2007 - Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (12 page)

Was that the first time you communicated directly with Dr Jones?

Peter Maxwell:

It was the first time we had met. I have to say I wasn’t very excited the first time I met him. He didn’t look like the sort of man who would tell many jokes. But Dr Jones made more sense than his boss. He struck me as a bit of a pedant to start with, and when he came to see me in Downing Street I gave him a hard time, just to let him know who was in charge. But after a while I realised he wasn’t so bad. It was just his manner, mixed with quite a lot of apprehension at finding himself in my office, at the very heart of power in the United Kingdom. He seemed bright enough. I think he was honest too, in a naive sort of way. Politically, he was just an innocent, of course.

After I had listened to him outlining the work NCFE had done on the project, which was mostly conceptual stuff, I interrupted him as he began to talk about dissolved oxygen levels and water stratification, and said, ‘Fred, is this going to work? Are future generations of Yemenis going to catch salmon in the wadis during the summer rains?’

He blinked and looked at me in surprise, then said, ‘I shouldn’t think so, no.’

I asked him, if that was his opinion, why we were doing all this.

He paused and thought for a moment and then he said, as far as I can remember, ‘Mr Maxwell, I’ve often asked myself that question over the last few weeks. I don’t really know the answer. I think there’s more than one answer, anyway.’

‘Try some of them on me,’ I suggested, tilting my chair back and putting my feet on the desk.

Dr Jones told me that, in the first place, while this project probably won’t succeed, it may not entirely fail either. We may achieve something, such as a short run of salmon up the wadi when it is in spate. That in itself would be so extraordinary as to justify all the effort we are putting into it—providing of course we don’t have to defend what we are doing in economic terms. And we don’t. Sheikh Muhammad is being liberal with his money. He questions nothing, he always responds to funding proposals and cost overruns by writing another cheque, and the project is now well outside original estimates.

Secondly, whatever happens, it will have moved forward the boundaries of science. We will understand many things we did not know before we started this project. Not just about fish, but about the adaptability of species to new environments. In that sense, we have already gained something.

Then, too, said Dr Jones, there is something visionary about Sheikh Muhammad. For him, this isn’t just about fishing. Perhaps, at one level, it isn’t about fishing at all, but about faith. ‘You’ve lost me there, Fred,’ I told him.

‘I mean,’ said Dr Jones, taking off his spectacles and in polishing them with a clean white handkerchief, ‘that what the sheikh wants to do is demonstrate that things can change, that there are no absolute impossibilities. In his mind it is a way of demonstrating that God can make anything happen if he wants to. The Yemen salmon project will be presented by the sheikh as a miracle of God, if it succeeds.’

‘And if it fails?’

‘Then it will show the weakness of man, and that the sheikh is a poor sinner not worthy of his God. He has told me that many times.’

There was a silence. I didn’t go for this religious stuff, but the boss might like it, and I scribbled some notes to myself to talk to him later. While I did this there was a silence, and I almost forgot Dr Jones was there. Then he startled me by asking, ‘Have you ever met Sheikh Muhammad, Mr Maxwell?’

I shook my head. ‘No, Fred, I have not. But I’m thinking that maybe I should now. Can you fix it that we go up to his Scottish place together, some time soon?’

‘I might be able to arrange that,’ said Dr Jones. ‘He returns to the UK tonight. I will try and speak to him in the morning, and let you know.’

‘Talk to my secretary on your way out and check my availability,’ I said.

Dr Jones stood up and said mildly, ‘Mr Maxwell, the sheikh is not a UK citizen. He is a very simple man. He will either want to see you or he will not. If he wants to see you, he will send his plane, and if you get on it, he will see you. If you do not, he will not bother any further with the matter.’

As he turned and left I said, ‘Thanks for your input, Fred,’ to his retreating back, but he left without any further words.

Interrogator:

So when did you next meet Dr Jones?

Peter Maxwell:

I’ll come to that. I’ve just remembered something else, something that happened right after Jones left my office.

I still can’t believe that was how it all started. I should never have allowed myself to become involved. As soon as Jones started talking about the sheikh and faith and all of that, I should have terminated the interview, closed the file and told the boss to drop it. After all, what did it amount to at that point? A little story to keep the papers happy, a photo opportunity with a difference? I blame myself, all the way. I should have stuck to our core agenda and not been distracted. Salmon fishing in the Yemen? What does that do for hospital waiting lists or late trains or gridlocked motorways? How many Yemenis are registered to vote in our party key constituencies? Those are the questions I should have been asking myself, if I’d been doing my job. But I didn’t. Instead I sat chewing the end of my biro and I daydreamed. I thought about quiet Dr Jones saying, ‘Perhaps, at one level, it isn’t about fishing at all, but about faith?’ What did he mean by that? What does faith really mean? I keep faith with my party and my boss. How does salmon fishing come into that? It was all rubbish. Faith is for the archbishop of Canterbury and his dwindling congregations. Faith is for the pope. Faith is for Christian Scientists. Faith is for the people stranded in the last century and the centuries before that. It doesn’t belong in the modern world. We are living in a secular age. I live at the heart of the secular world. We put our faith in facts, in numbers, in statistics and in targets. The presentation of these facts and statistics is our labour, and winning votes is our purpose. I am a guardian of our purity of purpose. We are the rational managers of a modern democracy, taking the optimum decisions to safeguard and enhance the lives of busy citizens who haven’t got the time to work things out for themselves.

I remember thinking there was a speech there. I took my biro out of my mouth and started to muse, thinking that later I would jot some notes down to run past the boss. And, as I mused, I had a waking dream.

Interrogator:

You wish to record a dream as part of your evidence?

Peter Maxwell:

I’m trying to tell you what happened. I’m still trying to understand it myself.

I sat at my desk and I had a waking dream, as clear as if I had been watching it on Sky News. The boss and I were standing by the side of a broad and shallow river, a river of many glistening clear streams winding around islands of gravel or tumbling over boulders. Along the fringes of the river a few green palms waved their fronds. Beyond the river, mountains of staggering savagery and beauty rose precipitously into a sky of a blue so dark, it was almost indescribable as a colour. The boss and I were in shirtsleeves and I felt the heat like a dry flame on my face and forearms. Around us were men in white or coloured robes, tall thin men with bright turbans and dark bearded faces, gesturing at the river. In my dream I heard the boss say, ‘Soon the water will rise in the wadis. And then the salmon will run.’

Email correspondence between David Sugden, NCFE, and Mr Tom Price-Williams, head of fisheries, Environment Agency

From:

[email protected]

Date:

1 September

To:

[email protected]

Subject:

Yemen salmon

Tom,

As you know the Yemen salmon project has received semiofficial support from the Foreign Office and from Number 10. You may be aware one of my colleagues has scoped the project following some guidance from me. He has now asked me to explore with the Environment Agency how best to procure live salmon for the project.

Please consider this correspondence at this stage as informal and off the record, but we are preparing a request for the agency to supply us with 10,000 live Atlantic salmon, for shipment to the Yemen some time next year (dates to be agreed).

Of course it is up to the agency to say how best this might be achieved, but I would have thought—if you don’t mind a suggestion from an old friend!—that you might consider netting an agreed percentage of the average salmon run from a number of the main English and Welsh rivers and transporting them to a collection centre we would set up for this specific purpose with specially designed holding tanks.

That way no one river would lose a significant proportion of its total catch, and I am sure most of the angling community would be delighted to contribute to such an innovative and groundbreaking project.

Of course I am contacting the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, the Scottish river boards and the Tweed Commissioners with a similar request. A meeting may be necessary to decide how many salmon are harvested from each river.

Yours ever,

David

From:

[email protected]

Date:

1 September

To:

[email protected]

Subject:

Re: Yemen salmon

David,

I cannot think of a less acceptable request than the one you made to me in your last email. Have you any idea what an outcry there would be within the angling community and amongst the owners of fisheries in England and Wales, let alone amongst my own colleagues, if you formally approached me along the lines you suggest? King Herod, when he suggested that the firstborn of every family in Palestine might be killed, could be regarded as launching a charm offensive, compared to NCFE’s proposal. You can have no idea of the depths of emotion felt by fishing clubs and anglers generally (let alone my colleagues in Fisheries) about the salmon run in their rivers, for which they feel a stronger attachment than I often think they do for their own children. My life would not be worth living if this proposal of yours ever became public, not that I would for a minute contemplate stripping English rivers of native salmon so that they could be shipped to a Middle Eastern desert. You may recall that the mandate of this agency, and my department, is to protect the environment, and to conserve our fish stocks, not export them. I really cannot imagine anyone here at any level accepting such a request unless it was backed by an act of Parliament, and even then we’d probably all resign on the spot.

How on earth have you allowed yourself to become entangled in this affair?

Tom

From:

[email protected]

Date:

2 September

To:

[email protected]

Subject:

Re: Re: Yemen salmon

Tom,

I was disappointed by your reply to my last email, which I though was a trifle flippant and even irrational, if you don’t mind me saying so. Perhaps you may have got the matter into perspective by now. Ten thousand salmon is not that many to sacrifice for a cause supported by the prime minister and will do so much good for international relations. The loss of these fish can easily be replaced by production from one of your hatcheries.

I repeat, to ensure you get my point,
this project has the support of the prime minister
.

David

From:

[email protected]

Date:

2 September

To:

[email protected]

Subject:

(no subject)

David,

Then the prime minister had better send a couple of regiments as well, if he wants our salmon. In either case, over my dead body.

Tom

Extract from the diary of Dr Jones: his return to Glen Tulloch

3 September

When I returned to Glen Tulloch this morning it was raining. As we arrived, the sky was grey and claustrophobic. The mist was coming in, the drizzle constantly pattering against the windows. It was so dark. In the house today the lights were on all the time, even in the middle of the day. And I was still upset, since Mary had gone to Switzerland. I felt a sense of desolation I had never before known. I remembered that old song, ‘Raining in My Heart’. That’s how I felt today, that it was raining in my heart.

It had been arranged a few days ago that I would accompany Peter Maxwell on a visit to Glen Tulloch to meet Sheikh Muhammad, as Mr Maxwell had requested. We flew up to Inverness and were driven to Glen Tulloch to meet the sheikh, and of course the sheikh wasn’t there. He had been delayed in Sana’a or missed his connection in Riyadh, or something. I spent a long time looking out of the windows as we stood around, waiting for the sheikh to return. Outside, on the soft green lawn, glistening in the fine drizzle that fell steadily from the lowering sky, stood a dozen or more Yemeni tribesmen in flowing white robes and bright emerald turbans. Each had a fifteen-foot salmon rod in his hand and, as I watched, was being drilled by the gillie, Colin McPherson, in the art of casting out a line. It looked as if they were being instructed in the double Spey. There was much laughter among the men as yards of line wound themselves in every direction around their legs and arms and necks. One man seemed in imminent danger of being strangled. Colin watched with an expression changing from dour to thunderous. Through the glass I could see him mouthing instructions, but could not hear the words. One of the Yemenis must have been translating for him. I found myself wondering how easy a task that was. What was the Arabic for ‘Drag the fly across the water’?

‘What are those idiots doing?’ asked Peter Maxwell morosely. He was obviously unaccustomed to being kept waiting.