Talking about My Generation

Last week was a rollercoaster for me, starting with a day trip to the Isle of Man viewing an amazing collection, followed closely by a trip to Poole to meet the legendary barbel fisherman and prolific writer Peter Wheat and finishing with a superb day at Roger Daltrey’s trout fishery in Kent at a fund raiser for Fishing for Schools.

More on the IOM collection later in a future blog but the day with Peter Wheat will be remembered for a very long time. What a fascinating man and full of stories of the heroes of my generation. Richard Walker, Fred J Taylor, Peter Stone and many more. Peter’s home was more a shrine celebrating his fishing life and the contribution he has made to our great sport. Proudly on display were his first 2lb roach, his first 3lb roach, original artwork by Bernard Venables and ‘BB’ (Denys Watkins-Pitchford) Cooper fish, plus hundreds of items of memorabilia collected over a life-time.  Amazingly virtually every item has a note written by Peter adding to the provenance. See image.

Thomas Turner is proud to be appointed to sell the Peter Wheat Collection on Peter’s behalf and more on this as the story develops. We do anticipate displaying many of the items at our expanded Weston Super Mare premises before sale. Fresh to the market as they say!

Talking about ‘My Generation’ (Baby!) last Friday it was a great privilege to attend the Fishing for Schools superb charity day at Lakedown fishery, attended by a host of angling luminaries and celebrities including Roger Daltrey, Fergal Sharkey, Johnny Vegas (who caught his first trout) and Peter Cockwill.

Fishing for Schools has been a great success since it was founded by Charles Jardine in 2007. To his great credit Charles identified that Angling can help enrich a young person’s learning and it is a good way to get them out of the classroom and into the countryside.  4000 students and 150 schools have been involved to date. The day was also to celebrate Charles’s retirement from his role as leader of the charity. A goodly sum of money was raised and this finished off a superb week for me and for TT in some style. Many thanks Charles!

Look out for some super items being added to our website over the coming weeks.

Best get back to my retirement now.