Barrie Rickards and Richard Walker

[Gary Bills]

The kindly postman has recently brought me, from Medlar, a most interesting book - Barrie Rickard's biography of Richard Walker. I'm merely "dip-reading" so far, so firm opinions are yet to form; but I will say that Rickards succeeds, with the help of accounts from people who actually knew the man well, to create a convincing impression of a real human being.
So what comes through? Firstly, it's clear that Walker had a gift for making friends, but also enemies, and sometimes he almost made enemies of his friends. There's a firm suggestion that he fell out with Ingham - and that, perhaps, this led to the early demise of the CCC. Rickards states clearly that Venables disliked Walker intensely, and there is a suggestion that Walker may have gone out of his way to undermine Venables' position at the AT. Politics..politics...
There could have been more pages devoted to angling in the book, for my taste. Woldale, for instance, was the test bed for the CCC, but it is hardly mentioned. Redmire, of course, gets its own chapter, as it should.
There's an interesting account of how Ravioli was weighed at Redmire, with two balances - one, an accurate 32lb balance and the other, a borrowed 16lb balance from a farm worker. The combined reading was 41lb or maybe 41.5lb, and Rickards claims that Walker always referred to his fish as "my forty" not "my forty four". However, it is clear that the carp did weigh 44lb -(or possibly even 44.5lb) at London Zoo, without the sack, and - who knows, perhaps the borrowed scale was dreadful, and Ravioli was over 44lb when caught!
Someone, at some point, sent a letter to Fred J. Taylor, claiming the record "was not all it was supposed to be.."
Fred, of course, would have nothing to do with this. But I wonder who that un-named doubter was? On the Hilton Angling site, it states that Jack Hilton had doubts over the veracity of some claimed carp weights... I wonder...

[Mark]

It is a lovely book and a very good read FB, you will enjoy it I'm sure.

[Loop Erimder]

I have it too but yet to read it, i will at some point this year

[Gary Bills]

I'm sure I shall enjoy it, Mark - and LE has a treat in store, that is for sure. :thumb:
I wonder, sometimes, if Walker was a time traveller, enjoying a lark with the anglers of the 1940s and 50s - he was so ahead of his day! :think: