THEY say you should never go back, as cold reality tends to wipe out cherished memories from the past.

It’s not a theory I have much time for, as at my time of life, I have to go back all the time, as I have a tendency to forget why I went somewhere in the first place.

I have lost count of the number of times I have been despatched to the village by Mrs Hextol for bread or some other staple, only to receive a blizzard of supplementary orders before I get out of the door.

I proudly return with doughnuts, bananas, boiled ham, smoky bacon crisps, a birthday card and a four-inch paintbrush, only to be received with a raised eyebrow and an amused: “And where’s the bread…?”

This delve into the memory banks was brought about by a decision the other day to wind the clock back almost 40 years, to the days when I used to go trout fishing on a favourite stretch of the River Rede.

There had been heavy rain a few days before, and seeing the river fining out as we crossed over the bridge at Redesmouth, I announced to Mrs Hextol that I was going to go fishing that very same afternoon.

I enthused: “The river’s just at the right height, and it will be great sport.

“I haven’t done any river fishing for donkeys’ years, and I don’t think where I am going has been fished for decades, so I am bound to catch something.

“We’ll be having trout for tea!”

“You’ll fall in,” she announced with an air of sceptical finality.

When we got home I located my ancient fishing bag at the back of the garage, and discarded the gaudy lures and heavy duty grappling irons in favour of the tiny scraps of feather and thread from the aluminium box where they had lain undisturbed across the decades.

Even the names of the trout flies spoke of many hours of patient and rewarding toil, flicking out the line and feeling the tug of hard-fighting, wild brown trout – Greenwell’s Glory, Bloody Butcher, Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ear, Black Pennel, Coachman and the rest

A further rummage unearthed a spool of lightweight nylon with which to make up the traditional cast of three flies – and this is where I encountered my first problems.

I used to be able to whip up a serviceable team of flies in less than a minute, but in those days, both the eyes and the teeth were considerably sharper.

Knots which would have held a raging bull pulled loose at the first tug and became a mass of tangled nylon, and rather than biting through the line once the fly was secure, I found myself chewing at it like an elderly dog with a marrowbone.

So it took about an hour and some very inventive cursing before I had assembled the cast, and loaded fishing bag, rod, waders, Barbour coat, net and the rest into the back of the car, and set off to the river tingling with excitement.

I parked up and donned my waders, and the sun burst through so fiercely I decided to travel light, leaving coat and net in the car as I made my way to the river.

In my youth, getting to the river involved a pleasant stroll through a sun-dappled wood, seeing woodland beings and birds flittering ahead, and hearing the plop of unseen creatures disappearing into the crystal waters,

What a difference the passage of four decades has made, for the paths I used to use have vanished into the dense undergrowth, and I staggered and stumbled over fallen trees and hidden sinkholes.

I almost expected to feel the sting of a Bambuti poisoned arrow as I defiled their sacred hunting ground in the densely- packed trees.

Finally, I forced a passage through to the bank, and was able to wade unsteadily to the centre of the river, where my cast was soon snaking out over the ripples.

I expected to feel the tug of a naive trout immediately – but although I fished diligently in all the favourite spots for the next two hours, I never touched a thing,

It may have been my clumsy wading and inexpert casting, but there were many flies floating in the surface film, and nothing went for them either.

I returned to the car disappointed, but we did have fish for tea.

Mrs Hextol had wisely opened a packet of basa tempura fillets from Aldi,