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adder, brown, cane, club, dace, dry, fishing, fly, flylite, grayling, hargreaves, jack, milward, nadder, of, out, rod, snake, split, teffont, town, trout
Many years back I dated a young lady near the town of Tisbury in Wiltshire, conveniently her father, a retired colonel was a member of his local fishing club on the River Nadder.
After a few visits to Wiltshire, approval was finally given to join him for a day’s fly fishing as a guest on the Nadder run by the Teffont Fishing Club.
Armed with my Millward Flylite split cane rod and a selection of dry flies bought from Farlow’s of Pall Mall the previous day, we set off in search of brown’s and grayling. That day local knowledge prevailed and the colonel caught several trout and graying, eventually I managed to hook a lone lady, thankfully my dry-fly fishing skills didn’t let me down that day. Walking back that evening the colonel told me about the history of this little twisting stream, looking back now, I forget most of the detail but one thing I always remember was the name, Nadder, a name given after the adder snake common in the Wiltshire district. The shape of the adder similar to that of the river, with its twists and turns. True? maybe, maybe not but I like the tale.
Here we have Jack Hargreaves dry-fly fishing on the Nadder delivered in his own unique gentle manner and hooking a rather fine dace.
the tuesday swim... 
Hullo tuesdayswim. I came across this blog via searching the web. I’m Jack’s stepson Simon. Baddeley. I wrote a Wikipedia piece about JH and have been streaming old clips of films he broadcast that have kindly been sent to me by people who recorded them at the time. Not the best quality but I enjoy them. i’ve been floating details on a Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/groups/32025851632/
I’m ever seeking old tapes of Out of Town from Southern TV (1960-1981) or Old Country (1982-1985) on Channel 4. Not commercial, but to archive and stream for those who may enjoy them. These clips should not be confused with the VHS/DVD compilation of 27 films also called Out of Town that my stepfather put together in 1986 and introduced from his real shed at Raven Cottage, Belchalwell in Dorset, rather than the studio ‘shed’ in earlier programmes. That compilation is the one set of films to which I don’t own the rights, which is why Southern Star-Endemol who claim them (or their agents) have persuaded `YouTube to delete the clip you streamed on this page of your blog. If you find another film from those for which I’ve offered a URL you’re welcome to embed one or more of those. Happy New Year 2012. Simon – love your photos and writing, Glad I discovered. Happy New Year and what fly do you use for ferraris or is it chuck-and-chance it?
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Dear Simon,
Thanks for getting in touch, I’m very glad you are enjoying the tuesday swim. I see you have a similar blog with plenty of interesting and like minded bits and bobs, its the detailed things that normally are the interesting things in life?
Regarding Jack, as you are well aware, he enthused a generation or two with the countryside, myself included and I like the fact that he was a Londoner for many years!
I’m a Sussex boy who’s been an East-ender now for twenty years but I can still find nature lurking everyday, here in London, as I mentioned in my last post a Kestrel is often resting on my window sill here in Victoria Park!
I like the facebook page and with your permission would like to pull together another piece on Jack using some of the video’s and images? Not so much a homage but more personal view on what your step father meant to me and with some added footage away from the usual Out of Town compilation pieces.
All the best
Nick
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What an interesting idea. I like it. Feel free. I’d be delighted to help in any way I can.Talking about nature lurking, I love cycling the blasted industrial wastes of Birmingham.
http://democracystreet.blogspot.com/2011/12/visiting-amy-and-guy.html
The same can be enjoyed even more I suspect in the smoke
Jack wrote ‘Love of the Country’ months before his death an unpublished ode to a book “I never wrote”…
Did they think about the skylarks when they built Mayfair
on the grazings that ran down to the Shepherd’s Market?
Did they worry about the snipe when they drained the marshes
behind St.James’s Palace to build Belgravia?
Where did the kite go when they dug the London sewers?
Do the piles they drove down through the beaver’s dam hold
firm the supermarket in Newbury High Street?
Who cooked the big trout that lay under the village bridge
at Wandsworth? Who feasted on the last salmon that was
netted at Tower Hamlets?
Now they come to put central heating in the ploughman’s hovel.
They claim the sun that used to bake the hay. And breathe
the breeze in which the pointing dog caught a hundred scents.
They walk out in trainers and T-shirts that say “Save the
Rain Forest”.
“Stand back!” they say. “We have a right to walk where we please!”
But we look where they trod before and shudder for what
follows in their footsteps.
I said I must write a warning. But I was angry and – as the
Japanese say – to be angry is only to make yourself ridiculous.
So we will live out our days in the cracks between the
concrete. And then they will pour cement on top of us.
I live in the cracks. Even enjoy it. They remind me of the astounding pace, in our chronology, with which nature would reassert itself – feral, heartless, terrifying, cruel, inhuman – if we eventually wipe ourselves out through feckless disregard of our proper place within the only environment we have. In a geological eye blink we’ll be a shallow layer of compacted plastic and carbon, to be mined by evolved cockroaches who in less than a billion years will be accusing each other of climate change denial as they burn our remains for energy.
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Hi Simon
Would you mind if I post this piece up on my blog, more relevant today than ever before?
‘Did they think about the skylarks when they built Mayfair
on the grazings that ran down to the Shepherd’s Market?
Did they worry about the snipe when they drained the marshes
behind St.James’s Palace to build Belgravia?
Where did the kite go when they dug the London sewers?
Do the piles they drove down through the beaver’s dam hold
firm the supermarket in Newbury High Street?
Who cooked the big trout that lay under the village bridge
at Wandsworth? Who feasted on the last salmon that was
netted at Tower Hamlets?
Now they come to put central heating in the ploughman’s hovel.
They claim the sun that used to bake the hay. And breathe
the breeze in which the pointing dog caught a hundred scents.
They walk out in trainers and T-shirts that say “Save the
Rain Forest”.
“Stand back!” they say. “We have a right to walk where we please!”
But we look where they trod before and shudder for what
follows in their footsteps.
I said I must write a warning. But I was angry and – as the
Japanese say – to be angry is only to make yourself ridiculous.
So we will live out our days in the cracks between the
concrete. And then they will pour cement on top of us’
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Go ahead.
By the way you might want to replace that film of Jack’s you posted on 17 September that Endemol or one if its agents has deleted. I can assure you that these are legal to stream, though the quality is dodgy is legal as I own the rights on all the ‘Old Country’ broadcasts:
If you go to those URLs you can cut and paste the embed code for either or both of these. Best wishes, S
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