TUCKED away under the spare bed in the front bedroom at Hextol Towers is my Fishing Drawer, where I used to keep all the relevant documentation, permits and paperwork required in my position as secretary of Bellingham and District Angling Club.

It’s a job I gave up somewhere around 1992, but the name has stuck, even though it is no longer a drawer, and indeed, the vast majority of its contents have nothing to do with fishing in the North Tyne or anywhere else.

The original drawer has long since been chopped up for firewood, and the latter day Fishing Drawer is in fact a large, flat plastic box, with closable lid, purchased from Poundstretcher in its first manifestation in Hexham’s Fore Street many moons ago, and it has become my depository for things I don’t actually need, and seldom look at, but can’t quite bring myself to throw away.

My old primary school reports are in there, dating back to the 1950s, along with later ones from my grammar school days, where the teachers were much less kindly in their remarks.

My Latin teacher at grammar school memorably wrote on one report: “Hextol is a cheerful enough fellow, but I find little cause in his work for rejoicing…”

Other contents include my GCE O-level certificates, not to mention my National Council for the Training of Journalists Proficiency Certificate, dating back to 1972, as well as my 100 words per minute shorthand exam pass certificate, all still in the cardboard tube in which they were delivered.

I also have a sheaf of urgent epistles in there from Her Majesty’s Customs and Revenue, repeatedly insisting that I owe them in excess of £1,000 in unpaid tax.

As I don’t owe them a bean, I rang the taxman back to protest so many times that I no longer have to go through the rigmarole of identifying myself on the phone, as apparently, they can now recognise my voice via the wonders of technology.

I am on first name terms with several of the staff, who all agree that I don’t owe Her Majesty a penny piece, but I still expect another brown windowed envelope to arrive any day now seeking information on how I am going to pay back the money that I don’t owe them.

Around half the Fishing Drawer is occupied by tourist literature we have picked up from various parts of the world, including detailed street maps and money off vouchers from places we have no intention of ever returning to.

The only things remotely connected with fishing in the Fishing Drawer are diaries from the late 1970s and early 80s, painstakingly listing every time I went fishing on the North Tyne – which amounted to several times a day in the season– usually with a spectacular lack of success.

I occasionally struck lucky though, with a reasonable number of salmon falling to my rod each season, but this represented a pitiful strike rate of something in the region of one salmon per 200 visits to the river.

I was severely addicted to fishing for about 10 years, and recall with some shame taking my father to the river with me one evening on the eve of his 65th birthday. Accessing my favourite fishing spot involved a helter-skelter scramble down a precipitous bank, and I heard my father cry out as he came down after me.

“I’ve jabbed myself in the eye with a twig,” he announced, but so preoccupied was I with getting my fly into the water I just let out a snort of derision, and insisted on fishing on in the gloaming as he watched, frequently dabbing at his eye with his handkerchief.

It was only when we returned to the car, and the courtesy lights came on, that I noticed for the first time that rather than the minor facial scratch I had anticipated, the twig had actually slashed a half-inch gash deep into the white of his left eye.

The rest of the night, and much of the early hours of the next morning , were spent in a heady dash around several North-East hospitals,where many people in white coats came to peer in horror at the gaping wound, but no-one seemed to know how to repair it.

The pater was kept in hospital for several days and thankfully made a full recovery – and still wanted to come on my next fishing trip!