The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

Fascinating, I'd never heard about the 58 before.

I think Chris Ball once hoped that a pic of the "58" would turn up some day: but now it seems that no such picture exists..
These are very important letters, aren't they?

Wonderful stuff - welcome to the forum Jardine.

Nailbourne is quite right. The recipient owns the letter but the copyright of the words used belongs to the writer or his estate. In Dick's case I assume this is Pat Walker and lasts for something like 70 years after the death of the author. Copyright law does, however, allow for exceptions: in the use of "review, criticism and news reporting." Whether or not using a series of letters in their entirety would be considered "review or criticism" would be open to the courts to decide, but I suspect not. However, much depends on whether the copyright owner is bothered. Worst case scenario a court injunction stopping the publication of the book with cost against the publisher. I suspect that there will be folk on this forum who correspond with Pat Walker and thus she would soon get to know of the project. In my own case I fortunately have a "get out of jail card". Dick gave me a signed document saying I could use any of his material in any book I wrote. If he was nothing else Dick was generous to a fault. Others might see Dick's generosity as a failing. If Dick had put a fraction of the effort he put into angling, into amassing money, he undoubtedly would have died a very wealthy man.

There are inaccuracies in the letters that Dick wrote to Mr Hassan. Dick sometimes put his own slant on the "facts" - often, no doubt, for what he believed were good reasons. However, Bob Richards didn't get permission from the owner on behalf of Dick and Pete Thomas. The proof of that exists in the Carp Catchers rotary letters and in the letters I reproduced in A History of Carp Fishing Revisited. It was Dick Kefford who found out who the new tenant of the estate was and got permission. Kefford mentioned this to Dick whist inviting DW to join him at Redmire. Dick wrote to the tenant immediately he knew and got an invite for himself and Pete Thomas before Kefford's arranged visit. John Maclean wasn't the "owner" he was a tenant in the house and had the sporting rights to Redmire.

Fairlies Birthday: Similar letters to Mr Hassan's were written to lots of people. I have copies very similar to Mr Hassan's and seen several others written to people like Chris Ball (by the way Chris knew a long time ago that suprisingly no photos of the 58 existed). It says much about Dick that he didn't get sick to death of writing the same replies to the same questions. Others in Dick's position might have had standard copies made and just signed them. Before the mid 70s Dick used to write most of them in longhand, but during the 70s it probably got too much and he had a secretary type them from his dictation.

Thank you for the explanations Kevin and info on copyright.

Without getting too picky about it all, if "There are inaccuracies in the letters that Dick wrote" how on earth do we know that there are not 'inaccuracies' in " the Carp Catchers rotary letters and in the letters I [i.e. KC] produced? I think we are all - to a greater or lesser extent - inevitably 'guilty' of putting our own slant on 'the facts' (whatever they are). Dick's letters are wonderful, fascinating, prose of their time, on a subject dear to our hearts - lets just enjoy them and not get too forensic. Whilst I agree that the Redmire fishing rights story is a good yarn whatever actually went on, who really cares all those years later?. And as a minor point, Dick was sending typed replies out by early 1970 at least, and I'm not surprised given the sheer volume of letters he wrote (probably dictated) to people (an average of ten a day by then). Who else at the very peak of their game, would put that much quality effort and thought into helping and encouraging complete strangers approaching them uninvited? These letters are properly thought-out personal replies to the substantive matters, not signed photos sent out by a PR manager. I think that in itself tells us all we need to know about the character of the man.

Yes, thanks very much for sharing those letters.

Over the years I was always too preoccupied with Chris Yates and his fishing/books to really think much about Richard Walker.
He seemed a very nice chap and now I wish I'd read some of his books as well as Chris Yates's.

Maybe there's still time and I agree, I think it would be lovely to get some of the stuff people have shown on this forum published.

KF if you look on Amazon you can buy some of his books for as little as 1p. I treated myself to a couple yesterday!!