Lost Treasures of the Tackle Shed

[John Bailey]

The most recent of the Thomas Turner newsletters really struck a chord with me. There advertised was a first edition of Drop Me A Line, an exchange of letters between Maurice Ingham and Richard Walker in the the mid-twentieth century, right at the start of the modern specimen fishing scene.

My grandmother bought me a second edition when I really wasn’t old enough to catch anything much bigger than a canal gudgeon, but those letters inspired me like no other written words have done before or since.

In part, the book is a snapshot of life and manners seventy years ago. In larger part, it describes the stumbling towards fishing discoveries made by two giants of their time.

And I have lost my copy. I’m not quite sure when exactly, but sometime in the last ten years I’d guess. During that decade I have moved five times, and there have been devastating casualties along the way.

Novels that have been part of me have vanished, like Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier, but even worse, whole shelves of my angling library have gone… poof… lost in space. Big Pike – Rickards and Webb. Several editions of Izaak Walton. And there’s more bad news to come.

Thirty years ago I was privileged to come to know Hugh Falkus and he gave me a copy of Freshwater Fishing, the monumental tome he had put together with Fred Buller. But it wasn’t a normal copy, it was what Hugh called the ‘Bronco edition’.

Do you remember Bronco, that ghastly, shiny toilet paper common around the time Drop Me A Line was composed? It seems the Freshwater Fishing publishers printed the book first time round on cheap, thin, shiny paper that reduced Hugh to furies. He demanded that the whole print run be pulped, and the book should come out using paper he deemed appropriate.

Only six Bronco copies survived, the sample books sent to the authors, three of them to each. I had one of Hugh’s three and now it is gone, probably to a skip somewhere in Norfolk or Herefordshire.

So, there’s my story and now my advice. Keep your Tackle Shed Treasures close. Cherish them. Guard them. They are a part of who you are.

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[John Aston]

Memory Lane .... when I was a humble articled clerk I worked for Lincolnshire County Council and Maurice Ingham was senior planning officer . Only once did I pluck up the nerve to talk to him - he was a serious ,slightly aloof chap but was happy to talk about Woldale and his then current fishing - skate!

I met Ray Webb once while helping a friend at a tackle show - Ray was not quite of this world .

Falkus - I must admit I was no fan . I found his writing both hectoring and dogmatic, and his local reputation was not great , Asked to speak at a Salmon and Trout Association do he was rude to all (apart from the Chairman's wife whom he tried (and I think succeeded ) in seducing ) . His fee ? A case of Scotch ! And I did sort of wonder what he knew about fishing for anything but migratory salmonids .

Walker was pre-eminent in my world - I never met him but he was kind enough to reply to a letter I wrote to him about the River Bain . I still have it.

 

[john step]

I must say I am rather bemused by the ability the author has to lose cherished books. When moving, cardboard boxes are readily available.

 

[Ray Roberts]

I must say I am rather bemused by the ability the author has to lose cherished books. When moving, cardboard boxes are readily available.

I’m saying nothing. I lost a Young’s Rapidex Mk2. I didn’t realise I had lost it until weeks later. I thought it had fallen out of a bucket I was carrying when I packed up in the dark. I was really pee’d off as the current price second hand is the best part of three hundred quid. My wife found it about three years later in a box of Christmas decorations I had fetched from the loft. I have no idea as to how it got there.


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[steve2]

I am looking for a Digital SLR camera which I didn't know was missing till I went to use it. Went to the cupboard picked up the camera bag and it wasn't anywhere to be seen. We are packing so much stuff away it could have ended up anywhere.
My copies of the books he is missing are sitting on my book selves.

 

[Steve King]

I had a copy of “Drop me a Line”, but mine too went missing!

To be honest I had conveniently forgotten to return it to the school library! Whilst I was travelling and working abroad my parents moved most of my possessions into the loft. Upon my return it was the only thing that was I couldn’t find.

 

[Ray Roberts]

I had a copy of “Drop me a Line”, but mine too went missing!

To be honest I had conveniently forgotten to return it to the school library! Whilst I was travelling and working abroad my parents moved most of my possessions into the loft. Upon my return it was the only thing that was I couldn’t find.

Best it stays lost Steve, the fine will be enormous.


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