Shooting and fishing: Harry was in danger of starting a new fashion in body-piercing jewellery

A Cascade is a very jolly fly, a derivative of the Ally Shrimp, brought to us by Ally Gowans, the great conservationist and salmon angler whose T-Shirt bears the legend ‘I am Ally Gowans’.

Anyway, the modern Cascade sports a few strands of sparkly Lurex, a material I had always imagined was worn only by cyclists or used in the tying of gaudy flies for trout pond fisheries.

Beside the classic sea trout or salmon fly these things are as a shell suit to a well-cut tweed.

Anyway, a little Lurex in the tail of a Cascade does seem to work wonders, as it is catching me fish – and Harry even caught himself. And it was while we were waiting interminably in A&E that I remarked, by way of light banter, that Harry – already deeply self-conscious about the fly in his eye – was in danger of setting a new fashion in body piercing jewellery. Had he shaved his head and acquired an armful of tattoos he would look just the part.

No sooner had the eyelid-catching incident appeared on this page than David Elder, who fishes on the Tyne in East Lothian, was in heartfelt touch on the subject of fleas in-the-ear.

He had been fishing on a windier than expected day, which always upsets things, and his Size 10 Butcher fly whipped round and ended up in his right ear. “When I came into the living room my son burst out laughing and asked if I was starting a new fashion in earrings”.

He very bravely slept on it rather than go to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary A&E or allow his son to operate and the doctor, unlike in Harry’s case, returned the fly intact – not as a souvenir but because he thought David might perhaps want to use it again; which I call thoroughly professional and a credit to the NHS.

And the doctor wasn’t even a fisherman.

Since then I have been reminded by a still smarting woman on holiday with us, of the night she caught herself sea trout fishing in the dark and had to be taken to the local hospital by her husband, who wouldn’t come in because he can’t bear the sight of blood. (Not her blood – it was a Saturday night in A&E).

Far from being greeted with “Are you alright darling?” when she emerged three hours later, he rather grumpily asked for the fly: “It was one of my favourites.” And do you know she actually went back into the hospital and got it. Greater love hath no woman etc.