Telling Stories
MY PRECIOUS Savs I was driving into the setting sun in an unfamiliar city and the steady stream of incoming messages to my phone was playing havoc with my ability to follow the GPS. “Yi-sus” said my colleague in the passenger seat in his Bloemfontein accent so thick that it sounds like a parody of the real thing, “someone love you stukkend today neh?” We pulled into the car park and I checked the messages. Kehla, in Canada, was messaging me to tell me that he’d found me a rare Hardy Neroda ‘Kenya’ fly box that he thought, in an uncharacteristic display of sentimentality that left me slightly wary, would be perfect for me. It was apparently mislabeled on eBay and had gone unnoticed by the usual horde of punters. The reserve was low and the auction closed in a few hours. An easy peasy score, to paraphrase him somewhat. “I’m on my way to entertain clients over dinner”, I shot back, “I don’t have the time for this” and I muted my phone. Let’s just make one thing clear, I’m not above throwing a week or two’s wages at an item that catches my eye and I have a drawer full of mostly expensive, but altogether useless, knickknacks as evidence of this. With my phone vibrating incessantly in my pocket and my curiosity piqued I excused myself after a socially appropriate period and nipped into a toilet stall to check it. Between anguished appeals for my immediate and undivided attention was a description of a similar item from the original catalogue and an excerpt from a magazine article on the boxes. The short and somewhat generalised version of their history is that Hardy made, or should I say commissioned, the boxes directly from Bakelite to replace their tin boxes as they had issues with the durability of the Japanned finish. The early boxes, of which is was one, are some of the first items to made from what was in its time a revolutionary product.
www.saflyfishingmag.co.za
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