Winning the lottery - a chance to dream

Well what would you do if you won £35m on the lottery? In my case its academic since I don’t do it, never have done. But that doesn’t prevent me from playing the game of “what if?” I’m sure I’m not alone.

I suppose the first question to ask is, who to tell? It must be difficult suppressing that kind of news. After all, you may say, what’s the point of being filthy rich if no-one knows? The point is that this will be your only opportunity to stay as you are relative to others after the event. It’s no good telling everyone and then saying that it won’t change you. It already has in the eyes of others.

The eyes of others matter. To what extent are you your own man or woman? And to what extent is your identity shaped by the perceptions of others? After all, you will not be delivering the eulogy at your funeral. Someone else will. The famous are shaped by events. For history they are shaped by their obituaries and their biographies.

I wouldn’t tell a soul beyond my wife, at least for the first 24-hours. The news would be treated with the same kind of secrecy expected of those who are informed of a pending knighthood. I wouldn’t even tell the children.

Suppose the lottery owners - and I don’t know whether they do this or not – offered various services or incentives in return for publicity? The front page “advertisements” like those enjoyed by Camelot this week are worth hundreds of thousands of pounds as revenue generators in the way that they inject renewed interest into this business of hope.

It would need to be a big incentive to win my co-operation. No, I would go for privacy first and the “do nothing” option until the implications began to sink in. Then I would start to worry. I’d worry about how to ensure my boys retained a work ethic when they did not need to work. I might even worry about the work ethic itself: what’s the point of it? But I do that already almost all the time. That’s why I spent a year writing this book.

I don’t need to worry about helping immediate members of the family since they are all pretty well off. We don’t need any new material things. We could do with a new oven although we manage pretty well with the one we have (that’s what we say of just about everything we think we need).

Would I give up writing my column in the FT? Not sure. I certainly wouldn’t give up writing this blog. In terms of spending I would probably look at the possibility of buying a salmon fishing beat in Scotland, somewhere on the Dee, both banks. That would eat up a few million. Either that or I would try to increase the number of beat rentals I had.

Yes, the fishing beat sounds a good idea. I would live nearby and maintain a good hut by the water. I’d offer the ghillie’s job to a friend. I have one in mind. But would he accept? Not everything about ghillieing is glamorous.

Beyond the tweeds and the river lore there’s the need to clean out the chemical toilets every week. I’d offer to split that job with him. I reckon that if you’re £35m to the better it’s probably a good idea to retain a few lavatory cleaning duties, just to keep your feet on the ground.

I would write a book about fishing, in the spirit of Charles Ritz who wrote A Fly Fisher’s Life. The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that devoting the rest of one’s life to fishing is not a bad way to deal with a big lottery win. I’m sort of heading that way anyway, without a lottery win behind me. As my mother used to say, there’s more than one way of skinning a cat.

Should I give anything away to charity? Probably; although it would have to be one that’s well run. I think that the rich do pretty well with charities so I would be interested in supporting maybe something like the Prince’s Trust. I was also attracted recently to Sir Tom Hunter’s foundation. It’s significant, perhaps, that Warren Buffet has given many of his millions to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Buffet is only interested in investing in well-run organisations.

Would I give anything to Earthwatch, the charity I support chiefly with my time as a trustee? I’d give them something to fund a pet project that’s been up my sleeve for a while, possibly asking them to partner with the Royal Society for the Arts, another of my favourite organisations.

I suppose media recognition is not such a bad thing if you use it sensibly to highlight a cause. I want to do more than I’m doing just now to highlight the plight of the oceans and to curb exploitation and waste through by-catches in commercial fishing. But I can do that by writing about it. I have the wherewithal at my fingertips, literally, to influence this stuff, so why waste time pondering over lottery wins when it’s not going to happen to me? No point dreaming, there’s work to be done.

A licence to fish

The UK Government plans to licence sea angling. What next? Hill walking? Picnicking? Breathing? The licence money would be used partly to manage fishing facilities and partly to fund the administration of the licence.

What facilities do you need to fish? You need water and you need somewhere to stand with your rod. The beach has proved useful for this in the past.

Another useful ingredient is fish but the licence will not be able to help in that respect because this and many other governments are doing too little to impose stricter limits on commercial fishing with nets at sea.

I would argue that hill walking causes far more more environmental damage than angling yet the government has no plans to licence walking. Perhaps it would if it thought it could get away with it. Some licences such as the annual game licence issued for shooters are a waste of time and effort.

I have no great faith in the ability of governments to manage our resources and would far rather invest my disposable income in other organisations devoted to conservation. In the meantime the government can't even manage its existing licences. I applied for my freshwater rod licence online two weeks ago and I 'm still waiting for it to arrive.

Meanwhile I'm getting ready for another trip to Scotland where you do not need a rod licence to fish. On the Tay last week I nearly fell out of my waders when I hooked a salmon in the first 10 minutes. It was nearly at the net when it shed the hook. Later in the week I caught a 7lb fish. Not the whopper of my dreams, but a fish nonetheless. For those interested in these things, both fish took a Black Frances. I'm hoping for better things on the Dee next week.

For returning my fish the Tay ghillies gave me a sweat shirt with the words "Saving Tay Salmon" on the front. I think they should add some words to the back: "I caught a salmon on the Tay and all they gave me was this lousy sweat shirt!" Just joking. I will treasure my shirt. It's a rare item. Incidentally, you get a bottle of malt for returning a fish on the Dee. But I wouldn't swap my shirt for anything.

Flies for Scotland - spring salmon fishing

Did I say I was going to Scotland? Here's a prediction: I will fish all week and catch nothing. The Upper Scone beat of the Tay is pretty reliable in that respect at this time of the year. It doesn't hold many fish. They're all speeding upstream. You can see the catches here. Not a big total so far on the Tay. But that's how it's been on a river these past few years where the riparian owners moved too slowly to introduce conservation measures. It was the ghillies who instigated the hatchery, not the owners.

If a fish is caught in the week it will most probably come from the boat or from a spinner. I expect I will be the only one thrashing away with the fly. Mostly I'll just work on my casting but I think I'll work quite a bit with a sunk line rather than a floating line with a sink tip.

I had wanted to tie up some tungsten flies but the tungsten heads hadn't arrived before leaving. If I have time I might try to make a drowned mouse. This is a fly invented by the late Francis T Grant who wrote an excellent book called Salmon Flyfishing, The Dynamics Approach. Key to the fly is a red tail, not because of its colour, but because it helps the fly sit horizontally in the stream while imparting movement. It is not so very different in style from a cascade tube or a Willie Gunn tube apart from the tail.

Here's a list of flies I'm taking to the Tay and then to the Dee two weeks later:

Cascade Tube (good colours)
Pot belly pig (good for movement in the bristles)
Black and red frances (Icelandic mainstays, for origins read this)
Snaelda (ugly weighted black thing used in Iceland)
Various tubes (Willie Gunn etc)

All of these are weighted. Unless the water warms up dramatically I'm going to try fishing quite deep, at least the first week. That is the method that paid off most often when I used to fish a "broon and gold" devon spinner. The Tay is a big river. It's not possible to wade far out in the spring and it's impossible to cover the water that is covered by a harled Kynoch lure that's in the water constantly. I'm getting my excuses in early.

I'm sticking a 20lb leader on as well. There have been a few big fish recently. My only concession to spinning will be to try out some of John Gray's Spinheads with the fly rod. He assures me that they do not twist the line to any degree.

I shall also, now and again, sit in the boat with the ghillie and chew the fat and if my rod bends I'll play the fish and enjoy it. The Tay has a first fish back voluntary code. I'll go along with that if it happens, although it's a long time since I took a fish so, if I'm lucky enough to get two, the second one might get knocked on the head, unless it's a beast in which case I'll put it back to make more beasts. There I go - two fish in mind already and one of 'ems a monster. Dream on. This is the lower Tay in April. It's not going to happen.

A bit worrying this morning when I took my salmon rod out of the bag where it spent the winter. It's looking pretty beat up, a bit like its owner. I hope it lasts.