Ron,
No need for apologies:no offence taken. Now if I was as 'long in the tooth' as 'BBB' (Bob 'Breadflake' Buteux)it might be different. But nobody else could possibly be as old all that!!! Moreover, like Graham, I make as least concession to age as he does! Like the current TV ad says - at heart I'm still only seventeen! Though the calendar says different, but surely it can't possibly be 65! I still recall, though, news in the 'comics' of the beginning of your sojourn in Africa. Didn't even know of your return until Ron Chant told me. Oh! and his calendar is exactly the opposite - he's twenty-years older!
No, never fished the Trent. Only know it from old Martin's writings.You say the barbel are bigger today yet Martin mentions the Newark tackle dealer,'poor old Owen' and his journal, which, if my memory doesn't fail me, recorded barbel over 17lb!
AS you probably well know, Ron, Frank Sims was only one of many life-long friends and mentors of the old Trent Otter. On the Trent these included, Thomas Sunman, James Chatterton, Thomas Bentley, Andrew Broughton, George Holland, Owen, Corby and William Bailey. And, later in London where, incidently, he became a trustee of the London Anglers' Association Benefit Fund and a lay preacher, all this in addition to running his tackle business and being a prolific author! JW's counted among his friends:Robert Bright Marston(editor and proprietor of the Fishing Gazzette), author and journalist,Hugh Tempest Sheringham, John Cooper(of the famed taxidermist company),etc, etc, etc.
No, I've never fished with greaves, though 'BBB' has fished with 'bullock's pith and brains'! See! I told you he was ancient!
Regards, Len