Subject:
Yemen salmon
Tom,
As you know the Yemen salmon project has received semiofficial support from the Foreign Office and from Number 10. You may be aware one of my colleagues has scoped the project following some guidance from me. He has now asked me to explore with the Environment Agency how best to procure live salmon for the project.
Please consider this correspondence at this stage as informal and off the record, but we are preparing a request for the agency to supply us with 10,000 live Atlantic salmon, for shipment to the Yemen some time next year (dates to be agreed).
Of course it is up to the agency to say how best this might be achieved, but I would have thought-if you don’t mind a suggestion from an old friend!-that you might consider netting an agreed percentage of the average salmon run from a number of the main English and Welsh rivers and transporting them to a collection centre we would set up for this specific purpose with specially designed holding tanks.
That way no one river would lose a significant proportion of its total catch, and I am sure most of the angling community would be delighted to contribute to such an innovative and groundbreaking project.
Of course I am contacting the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, the Scottish river boards and the Tweed Commissioners with a similar request. A meeting may be necessary to decide how many salmon are harvested from each river.
Yours ever,
David
From:
Date:
1 September
To:
Subject:
Re: Yemen salmon
David,
I cannot think of a less acceptable request than the one you made to me in your last email. Have you any idea what an outcry there would be within the angling community and amongst the owners of fisheries in England and Wales, let alone amongst my own colleagues, if you formally approached me along the lines you suggest? King Herod, when he suggested that the firstborn of every family in Palestine might be killed, could be regarded as launching a charm offensive, compared to NCFE’s proposal. You can have no idea of the depths of emotion felt by fishing clubs and anglers generally (let alone my colleagues in Fisheries) about the salmon run in their rivers, for which they feel a stronger attachment than I often think they do for their own children. My life would not be worth living if this proposal of yours ever became public, not that I would for a minute contemplate stripping English rivers of native salmon so that they could be shipped to a Middle Eastern desert. You may recall that the mandate of this agency, and my department, is to protect the environment, and to conserve our fish stocks, not export them. I really cannot imagine anyone here at any level accepting such a request unless it was backed by an act of Parliament, and even then we’d probably all resign on the spot.
How on earth have you allowed yourself to become entangled in this affair?
Tom
From:
Date:
2 September
To:
Subject:
Re: Re: Yemen salmon
Tom,
I was disappointed by your reply to my last email, which I though was a trifle flippant and even irrational, if you don’t mind me saying so. Perhaps you may have got the matter into perspective by now. Ten thousand salmon is not that many to sacrifice for a cause supported by the prime minister and will do so much good for international relations. The loss of these fish can easily be replaced by production from one of your hatcheries.
I repeat, to ensure you get my point,
David
From:
Date:
2 September
To:
Subject:
(no subject)
David,
Then the prime minister had better send a couple of regiments as well, if he wants our salmon. In either case, over my dead body.
Tom
13
3 September
When I returned to Glen Tulloch this morning it was raining. As we arrived, the sky was grey and claustrophobic. The mist was coming in, the drizzle constantly pattering against the windows. It was so dark. In the house today the lights were on all the time, even in the middle of the day. And I was still upset, since Mary had gone to Switzerland. I felt a sense of desolation I had never before known. I remembered that old song, ‘Raining in My Heart’. That’s how I felt today, that it was raining in my heart.
It had been arranged a few days ago that I would accompany Peter Maxwell on a visit to Glen Tulloch to meet Sheikh Muhammad, as Mr Maxwell had requested. We flew up to Inverness and were driven to Glen Tulloch to meet the sheikh, and of course the sheikh wasn’t there. He had been delayed in Sana’a or missed his connection in Riyadh, or something. I spent a long time looking out of the windows as we stood around, waiting for the sheikh to return. Outside, on the soft green lawn, glistening in the fine drizzle that fell steadily from the lowering sky, stood a dozen or more Yemeni tribesmen in flowing white robes and bright emerald turbans. Each had a fifteen-foot salmon rod in his hand and, as I watched, was being drilled by the gillie, Colin McPherson, in the art of casting out a line. It looked as if they were being instructed in the double Spey. There was much laughter among the men as yards of line wound themselves in every direction around their legs and arms and necks. One man seemed in imminent danger of being strangled. Colin watched with an expression changing from dour to thunderous. Through the glass I could see him mouthing instructions, but could not hear the words. One of the Yemenis must have been translating for him. I found myself wondering how easy a task that was. What was the Arabic for ‘Drag the fly across the water’?
