Richard Walker - Three Glorious Decades

[Nigel Moors.]

Ok - let's try to do my last comment some justice! I'd firstly say that to insult anyone writing for FM or any other outlet is not my intention and at the risk of sounding like I'm backtracking I'll apologise right now if one or two sensitive souls are bothered by what I said.

Kevin - I don't doubt that the contributors to the site have written to the best of their ability. But no doubt **** Walker himself thought that he was doing the same yet in this same thread celebrating the man one or two (or maybe more) of his articles have been labelled 'banal'. Ron himself was slightly bothered about that word associated with his great friend and fellow angler.

But it is Mark's (or any other reader's)right to say that. It is about the readers perception and if the reader decides he doesn't like what he's reading he has the right to say so.

With reference to Chris B's 'I'd love to know what qualifications or track record the person who wrote that has, just to put things into perspective' - it's not about having to qualify anything. Christ this is a forum. If everything anyone had to say on here had to be separately qualified there'd be masses of footnotes rendering the whole process ridiculous.

Mark states 'That means that some material can seem boring to experienced anglers as it is back to basic stuff'. That was exactly my point. This site is fantastic, I wouldn't visit any other but let's not pretend that everything about it is absolutely to everyone's liking. That is far too inward looking.

And Mark - I can't do better myself. You know that, I know that and by now so does everyone else on here. I promise you I wasn't referring to your writing. I find your style right up my street, capturing my interest from the opening paragraph and it's nearly always thought provoking.

I've no doubt that Keith Arthur thinks he's doing his best but the first paragraph of any of his stuff has me turning the page....

 

[Ron 'The Hat' Clay (ACA-Life Member)]

I think it is important to understand that not all of us who contribute to FM are professional writers or journalists. But that doesn't matter.

Some FM contributors are certainly gifted writers and I put such people as our Graham, Bob Roberts, Mark Wintle and Chris Bishop here.

But FM is also a great training ground for new writers.

You mention Keith Arthur Nigel. I have high regard for Keith Arthur, he is obviously an angler of considerable ability and his opinions are worth reading.

But where he lets himself down is nearly always his first paragraphs, many of which tend to be composed of hackneyed phrases. In any article, that first paragraph is the most important bit of all. If you don't get that right, people WILL turn the page.

 

[The Monk]

An excellent article Ron, yes Walker was a leading influence in the development of the big fish movement, the spark was probably started with the Carp Catchers Club in 1051, followed by the first Tenchfishers of 1954 and Gordons Woods original Barbel Catchers Club, a few more followed in the fifties and early 60s, your own Northern Speciment Hunter Club was of course a Walker influence, the organised Big Fish Movement however came about through my old friend Eric Hodson (24th April 1965) when he brought all the known groups together in Birmingham, Walker had nothing to do with this and even critised the movement calling it a non-existant university who met in a telephone box, we was however later invited to a meeting, this group was of course the National Association of Specimen Groups, now known as SAA. I think Walker only ever attended one meeting?

 

[Ron 'The Hat' Clay (ACA-Life Member)]

The Carp Catchers in 1051!!!

You are really showing your age now Monk!

Walker actually thought that Eric Hodson's concept of forming a National Association was a good idea. He certainly came along to address us at the 1965 inaugural conference in Melton Mowbray - 1965. Never forget that, I was there.

But he told me, Tag Barnes and Eric during lunch that his time was restricted. He worked for Lloyds & Co of Letchworth as Technical Director - his mother's business and he had a column for Angling Times to produce every week.

But he did wish us well!!

 

[Ron 'The Hat' Clay (ACA-Life Member)]

Hey mate, where's that picture of you about to eat that 20 lb carp from the stewpond. Taken in 1154 I think.

 

[Ron 'The Hat' Clay (ACA-Life Member)]

What inspired me to form the Northern Specimen Group was a variety of things. First of all it was BB, Walker, Maurice Ingham and John Norman of the Carp Catcher's Club.

Then came Groups Like the Herts-Chiltern with Frank Guttfield, Peter Frost and Jack Hilton. Before this, there was Frank Guttfield's "Arlesey Whopper Stoppers" of course.

But around about 1961, there appeared a number of articles in Angling Times written by Peter Butler of the "London Specimen Hunters Club". This organisation was composed of anglers like Herbie Green, Peter Butler, Ron Barnett and I think Trevor Housby.

These articles prompted me to write to **** Walker via Angling Times about forming a Specimen Hunters Club. I was only 19 or 20 years of age at the time.

 

[The Monk]

haha, 1951 sorry mate, dyslexic fingers

 

[Nigel Moors.]

That's exactly the point I was making Ron. No-one is questioning the angling abilities of anyone else. The point was made early on about the standard of writing. Sometimes it's not always consistent, no matter how good the angler. I fully acknowledge that a good deal of contributors to FM aren't professional writers, but what's odd to me is that we can sit around and debate the standard of a Great like RW but not say anything about the modern stuff. It smacks of double standards or at least real tetchiness to me.

 

[Ron 'The Hat' Clay (ACA-Life Member)]

OK Nigel a few simple tips for budding writers.

1: The opening paragraph is the most important of all. It must sock you between the eyes and give an outline as to the subject you are writing about.

2: Keep sentences short and to the point.

3: Paragraph properly. There is nothing worse than looking at a whole mass of writing clumped together.

4: Inless you are truly excellent at it, avoid flowery descriptive writing using obscure English. For example, why not say: "He is a good angler", rather than: "He is a noble exponent of the piscatorial art."

5: Avoid repeating adjectives in a sentence

For example:

"I found a good spot in a good swim. I made a good cast and within a few minutes had a good bite. The fish pulled hard and was obviously a good one. It was a good one and weighed a good twenty pounds."

Most computer owners have MS Word in their system - use it.

 

[The Monk]

Good photographs/or sketches also sell articles of course

 

[Ron 'The Hat' Clay (ACA-Life Member)]

That's a diffent thing mate but so true.

What about an article by yourself on photography seeing you do it for a living.

And this time, not about trophy shots.

 

[The Monk]

To be honest mate photgraphy is easy these days, most of it is done for you, in many cases you can forget about apertures, ISOs and shutter speeds, just press smily face or cloud and let the camera do the worrying, while you can always check it instantly on the back, Digital photography has changed my life and I dragged my feet changing over, in fact its just over 2 years ago I bought a brand new F5, a lovely camera which I`ll probably never use again

anybody wants a Nikon F5 for ?800 (special FM price)

 

[Mark Wintle]

Nigel,

Thanks for comments; what Kevin and myself don't get very often yet appreciate is constructive feedback from people that are expert in the writing field (pererably by email). I have studied a number of books on writing to try to help my own skills. A comparison of my recent articles to ones of 3 years ago ought to reflect an increase in writing skill. I have certainly learnt from Mark Williams especially regarding intros. Getting an article published in AT helped in that I could see what editing had taken place and learn from it.

To those unwilling to have a go then all I can say is have a try. If you don't like the result then try again; you will improve with practice. I write some articles that just get binned (well saved but not used). Sometimes I still like the idea and rewrite it.

Writing an article can be quick, today's Bumblebee took exactly one hour. Sometimes it is much longer; an article on the BRFC or hybrids that is written jointly with Andy Nellist may take weeks. It does help if you attach the article to the email; this week's WWA had the pictures and no text, hence a week's delay.

To Monk I would say, yes the taking a picture is now easy, a great angling shot is more difficult, any pointers?

I may dig out a mundane Walker article for Ron to see tomorrow if I get time.

 

[The Monk]

I would say a familiarisation of Photoshop is useful for the enhancement of photographs
Mark, obviously you need an eye and an ability to capture atmospheric shots. I`m far from an expert, in angling my purpose with phoitography has been to record captures, I think the biggest problems I have had is in self photography when I have been fishing alone.

 

[Nigel Connor(ACA ,SAA)]

Mark, I'm looking forward to your debut in next months Coarse Fisherman.Any pointers as to what its on?

 

[Ron 'The Hat' Clay (ACA-Life Member)]

Enhancement of photos using Photoshop!

Aye, and you can make that 18lb carp look like a 60 pounder!!!!

)

 

[Ron 'The Hat' Clay (ACA-Life Member)]

Seriously, I would recommend anyone who wants to write articles to spend a little time and to read some really excellent descriptive writing.

One of the very best was Ian Fleming.

His James Bond books contain some truly vibrant English. Fleming was a master at setting a scene.

Forget the movies, they were crap!

The other writer to read is Tolkein. Again a master "Wordsmith" of the English language.

 

[Chris Bishop]

<<<With reference to Chris B's 'I'd love to know what qualifications or track record the person who wrote that has, just to put things into perspective' - it's not about having to qualify anything. Christ this is a forum. If everything anyone had to say on here had to be separately qualified there'd be masses of footnotes rendering the whole process ridiculous.>>>>

Sorry Nigel, I think you're missing the point. Saying something's boring doesn't really help anyone.

Saying it's boring for a reason - badly-constructed, too much repetition, complex, wordy sentences which made it difficult to understand, tried the rig described and it was a tangling nightmare - you then move into the realms of helpful criticism.

One word throwaway critique implies you know what you're talking about, so it would be interesting to know why.

Be a little more expansive and add some reasons and you qualify your criticism.

Nothing more sinister than that, sorry if it came across that way.

 

[Chris Bishop]

The way to improve at writing is keep doing it and develop your own style.

No sure Tolkien's the thing for a budding angling website writer though.

"Ere, Gandalf. I thought you said we'd be hauling...

"F'ing Gollum's been and eaten 'em all again."

 

[Ron 'The Hat' Clay (ACA-Life Member)]

Oh I don't know Chris, you want to read some of The Monk's stuff.

"Dark Lord", "Year of the Eights", "Droogs", "Jayce The Ace", "Ming", "Gayboy Lee" and last but not least - "The Notorius Boggart Bivvy Butler".

If you ever read the dross that was printed in "Carp World" years ago, The Monk's pieces were the only things that kept the magazine sane!!

They were entitled: "Tales From The Shire."