for more years than I care to remember.Rods,reels,even fishing methods have come and gone.The people I fished with have come in and out of my life.Pastures new arrive and I find myself on different venues,all in the pursuit of that 'special' capture.Like the seasons of the year,this pastime of ours changes gradually day by day.
However,throughout all of this,there has been one ever-present,my kettle Steve.There have of course been pretenders,he has a rival,Kelly.
Why Steve? Well it started off many years back when Nottingham Forest had a somewhat mediocre player named Steve Chettle,his name lent itself grandly to 'Mockney' rhyming slang for 'kettle'..the rest is history.
He carries many a scar from past battles,not least, the time when he was knocked clean off the stove by a cracked-off 4oz lead that arrived briskly from the other side of the lake! There was also the time that he was washed out of the bivvy by a torrent of water following a massive Summertime electrical storm and was retrieved sometime later 30 feet away.
He's old,battered and bruised (since this photo was taken he has lost his whistle),he even dribbles a bit, but even though I have been lured by the delights of Stainless Steel,Gunmetal Grey etc.,he's going nowhere.
Raise a grubby tin or thermal mug to my mate Steve.
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