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SPORTS ACTIVE: Fishing lines - Believe me, women are a Mini disaster

Independent on Sunday, The, Mar 20, 2005 by Keith Elliott

Never let a woman choose your raffle prize. When my book gets published (won't be long now), I've decided that it will have a foreword carrying wise advice for fishermen. I'll let you know a few of the others as I think of them. But the raffle warning is sure to make the top 10, after my night at the Houses of Parliament with the likes of Geoffrey Palmer, Esther Rantzen and Bernard Cribbins.

"I hate name-droppers," I once remember Noel Coward telling me but there's a very good reason here. I don't eat in the Lords dining room much. Too far to travel for lunch, those Johnny-come-lately Labour peers always grab the window seats, and the wine waiter can never remember whether it's the '86 or '88 Puisseguin St Emilion that goes best with chips. But I make an exception for the Second Chance dinner.

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This charity works with young people from deprived backgrounds, often with learning difficulties and behavioural problems. It takes them fishing, and has found that this produces spectacular results in helping them talk through and deal with some of the difficulties they face.

It's not a sexy charity. It's been turned down 17 times for Lottery funding. Not enough people from ethnic backgrounds, not enough girls, not enough involvement from the children in running the charity. But when you hear children talk about how the charity has rescued them, eating at Parliament seems a small price to pay. To raise money at the dinner, there's an auction for some rather nice fishing on rivers such as the Test, and a raffle, one where you sign your name on a pounds 20 note and forget about it. Except I don't any more.

I'm very lucky at these sort of things. A few years ago, at an industry dinner, I won a top-of-the-range Apple Mac iBook loaded with software. It was worth more than pounds 4,000, but I never saw it. My wife collected it, fell in love and never let me near it. She now volunteers to collect any prizes, and cunningly seats herself so she can rush to the stage while I'm still struggling out of my seat.

There were lots of prizes here. Our two pounds 20 notes both came up. One yielded a Versace umbrella, while the other brought, not a fishing rod or even a box of hand-tied flies, but a set of designer make-up bags. Just what I wanted.

I was feeling very grouchy about all this ("It was my money," that sort of thing) when one of our guests told a story that stopped me grumbling. (He's my dentist and a keen fisherman, so I know it's true.) He was at a sprauncy dinner and his ticket was the first out of the hat. His wife went up to take first pick of the prizes, and came back with a huge basket of fruit, loaded with everything from guavas to peaches.

She looked delighted. So did the next person to go up, who took the prize that she had ignored. A new Mini. "It was a very nice basket of fruit," she explained.

SPORTS ACTIVE: Fishing lines - Believe me, women are a Mini disaster

Independent on Sunday, The, Mar 20, 2005 by Keith Elliott

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