Fred French passed away today

I didn't know him personally, I just received thousands of emails and items of information from him about fishing and fisheries and all manner of stuff. He was a real fighter for angling and will be very sadly missed I'm sure.

He's not been well for ages, but recently took a downturn and was admitted to Lancaster Royal on Friday, I believe. He passed away today (Sunday) at 1700 hrs.

I knew Fred personally for almost 20 years, he will certainly be missed!

A sad loss....I remember his name being very prominent in Match Angling circles in the South East, and in Angling administration. Reading some of the obituaries posted on the net..we all owe him a huge debt of gratitude.

Never met Fred but conversed often by email, a very sad loss.

Thoughts are with his freinds and family

RIP

This from Judith Clarke

Dear All,

I received a phone call today from Fred's nephew Matthew informing me of the following arrangements: The funeral will take place on 1st June.There will be a cremation service at 10.15 at Lancaster which will be attended by family members only. There will be a Thanksgiving Service for all to attend at 1 p.m. at St Mary's Church, Ambleside and this will be followed by refreshments at Rothay Manor Hotel at 2 p.m. Family flowers only please but Donations if so wished to St. John's Hospice, Lancaster.

Matthew has asked me to inform the angling and fisheries communities of these arrangements and I will obviously need your assistance to let your networks of friends and colleagues know. For catering purposes, Matthew has also asked me to try to help establish the likely numbers of those attending. This will be very difficult but I have told Matthew I will relay to him any information people are able to provide about whether they will be at the funeral and whether they will then wish to proceed to Rothay Manor.

Y donations and I have asked Matthew to forward these for onward cascade asap.

During the service Matthew will be delivering a tribute to Fred as a family member but he asked me to recommend someone who I thought could deliver a tribute about his work for fisheries and angling. I said I would seek opinion about this.
Although I have worked closely with Fred in recent years, I thought perhaps it would be more appropriate for one of Fred's contemporaries to take on this job - someone who has been closely involved with his work over a span of many years. I would be most grateful for your thoughts and suggestions about this important matter.

Dr Judith Clark N W RFERAC Chair


(if you want her email for attending purposes, please PM me.)

A lovely man and a great loss not only to angling but to everyone who knew him. Although I have criticised the Angling Trust in recent times I doubt it would have ever happened without Fred's drive and enthusiasm.

Fred never got over the very sudden death of his old friend, NAFAC Chair and colleague,Terry Mansbridge, in 2006. In fact Fred became ill shorly after the very last NAFAC National Council meeting in December 2008. Even though he had been house-bound for some time, he still managed to send out an incredible number of e-mails, right up to last week
.
I'll certainly miss Fred and my wife had a tear-drop in her eye when I got the news on Monday.
I've re joined the Angling Trust in respect for Fred, a single unified body for angling, anglers and fisheries was his life long ambition. I just hope it/they do him proud.
I'm sure he would have kicked a few &rses had he been fit enough to over the last few years.

R.I.P. Fred French M.B.E.

Another tribute HERE from the Eden Rivers Trust

I've just created a new file for Freds recent e-mails - Windows mail it still copying