Gone fishing (From Free Press Series)

Gone fishing

Sweet's Fishing Tackle in Usk is a tiny shop with a huge reputation - a veritable home-from-home for all those who regularly fish for salmon and trout on the Rivers Usk and Wye.

Visitors to the town frequently pose for photographs outside the front door. A 'regular' from Oxfordshire, who'd dropped in for a chat and a cuppa with proprietor Jean Williams, told me he'd recently come across an article about Sweet's in a magazine in Norway!

Jean is an expert at fly-tying and her knowledge of local fishing locations and conditions is legendary. She jokingly recalls being sent a haggis from Scotland addressed to 'Jean of Usk'! "There's an automated telephone information service called Riverline, but people will often phone here instead to speak to a real person!" she said.

The shop is crammed full of fishing equipment and accessories of every kind, including old-fashioned cane rods. It also supplies fishing permits for the Town River and Olway Brook.

But it's particularly famous for its flies, several of which are exclusive to Sweet's.

There's the Usk Grub, for example - a salmon fly made from golden pheasant, seal's fur, badger hackle, cream cockerel hackle, jungle cock and tinsels. There's also the Amber Nymph (featured in the shop sign) and the Dog's Body, originally created by the founder of the business, Harry Powell, to incorporate the hair of a dog owned by a retired army major! "I make about 150 different kinds and I'm always happy to try a new one if someone sends me the pattern," said Jean. "Basically you're copying what's found on the river, using materials which are mainly supplied by feather merchants. I suppose the strangest I've used is polar bear fur!"

The names of the flies can be as colourful as the materials from which they're made - Christmas Tree, Breathalyser, Sweeney Todd... "Years ago someone asked for a Sweeney Todd and, because we didn't have the necessary black hair to make it, we cut off some of mine! "On another occasion a man rang up wanting a Mudlow Minnow. We told him we didn't have any deer fur in stock. A few days later a cured deer skin arrived in the post!"

Different flies are required for different parts of the fishing season. "On the river, you start in March using 'olives', made from peacock quill and cockerel hackles died olive green. You go on to March browns, then pale olives, black gnats and sedges (for evening fishing) and revert back to olives in September. "For reservoir fishing you don't need natural-looking flies - you can use something much more flashy in bright colours like yellow and red." Jean has customers from all over the UK and abroad who have become 'like old friends'. "We'll chat away over a cup of tea and, if I'm busy, they'll even answer the phone for me. One couple from Holland invited me to their wedding!"

The number of customers during the fishing season depends on the weather. "Some days there'll be a steady stream, but when it's pouring with rain I might not get any. That's when I concentrate on my fly-tying." In winter the interest turns to coarse fishing, with Jean supplying hooks and floats to youngsters fishing the Olay Brook.

The shop has dozens of photographs of people proudly displaying their catches. There are also newspaper and magazine articles, fishing posters and postcards from all over the world. There's even an autograph book.

The first signature is that of London lawyer Michael Eddowes who, in 1955, published The Man on Your Conscience, an investigation into the murder trial and execution of Timothy Evans, a case which played an important role in the subsequent abolition of capital punishment in Britain.

In the 1970s he also wrote two controversial books about the assassination of John F Kennedy. "Michael Eddowes was a true eccentric who loved trout fishing. He used to drive a Rolls Royce which, on one occasion, broke down on the Severn Bridge because he'd forgotten to put water in the radiator. He always went fishing with a pint of milk and a big bar of chocolate. "When he became old and a bit tottery a group of friends would accompany him to the river and hold on to him with a rope tied around his waist in case he fell in. He called them his Apostles. "He always wore a tailor-made Harris Tweed jacket which had been given to him by his father. Over the years it became tattered and torn and my mother used to repair it for him.

He died when he was 93. We've kept that old jacket on a hanger in the shop ever since." His is just one of the countless, colourful stories known to all the regulars who 'frequent' this amazing little shop .

For the origins of the business you have to look back to the 1930s - and local barber Harry Powell.

Between customers Harry used to tie flies for his own use. One day Ted Rudge, a salesman for a fishing tackle company, called in for a hair cut, noticed Harry's 'sideline' and persuaded him to carry a stock of rods and reels.

Harry eventually gave up working as a barber and moved his fishing tackle stock to the current shop in Porth-y-Carne Street, where he took on a local girl called Molly Salter as an assistant.

When Lionel Sweet walked into the shop he was taken aback to see Molly, his former girlfriend, behind the counter. The couple started courting again and eventually got married. "Lionel always joked that he married Molly in order to get a regular supply of fishing hooks, which were hard to come by during the war!" Molly carried on running the shop, renamed Sweet's, after Harry Powell's death, while Lionel taught people how to cast on the river. His 'party piece' was casting five lines simultaneously - two from each hand and one from the foot.

The current proprietor, Jean Williams, started work at Sweet's as a school-leaver in the 1960s. "It wasn't the obvious job for a teenage girl but I found it quite fascinating - meeting people from all walks of life. Fishing is a wonderful leveller. "When Molly died in 1974, Lionel asked me to keep the shop going and when he died four years later I took it over."