Jersey

Drifting in like shadowy de-mentors that abruptly turned into dreadful tor-mentors. How they threw me with their bad cop/ bad cop routine, that wasn’t expected, that was never in any script.

I’ll skip by the memory of the interrogation as the wind outside howled like a banshee across the carpark bending trees to near breaking point. “ WHAT is a casting stroke!!”…What is the Hierarchy of casting?...WHAT is it? .. come on!”….

The creeping insidious brain fog filling my head as I couldn’t remember this anywhere from the FFI notes. And that strange sound, that I realise was a whimpering answer that had escaped from deep inside my broken soul. ”I don’t know what you want me to say anymore…. Just tell me what it is?”

( …and I prayed. I prayed “please find me a hole to crawl into so I can find sanctuary at last from this torment, snuggled into the lovingly cold arms of death”).

I do try to find the words and fail, to describe that expression emanating back at me from those slowly shaken, disapproving heads….as I stumbled over explaining a definition of linear translation that seemed to appal them equally. But I’ll have a go at it now for you.

Imagine they, Bill and Ben, had been dying for a pee, I mean really old painful prostrate, dying for a pee.

And, passing a lovely little wood, stumbled in hurriedly for some privacy and a much needed piddle. Then, while enjoying sweet relief; that uplifting; glorious; bliss-inducing respite. Their faces then transform upon gaining a somewhat new, and unwelcome strange sensation. The dawning realisation that they had chosen, in the desperate rush, to stand waste deep in a stinging nettle patch, and that ever so tender and vulnerable wrinkled bare flesh had connected with a myriad of venomous tiny needles.  

That was the expression, and I was that nettle plant.

A complex look that both reflects the overwhelming disappointment, recognition that the pain and irritation will only increase, and then the fearful apprehension that the coming torture and torment would likely be ceaseless and all-consuming.

And it was I, who was the lowly serpent that blighted them with this misery.

 I’ll skip the afternoon casting session on the field and any excuse of a 30 mph+ wind, the short lived pride that somehow I managed to get the first loop up pretty good and how my confidence returned briefly, after its morning battering.

Next exercise muttered Ben; “Right two false casts then send through a tailing loop.”

And through it went, sped up with a 30 mph back draft, but  still a ‘text-book tail’!

“That’s not it! “ ….”What?!!”… “No tail,, did you see a tail Bill ?”... “No Ben” … “No tail, then do it again”.

OK I decide instead of the slow stroke and then power spike, to go the creep and then shortened stroke and arc route. The wind gusts it out a little, but bless it. The fly leg dips under and back up and races along on the breeze.

“No tail .. nothing”… “Do you actually know how to make a tailing loop ( you worm)?”  “FAIL”

I’ll skip the crushed soul and the rest of the atrocity exhibition that I presented to these enigmatic ghouls over the next few windswept hours. The final distance cast that I got out with sheer will and desperation to get this over with.

I won’t go there….. my therapist warns me it’s not a healthy place to visit on my present medication, and not without strict clinical supervision and a lot more work.

I will however mention that brutal though my mock exam was.. I knew now whatever happened on the day would not and could never be that bad, nor would I be. And it was a great kick up the bum. Impelling me into final preparations and where to prioritize my focus. And not take anything for granted… the casts that were my home bankers, equally deserted me under pressure too.

And in the weeks that followed it dawned on me that in this new chapter of my casting life, that eventually getting on that field at last for the real exam, would only be the final paragraph,; a sentence. Whatever happened  when the examiner finally spoke was pretty minor and inconsequentialcompared to the experience and value of the preparation and journey there.

Even that brief paragraph in Jersey couldn’t cloud the progress and understanding I had gained. ( and Bill and Ben were awfully nice about it afterwards, why they even let me buy them a coffee and a croissant!).

How much I had learned from Mr Gently Benevolent the value of short concentrated practice sessions, breaking down the casts into elements to be repeated in sets of perfect tens. Dropping the cast with each mistake and picking up again to get ten out of ten. Then repeat for another ten out of ten.

How short daily study periods and crib cards meant that things I had read before and barely remembered, like those 5 essentials. I now understood and recognised more fully their implications. That the truth of what my arms and body had just done with a fly rod in my hands was written in the fly leg and when I saw that particular curve come through, I knew exactly which of my former bad habits I had slipped back into, and how to correct it on the next false cast. I realise for many that’s normal service, but for me it was, and is, a revelation, and a level of attainment, I’d always wished for.

I was still working, so, I was grabbing practice when I could. A two hour drive to London would start with 20 mins of drills on the field. This brought in another type of dog walker, who really had no intention of approaching me. Young Mums, who just having gone through the morning madness of home, had dropped kids off at school were now exercising pongo while savouring a much sort after peaceful moment. It was a different atmosphere, the last thing they wanted was interaction with some nutjob with a fly rod on a working day, in a field.

And there was a creeping panic that it was time now to address the “teaching plans” part of the exam. And with casting practice, to start looking at addressing the whole casting exam in order, which meant longer practice sessions were needed and more time nicked from somewhere.

I was sure I had the knowledge in the FFI study guide learned backwards ready for the written exam, and some ideas about the teaching plans, But what came off the page was cold, sterile and lacked any personality. My eyes glazed over just reading it, somebody speaking it would have had me comatose.

Being from a drama school background I wanted to improvise these mock lessons aloud, hone down the words, and then learn them like I would a script, repeating the scenes aloud until they were perfect in my memory, and any side questions,or tension, would not throw me off those key contents that I needed to cover.

I realised to do this I would need to talk aloud repeatedly and often.

Every drive I did, the car became a rehearsal space…I guess people thought I was on the hands free. One drive back from London I could barely remember any feature of the 90 miles covered… nor what I was doing in any of the restricted speed zones and speed cameras. It was late, the roads quiet, there was no flow to restrict me, and I spent days expecting a speeding notice to drop through the door and potentially a driving ban. I needed another solution. 

I couldn’t do this prep in my own hustle bustle small town community where people knew me, and the gossip would grow, I needed sanctuary and isolation. So I booked a cottage in the Lake District for a week, this would also be just a few hours of scenic drive to  Bellingham rather than a 5 hour motorway slog. There would be the odd late season tourist around in the public park, and along the lake shore. But I’d never have to see them again and after the effort I wanted to get this over the line, a few awkward embarrassing moments were the least of my concerns.

Everyone knew I was doing it by now. I didn’t want to have to have all those conversations if it failed….. and strangely I felt I owed it to Bill and Ben.( or couldn’t face the withering expression if I failed).

All best

Chris Avery