I seem to have revisited this thread 30 months too late. Steve Parton and I were both managers at the Raleigh Cycle company in the 70's and 80's. I was Quality Manager and at the time Steve was the Production Manager of the Toy Division, referred to as 'Toyland' at Raleigh. We had a common love of fishing with Steve into game fishing, particularly trout and myself into coarse and carp.Shaun Harrison wrote: ↑Mon Mar 05, 2018 6:11 pm Horseshoe Fishing Tackle in Long Eaton, Nottinghamshire where I would be served by the owner Cybil and sometimes Steve. Steve ended up working in latter years for the late Steve Parton at Sparton Tackle.
Sadly, Horseshoe Fishing Tackle slipped by the wayside many years back but their sticker still remains on one of my early diaries.
During the majority of my 12 years at the company the business was contracting with frequent rounds of redundancy so I guess we could both see the writing on the wall. Steve had several fishing related income streams. He wrote books and magazine articles, guided anglers, and was a consultant for Shakespeare on the game side. Inevitably he started Spartan tackle, initially as a mail order business selling flies etc. I remember several sessions of sitting in his office at work discussing his sideline and him suggesting that I join him to concentrate on the coarse and carp side of the business. Having a young family and a career on the rise at the time I didn't take him up on it.
A few years later after Steve had left Raleigh my son, Stu, was keen to start fishing. I contacted Steve and he 'acquired' through Shakespeare enough kit to get him started. I went to his house to collect it, by that time he was rod making too. I think I only met him once after that as he was taken from us much too early. Quite a character and one of the 'good guys'.
2 other random memories of Steve:-
1) I think his father was a rather clever chap, possibly a professor(?), who invented and patented a lightning conductor
2) Shakespeare were developing a close faced reel to try and compete with Abu. I can't be sure but it may have been 2020. Anyway, he gave me a prototype to try and report on. I tried it once and thought it was rubbish and reported so. I think it was launched but never found favour with anglers. I got that one right!
