A gathering of traditional anglers

[Vagabond]

Not quite sure where this should go, as coarse, fly, and sea anglers are involved - but here goes

National Angling Show 1964.

A huge pile of the then current issue of "Angling" was sitting on the "Angling" stand, and someone had the bright idea of asking the various exhibitors, magazine contributors and their guests to sign the mags to enhance their value, and thus stimulate punters to buy

Basically the deal for us authors/exhibitors was "Sign fifty, get one free"
I have kept mine for fifty years !

Autographs.jpg

The signatures.

Left sky, top to bottom
Bill Howes (Author)
Peter Stone (Author, rod designer - eg the "Legerstrike", taxidermist, barbel and bream angler and general good egg)
Peter Drennan (Founder of the tackle empire - he had just won a national float-making comp, and had just started his business)
Tag Barnes (Sheffield all-rounder and author - I rate him one of the best)
James McMillan Ure (Founder of British Ichthyological Society)

Centre sky, top to bottom
Pete Thomas (Netsman for Ravioli, and a first class all-rounder)
John Nixon (Editor of Creel after Bernard Venables left)
Gerry Berth Jones (In your Hall of Fame already)
Richard Walker (You may have heard of him )
Tom Ivens (Author on reservoir trout fishing)
Ian Howcroft (That's the scribble defacing the church )

Right-hand sky, top to bottom
Harvey Torbett (Author)
Trevor Housby (Author, all-round angler, including big game fish)
David Carl Forbes (Ace author, ace angler, ace artist - his untimely death saddened both Sandgroper and me)
Gerry Preston (No mean carp fisher)
Leslie Moncrieff (Sea angler, distance caster, but at his best from a boat)
David Marlborough (Biologist, secretary of the British Ichthyological Society, and great fun to fish with)

In River, left to right
Dave Park (That's me. Apart from species hunting, I set the Waterlog Crossword each issue)
Fred J Taylor (He signed just after me, and I left him plenty room. He said "You B****r, you've pinched the best chub swim")
Frank Guttfield (Author - famous for chub and tench in particular)
Kenneth Mansfield (Author and Editor of "Angling" magazine)
Reg Hutt (Nice bloke, I think he once held the British eel record - or was it wels ? One or t'other anyway)

...and the venue ? The Thames at Abingdon

[Dave Burr]

Wow! That is quite a collection you have there Dave, there's a few on here will be drooling all over their keyboards at the thought of owning such a precious document. Thanks for sharing it with us, I expect you can remember each of the signers as they were on the day, great memories

[Mark]

Thank you for sharing that Dave, that is just wonderful.

[MGs]

A veritable who's who

[Kingfisher]

I would imagine that's worth a tidy sum but probably worth a lot more to you Dave in sentimental value.

Sadly, as I was born in 1972 and started my fishing towrds the end of the 70's, means the only link with some of these names is by reading either their works or what others have said about them. Shame you can't turn the clocks back eh!?

[Vagabond]

Are you the same vagabond from the American den of iniquity or a namesake?

Look at my avatar - a traditional vagabond - hand-lining a worm for trout off a bridge.

I have been known as a vagabond from the age of 7 (that was in 1941) and have been posting as Vagabond on various forums since about 1998. Also had a book published in 2007 - the title "Angling Vagabond"

So whilst I feel the more vagabonds in this world the better, they might be the namesakes

[Julian]

A lot of famous and well-known anglers on that

[Shaun Harrison]

That's incredible. What a line up of anglers.

[Jmooney]

That's quite a treasure!

[The Sweetcorn Kid]

That's very brilliant!!!!