Len Jones
Cymru am Byth
I enjoy Sea Fishing!
I often re-visit Wales, especially to go down to Carmarthen Bay, where I have had some good catches of Bass (one of my favourite adversaries) Turbot, Flounder, Dabs, Dogfish, Bull Huss, Smoothhounds, Cod, Whiting, Thornback Ray, Small-eyed Ray, Tope and of course Eels. I've also been out on boats from Porthcawl, Swansea, Barry, Penarth, Tenby and Burry Port. I have fished on Cefn Sidan beach, but you have to dodge the dopey sand- yachters who seem to think they own the whole beach.
I prefer to use peeler crab as bait when fishing from the shore, but have used lug, or ragworm. I have spent many a happy hour on Burry Port pier hauling out some good catches. My children when they were younger, used to accompany me. My daughters in particular were expert at catching peeler crab. I met many good people there and made some very good friends.
One such was a local man, Haydn Morgan, who has since become a Fisheries Officer. He taught me much about the Burry Inlet and the safest way to navigate that very treacherous water. His skill at catching Bass was invaluable too and I picked up several hints, enabling me to increase my catches.
I have also fished at Goldcliff, and even just below the Transporter Bridge in Newport. I have fished at Trecco Bay and Coney Beach, as well as Pink Bay in Porthcawl, and had the odd stint on Porthcawl's Pier. At Pink Bay, you have the problem of surfers who will deliberately perform their inane antics immediately in front of you, in fact I have seen them ignore a deserted and very long stretch of beach and actually target the area where your line is out. Now either they are completely stupid, or ignorant - but either way, they are a pain in the backside.
I do occasionally fish in Southend in Essex, and have spent some very enjoyable days (and nights) fishing on Southend Pier, which at a mile and two thirds long, is the longest pier in the world. Again, I made some very good friends, such as Joe Lewis, Bill Wakeford and John Bull (this WAS his real name) who sadly passed away about 1984. John was always a bit of a laugh, he was ever ready with the odd quip, and always cracking jokes. We missed him on our subsequent outings. Bill was the one who earned the title "Golden B*****ks", as he was always able to outfish us all. On days when we thought that there were no fish left in the sea, Bill would be the one to show that they were down there somewhere. Try as we might, he would almost always land a lot more than everyone else, thus earning his his title tear after year. The club even named a couple of trophies after him, one bearing the "Golden B*****ks" title. There is still fierce competition for this trophy at Royal Terrace. Sadly both Bill and Joe passed away in 2008.
I have fished at numerous venues in Essex and Suffolk, but I have also fished out of Folkestone, where I have had some of my best catches of Cod and Whiting. I have fished all along the south coast, both from the shore and out on a boat, with mixed results.
I will devote a page or two exclusively to fishing, and some VERY funny anecdotes attached to it, at a later date.
And I really enjoy Toxophilly (Archery).
I took up archery in 1995 after almost a lifetime of avoiding it. When I was a young boy I would occasionally visit a cousin of my mother who was a member of Gwent Bowmen. They used to shoot at a ground which was near the eastern entrance to Brynglas Tunnels. They now shoot in Croesyceiliog. He was (is) a very clever man who made wonderful marquetry pictures. These pictures are constructed out of small slivers of wood, and would involve a lot of very tedious fiddling about to cut them into shape and stick them together to form a picture. He was seemingly forever purchasing new archery equipment, as every time I visited, there would be the latest bow. I recall the time he produced the new steel bow, which he promptly thrust into my young hands and said to me "see if you can draw that". Well I was only about nine or ten, and the bow felt very "strong " for me to "pull back". Godfrey (or "Goff" as he is known), Jordan was Welsh Archery Champion on at least two occasions in the 1950's, and I was ever in awe of him. He would encourage me to get into archery on every visit, but I never really got around to it.
Over the years I played, as everyone does, with the homemade variety of bow and arrows, but that still led to nothing. I left Newport in 1969, to live in South East England and got married and had a family. During this time we would visit various "Craft Fairs" and so forth, and we would see archery sites, at which I would have a go. This was a little different to the archery stalls in Barry Island or Porthcawl funfairs. I eventually found a local club in the early 1970's, and went along hoping to learn the sport properly. However, this club was poorly formed and was totally unreliable. I would turn up, but there would be no-one there. This happened on several occasions, resulting in my giving up.
I still went to the Craft Fairs with my wife and still had "go's" at archery, but still it led to nothing until changing our holiday destination in 1992 led to the discovery that the Haven Holiday Village in Carmarthen Bay laid on archery lessons on two days a week. The coach, Doug Anderson and his daughter Debbie (also a coach) taught the assembled holidaymakers (including me) the safety rules, and got us set up on the line. I must admit that I thoroughly enjoyed that session, despite sporting a massive bruise occasioned by the string when loosed, hitting my forearm. Two days later I was back. Doug and Debbie gave me encouragement and told me that I should take the sport up.
This was the pattern for the next couple of years, with nothing coming of it. Then in 1995, I met two guys through my interest in pub quiz nights, one of whom had seen my article in Mensa Magazine asking other members to join me. Paul Jones (no - not my son Paul) and Steve Bennett came along and we had a very good if not profitable evening. Several weeks passed, and then in April they announced that they may not be in the next week as they were going to archery lessons. I told them of my interest and joined them the following week, signing up for the six weeks beginners course. The club was Maidenhead Flexello Bowmen, and we stayed there for a year. Paul and I moved on to West Windsor Archers and found that there was a wider scope for improvement. This resulted in Paul and I winning several trophies over the following couple of years.
In 1998 I had a disagreement with the club and left to later join the ailing Windsor Forest Bowmen which was down to it's last few members. I reached an agreement with the then "Committee" of two to resurrect this near-dead club. I grasped the bull by the horns and set about rebuilding the club. Within six months I turned it round with a membership numbering around fifty. I steadily maintained this level over the next two and a half years, during which time I trained, and qualified as a coach, as did my friend Steve Bennett. Following a difference of opinion at Windsor Forest Bowmen, I left with a couple of friends, and we formed South Bucks Archers. We had a range at Iver Heath in Buckinghamshire, just around the corner from Pinewood Studios, but due to the expense, we relocated into Slough in the grounds of a school, where the annual rent was a lot lower. The club was opened in early May 2002, and now in May 2004, the membership stands at over 40.
In 2007 a bad element reared it's ugly head and conspired against me to force me out of the club. The lies and innuendo concocted was made worse by the fact that they made false allegations to GNAS in early 2008 and these trouble-makers tried everything to ruin my coaching credibility. This was because after ousting me from the club, I immediately formed a new club nearby, taking over half the membership with me, leaving just the slime-balls and a few misguided newcomers. They had even convinced the people that had only recently joined having been trained by me. Talk about brain-washing! The new club, Slough & Burnham Archers, has already eclipsed that one with a constantly growing membership.
I have made a couple of TV appearances as a result of my archery interests. One occasion was for a programme dealing with horoscopes. Yes - I was the "Sagittarius" bit. It took a couple of freezing and wet hours filming it in April in The Home Park, Windsor, with Windsor Castle in the background, but the actual clip that was screened, was about one second in duration. It was repeated throughout the programme among images depicting all the other 11 zodiacal signs, before and after the commercial breaks, but blink and you miss it. The most recent was filmed at Chenies Manor, in November 2002, and yes, the weather was freezing again. In this one, for a programme called "Meet the Folks", I had to coach this young couple in the basics of archery. We didn't rehearse any of it, it was all done in one take, after the angles were worked out for the introduction. A few seconds were shot but they weren't happy with angles of the three cameras, so we restarted and that was it. It was aired last year (2003) and thankfully it was broadcast after midnight. It was quite embarrassing really, but only a handful of people actually saw it (I think), but it could have been worse. The latest association with the media was on 12th May 2004, when I was involved in filming with Alan Titchmarsh for the BBC series, "Great Britain a Natural History ", in Windsor Great Park. He was a natural with a bow and arrow however and that made my job a whole lot easier. I found him to be a very nice guy, very 'down-to-earth' and in one of the photographs I took, he was that for sure as he got close up to a cow pat and was looking at dung beetles. Later that year I was involved in an episode of "Midsomer Murders" and met John Nettles and Philip McGough among others. The episode was called "The Bantling Boy". My involvement was to shoot a couple of arrows at a target and get one in the Red at about '1 o'clock' and the other had to miss. On screen you see the young boy shoot an arrow from the bow, and Philip McGough trying to help him, and the next arrow misses, to which the boy threw a wobbly and told Philip McGough "Go fetch". Barnaby looks around as the second arrow landed not far from where he was walking. Naturally, he was nowhere near that area when I shot the arrow. This was filmed at Dorney Court, near Slough.
Newport City - Dinas Casnewydd
Newport City Jazz & Swing Band
©Len Jones 2017