Bill Goddard, who was for two decades Angling Times’ chief photographer, has died after a long illness.
Bill’s career in photography began in the RAF in the days when photographers worked in black and white and developed and printed their own pictures. He had a stint on local newspapers in Peterborough before East Midlands Allied Press saw him as the ideal man for the UK’s biggest angling weekly, largely because of Bill’s interest in fishing.
Anyone who fished matches in the ’70s and ’80s knew Bill. A bespectacled and short, ruddy-faced man, he had incredible energy and enthusiasm and a genius for eliciting a smile from winning – and losing – teams because he knew what made anglers laugh. He also had a gift for pinpointing match winners. Even when faced with as many as 1,600 anglers in a National Championship, he never failed to photograph the winner’s net – and often managed to picture the second- and third-placed anglers, too.
Bill also had a knack for spotting photographic opportunities for the tabloid newspapers, furnishing them with timely contributions of ducklings perched on a guard dog’s head, and similar appealing pictures, which he’d held back until he perceived a poor news day ahead.
Bill’s proclivity for the fairer sex was something he never tried to hide. In any situation – memorably once in an open field near the Royal Military Canal, while photographing a feature – Bill could conjure up female company, largely because he gave them his complete and undivided attention. Even when working.
In retirement, Bill suffered a number of minor strokes. He spent his final years in Dorset.
