FAO Forum Members
Allow me to apologise to the forum for erroneous information posted by me earlier, but most emphatically
NOT to Mr Littler, whose initial allegations remain as false, libellous and malicious as ever, perhaps more so given the historical background, which I am now able to explain, together with written evidence in the form of email order confirmations and personal emails exchanged between Mr Littler and myself. My only defence for these earlier errors is that I am now approaching 74 years of age and the events which form the subject of this saga date back to as early as 2008.
You may recall that Mr Littler, in a post in the thread entitled “I’ll Give You A Shilling For Them”, alleged that I supplied him with junk treble hooks which I had bought in the Far East.
He also alleged that I sold packets of inferior treble hooks, all so that I could make an extra ten bob a packet on them.
It was those shocking allegations which prompted me to join this forum, in order to make forum members aware of the true facts.
Mr Littler later alleged that he bought a needle tube kit from me which comprised various lengths of needle tube, junction tube, some treble hooks and a clear plastic box.
All of those allegations were, and remain,
completely untrue.
As some of you might understand, this whole matter has been weighing heavily on my mind. I knew, of course, that the allegations were entirely false and I was content that my response here had been sufficient to set things straight, at least in the mind of any reasonable person, backed up by fairly conclusive evidence of what I had, and had not, sold in my online shop. However, it still puzzled me why Mr Littler had made these accusations. What was his motivation? After all, the events to which he refers occurred more than ten years ago.
I have already explained that, through a change in my forum software, I had no accessible record of my online sales prior to 2016. Also, in 2021, my allocated email storage space was approaching capacity. As a result, I deleted all emails from my server dated earlier than 2021, being unaware that deleting them from my email server would also delete them from my Outlook programme on my computer! So I wondered if I could somehow retrieve emails dating back to the period in question, which would confirm what Mr Littler had, and had not, purchased in my online shop and what we had discussed in the various emails which we had exchanged over the years. I then connected up two old computers and I was surprised, and a little embarrassed, at what I found!
The earliest email that I found was an email confirming Mr Littler’s order, in September 2008, for two packs of assorted needle tubes:
Overview
| Shop name: | | Purchase price | £57.00 |
| Order number: | 092540816286 | Shipping | £0.00 |
| Shipping Method: | | | |
| Payment Status: | Waiting for authorization | | |
| Mailing list: | Yes | Total: | £57.00 |
Payment Details
| Payment method: | World Pay | | |
| Address | | |
| | | |
| |
| First Name: | Geoffrey | | Last Name: | Littler | | House Number: | | | Street: | | | City/Town: | | | County: | | | Postcode: | | | Country: | | | Phone: | | | Email: | |
|
Product details
| Quantity | Name | Catalog Number | Options | Price | Tax | Subtotal |
| 1 | Gray's Needle Tubes 1.5 - Pack of 70 | | | £30.00 | | £30.00 |
| 1 | Gray's Needle Tubes 1.8 - Pack of 60 | | | £27.00 | | £27.00 |
This was followed by an order, in October 2008, for a needle tube vice, with these follow up emails:
From: John Gray [mailto:john@graysofkilsyth.com]
Sent: 20 October 2008 10:44
To: Mr Littler's email address
Subject: Needle Tube Vice
Good morning Geoff,
Thank you for your order. Your vice is in the post. I hope you have had a good season.
Regards,
John
…………………………………………………..
Good afternoon John,
Once again you amaze me with the speed of your service. I was going to make a vice at work but we are snowed under and to be honest yours looks ideal. The season has been pretty good although then run has been very late indeed. The river is however absolutely stuffed with fish at the moment and I am making the most of the 2 remaining weeks. I hope that your season has been good too.
Very Kind Regards
Geoff
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In August 2013, Mr Littler placed an order for 80 Needle Tubes. This was the email exchange which followed.
From: John Gray [mailto:John@graysofkilsyth.com]
Sent: 27 August 2013 11:56
To: Mr Littler's email address
Subject: Needle Tubes
Hi Geoff,
Thanks again for your order. I hope you’re having a good season on the Lune. It’s been a hard season up here. Had a good two weeks early July for the sea trout. Been waiting for rain ever since to have a go at the salmon.
Regards,
John
John Gray
www.graysofkilsyth.com
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From: Geoff Littler [Mr Littler's email address]
Sent: 27 August 2013 12:31
To: 'John Gray'
Subject: RE: Needle Tubes
Hello John,
Your needle tubes have been a bit of a ‘slow burn’ issue. I lost a great fish a few weeks ago when a black and yellow monkey that I tied up on one had the misfortune to break off one of the hooks on the small trebles you sent me and straighten out another. I have since remedied this by using Partridge X1’s and suddenly it has come good. I took a fish on the Eden on Saturday morning which measured 37-1/2” long and just about as silver as it gets. I have had some half decent results sea trout fishing with your needles and best of all they are an absolute breeze to tie on.
If I might recommend dressing a doubled yellow hen hackle with a pouffe of yellow calf tail over it, add a wing of a few strands of black dyed goat hair and 2 doubled strands of mother of pear micro flash and 2 jungle cock cheeks, the fish seem to like this pattern very much. My punters and mates love it too and demand is starting to build to a point where I may need quite a lot of needles from you.
I hope that your season improves, fishing generally seems to be very tough this year.
Speak soon I hope,
Kind regards,
Geoff
………………………………………………………………………..
From: John Gray [mailto:John@graysofkilsyth.com]
Sent: 27 August 2013
To: Mr Littler's email address
Subject: Needle Tubes
Sorry about the trebles. Were they the X3 partridge needle Eye trebles? I had a few of those fail, too, and now use either Owner Stinger or Kamasan B990. Congratulations on your Eden fish, a beauty. The yellow Monkey sounds good, I’ll give it a try. The needle tubes have been doing well all over for both sea trout and salmon (and steelhead). Julian Sharpe down on the Dart has had a few great nights (see http://www.trout-salmon-fishing.com/needle-tube-fly-fishing.htm ) He also uses small X1 trebles. I have included a few extra tubes for those who might want to raid your fly box.
All the best and more tight lines,
John
………………………………………………………………………..
Now, given that I had no recollection of, indeed I earlier denied on this forum, having ever supplied Mr Littler with treble hooks, the discovery of these emails from 2013 took me by surprise, to say the least.
However, while apologising for my earlier, somewhat embarrassing, failure of memory, I would ask you all to note the following points:
- Mr Littler did not buy those treble hooks from me.
- The hooks were good quality hooks (Partridge X3 Needle Eye Trebles) which I used myself for sea trout.
- The hooks were a GIFT, supplied, at the time, I now believe, with a number of free, complimentary needle tubes.
- The hooks had not been purchased in the Far East.
- I did not sell these hooks, or any other treble hooks on my website.
- I could not therefore make an extra ten bob a packet on hooks which I gave as a gift.
- As Mr Littler states in his email, it was his misfortune to lose a fish on one of the treble hooks, a misfortune we have all suffered. The tone of Mr Littler’s email did not suggest to me that he bore a grudge over this loss. I leave you to judge whether my response to the news was “bloody pathetic”, as Mr Littler has stated, or not!
Indeed, I sent him a further supply of complimentary needle tubes with his order, as stated above.
The following emails were exchanged in 2015:
From: John Gray [mailto:John@graysofkilsyth.com]
Sent: 28 January 2015 00:03
To: Mr Littler's email address
Subject: Photo Hosting
Hi Geoff,
A belated Happy New Year to you. I hope you are well and looking forward to the coming season. I was surfing the net, as you do, and came across your post on the sea trout forum about hosting photos. I thought it might be worth a quick email to suggest that you might consider uploading all your photos to your website. Even if you don’t show these photos on pages of your site, you can place links to them on forums quite easily without relying on third party hosting sites like Flickr etc. This also gives you much more control over renaming, resizing, deleting photos etc.. This is how I have always posted photos on forums. For example, I could simply insert either of the following image urls in a forum page and it would display in the same way as it would display on my own site or yours. For example: http://www.graysofkilsyth.com/magus-foxtail.jpg or http://www.silversalmon.co.uk/images/bigfish.jpg It may also help in drawing attention to your website and in getting better search results (through more links to your site).
Anyway, all the best for the new season.
Tight lines,
John
……………………………………………………………………..
Mr. John Gray,
How the devil are you sir? I hope that you are doing well. It is absolutely fantastic to hear from you and if I may add very long overdue. Thank you for your suggestions regarding my Website. The thing is however I have no direct access to it as my nephew designed it and manages it for me using a Mac computer and I am on Microsoft. He feels it better that I am not allowed to blunder around the thing destroying vast swathes of his work. The site by the way is still in development and what I currently have on there is just a kind of holding facility. I hope that 2014 wasn’t too unkind to you both in a business and fishing sense. Personally I only managed 70 sea trout and a small handful of salmon. I was however very heavily engaged in practice for assessments and my teaching regime last year was fairly crammed. The problem I still seem to encounter is that I am really enthusiastic and find it unpalatable to turn away clients.
Your salmon needles by the way continue to be a major fish taker for me and I have referred a number of people to your own Website.
All the very best for this year to you. May you sell a lot and catch a plenty.
Very best regards,
Geoff
………………………………………..
I am very well thank you, Geoff. I had a few salmon last year, from the North Tyne, despite the extended drought on many rivers, and one or two good sea trout nights on the Spey in June. I am envious of your 70 sea trout! I have to say that is more than I have ever taken in a season! Once your nephew gets the structure of your site sorted and the main pages uploaded, you must insist that you take over the day to day running of it, updating pages etc. Given your enthusiasm for the internet as a medium, via forums etc. combined with all that fishing knowledge and experience you have – fly tying, casting, fishing videos etc. – just waiting to be unveiled, you would find running a website very rewarding. Indeed, it would likely become somewhat addictive. Just think of the possibilities. I can see it now… a page on your instruction and guiding services; a section on fly tying; one on casting, with videos; a regular fishing blog etc. Like you, I spent many, many hours over a decade composing and posting all sorts of things on fishing forums, in the days when they were pleasant and stimulating places to hang out. Since giving up on them, I have spent my time much more productively building websites. I now have several sites, including www.trout-salmon-fishing.com and, a more recent addition www.seatrout-fishing.com . Technically it is an easy job to upload new pages, photographs etc. I still use ancient software to construct my sites – Microsoft Frontpage 2003 (long since discontinued). If I build any new sites, I should really look at more modern and efficient software for building and managing sites, something like Wordpress, which would produce much more professional results. I believe that you can open a free Wordpress blog, with free templates and free hosting. You might try a blog out initially in this way, completely separate from your site, with a view to combining it with your main site at a later date. It would hopefully show how easily it can all be done. Anyway, I know you would just love the whole process. Excuse me rambling on.
I am pleased to hear that the needle tubes are still working. If you need some more samples to let your fishing pals and clients try out, let me know what sizes would be most useful and I’ll send a few down.
Regards,
John
………………………………………….
I was completely unaware of Mr Littler’s festering sore until I read about it on this forum last week. Indeed Mr Littler placed further orders for needle tubes in later years, the most recent in 2017, which was followed by the following emails:
From: John Gray [mailto:john@graysofkilsyth.com]
Sent: 22 February 2017 10:07
To: Mr Littler's email address
Subject: Needle Tubes
Hi Geoff,
Thanks again for your order. I’ll get your tubes in the post today.
I hope you have a good season.
Regards,
John
John Gray
www.graysofkilsyth.com
www.trout-salmon-fishing.com
www.seatrout-fishing.com
………………………………………………………..
Hello John,
Thanks for your email. I hope that business is good and you are even better than good. Your needles continue to perform exceptionally and take a fair old chunk of fish for both my punters and I.
A good season to you too.
Best regards,
Geoff
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I am fairly sure that this was the last communication I had with Mr Littler and I am not aware of having said or done anything anywhere to offend him since or give him cause to malign me.
I suggested earlier that this post may be of interest to a few of the forum members. Having read it myself, I fear that may have been an exaggeration!
