Dick Walker's generosity
Posted: Wed Aug 09, 2017 2:39 pm
Anyone who has read Barrie Rickards superb biography entitled 'Richard Walker' will have seen the extraordinary number of personal recollections about the great man. Here is another.
When the Angling Times was all black and white in 1965 I wrote to columnist Dick Walker to ask how I could catch a 2lb perch from the river Mole in Surrey. Imagine my surprise when Dick replied - in detail. Well we corresponded on and off for ten years and when I was at a crossroads in my life at 27 he knew that I was looking for a new direction and he wrote, "This morning, I had occasion to 'phone Frank Moir, who is Director and Company Secretary of Hardy Brothers at Alnwick. Frank tells me that his company are interested in intelligent young men and he would like to meet you. Hardy's will pay any interview expenses and Franks number is Alnwick 2771. They are a good company; I am a design consultant for them and I know!
What Dick didn't know was that when he wrote that letter I had just set foot in Hereford for the very first time. That day I made my mind up to find a place to live and a place to work right next to the river Wye. So I wrote back to Dick, thanking him profusely for his incredible offer. He replied with a beautiful handwritten script (all his other letters were typed) telling me all about his favourite perch swim at Lugg's Mouth on the Wye.
We carried on writing until he became too ill and then his secretary did the typing. My last letter from Dick is dated 2nd May 1983. What an amazing man.
When the Angling Times was all black and white in 1965 I wrote to columnist Dick Walker to ask how I could catch a 2lb perch from the river Mole in Surrey. Imagine my surprise when Dick replied - in detail. Well we corresponded on and off for ten years and when I was at a crossroads in my life at 27 he knew that I was looking for a new direction and he wrote, "This morning, I had occasion to 'phone Frank Moir, who is Director and Company Secretary of Hardy Brothers at Alnwick. Frank tells me that his company are interested in intelligent young men and he would like to meet you. Hardy's will pay any interview expenses and Franks number is Alnwick 2771. They are a good company; I am a design consultant for them and I know!
What Dick didn't know was that when he wrote that letter I had just set foot in Hereford for the very first time. That day I made my mind up to find a place to live and a place to work right next to the river Wye. So I wrote back to Dick, thanking him profusely for his incredible offer. He replied with a beautiful handwritten script (all his other letters were typed) telling me all about his favourite perch swim at Lugg's Mouth on the Wye.
We carried on writing until he became too ill and then his secretary did the typing. My last letter from Dick is dated 2nd May 1983. What an amazing man.