Paul Torday: Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

To:

Herbert Berkshire, private secretary to the parliamentary undersecretary of state , FCO

Subject:

Salmon⁄Yemen Project

Herbert,

Our masters tell us this project should be pushed on a bit. The sponsor is not a UK citizen, but the project can be presented as a template for Anglo-Yemeni cooperation, which of course has wider implications for perceptions of UK involvement in the Middle East.

I think you could quietly drop a word in the ear of David Sugden, whom I believe is the director of the fisheries people at DEFRA, that a successful outcome to this project might attract the attention of the committee putting forward recommendations for the next New Year honours list. Equally it is only fair to point out that an unsuccessful outcome might make it difficult to defend NCFE against further cuts in grant funding in the next round of negotiations with the Treasury for the new financial year. This might help get the right messages across. We have, of course, talked at a senior level to the appropriate people in DEFRA. Keep this off the record.

Lunch at the club at 1 p.m. tomorrow?

Yrs,

Andy

Memo

From:

Director of communications, prime minister’s office

To:

Dr Mike Ferguson, director veterinary, food & aquatic sciences, Chief Scientists’ Group

Subject:

Yemensalmon project

Mike,

This is the sort of initiative that the prime minister really, really likes. We want some broad-brush comments on feasibility from you. We do not require anyone to say absolutely that it would work, only that there is no reason for not trying.

Peter

Memo

From:

Dr Michael Ferguson, director veterinary food & aquatic sciences, Chief Scientists’ Group

To:

Peter Maxwell, director of communications, prime minister’s office

Subject:

Yemensalmon project

Dear Mr Maxwell,

Monthly average rainfall in the western mountains of the Yemen is around 400 millimetres in each of the summer months, and mean temperatures at elevations above 2000 metres fall to a range of between 7 and 2,7 degrees Celsius. This is not uncharacteristic of British summer weather and therefore we conclude that for short periods of the year conditions exist, particularly in the western provinces of the Yemen, which are not necessarily inimical to migratory salmonids.

We therefore speculate that a model based on the artificial release and introduction of salmonids into the wadi systems for short periods of the year , linked to a programme of trapping the salmon and returning them to cooler, saline water during other periods of the year, would not be an inappropriate starting point for a modelling exercise to be carried out by the departments with the relevant expertise. I believe NCFE is the most appropriate organisation for this.

I hope this brief note is sufficient for your purposes at this stage?

Yrs,

Michael Ferguson

PS: Have we met?

Memo

From:

Director of communications, prime minister’s office

To:

Dr Mike Ferguson, director veterinary, food & aquatic sciences, Chief Scentists’ Group

Subject:

Yemensalmon project

Mike,

That’s great. No, we haven’t met, but I look forward to it some day soon.

Peter

Memo

From:

Peter

To:

Prime minister

Subject:

Yemensalmon project

PM,

You will really like this. It presses a lot of different buttons:

positive and innovative environmental messages

sporting (cultural?) links to a Middle Eastern country not as yet closely aligned with UK interests

secular Western technology bringing improvements to an Islamic state

a big, positive news story that will take front-page space away from less constructive news items coming out of Iraq, Iran and Saudi

A great photo opportunity: you standing in a wadi with a rod in one hand and a salmon in the other-what an image that would be!

Peter

Memo

From:

Prime minister

To:

Director of communications

Subject:

Yemensalmon project

Peter,

I like it. The photo idea is great!

7 June

Until today, my diary has for the most part been used to record the times of meetings, appointments with the dentist, or other engagements. But for the last few months I have felt the need to set down some of the thoughts that come and go, the increasing sense of intellectual and emotional restlessness which has grown in me as I approach middle age. Today’s date marks our wedding anniversary. Mary and I have been married now for over twenty years. It seems right, somehow, to start recording the pattern of my daily existence. Perhaps it will help me find a perspective from which I can appreciate and value my life more than I am able to just at present.

For Mary’s anniversary present, I have bought her a subscription to The Economist , which I know she enjoys reading but begrudges the cost of buying for herself. She bought me a replacement brush for my electric toothbrush, which is most useful. I never think much about anniversaries. The years pass seamlessly. But for some reason tonight I feel I ought to reflect on what is now many years of marriage to Mary. We married not long after leaving Oxford. It was not a whirlwind romance, but I think ours has been a calm and settled relationship suitable for two rational and career-minded people such as ourselves.

We are both humanists, professionals and scientists. Mary’s science is the analysis of risks inherent in the movement of cash and credit around the world’s financial systems. She has written papers such as ‘The role of SDKs (Special Deposit Reserves) in mitigating unusual flows of non-reserve currencies’ which have attracted a great deal of attention and I enjoyed reading myself, although I could not follow some of the algorithms. Mary has now moved from the more academic wing of the bank into the managerial side. She is prospering, well paid and respected, and likely to go far. The only disadvantage is that we are tending to see a little less of each other as she has to travel a great deal these days.

I made my name with my study ‘The effects of alkaline solutions on freshwater mussel populations’, which introduced some groundbreaking new concepts concerning the mating of freshwater mussels. Since then, my career has developed too. I am not as well remunerated as Mary, but my work gives me satisfaction and I believe I am well thought of by my peers.

Mary and I have chosen not to have children. Our lives are therefore relatively unruffled. I am aware that a childless marriage is sometimes an excuse for selfishness and therefore we both make a conscious effort to engage with our community in the little spare time that we have. Mary gives lessons in economic theory at our local immigration centre to migrants from Chechnya and Kurdistan, who seem to end up in our area. I give lectures to the local humanist society from time to time. Last week I gave the third in a series of talks, ‘Why God cannot exist’, and I like to think that these talks in some way provoke the audience to question the superstitions of earlier eras which still linger on in the religious teachings that regrettably persist in some of our schools.

What else can I say about more than two decades of marriage? We both keep ourselves fit. I go running two or three times a week; Mary does Yoga when she can. We were vegetarians but now eat fish and white meat, and I allow myself alcohol from time to time although Mary does so rarely. We enjoy reading as long as the books are improving or informative, and occasionally go to the theatre or to art exhibitions.