A sale with net profits

LINES crossed, intentions impeccable, John Smith in Shildon sends a cutting from The Times about angling's sale of the century. It encompasses the treasury of books and other piscatorial paraphernalia amassed by the late John Simpson. "The most important collection of angling books to come onto the market for at least 30 years," says Matthew Haley, of Bonham's auction house in London.

"I'm nearly sure this is Jackie Simpson, originally from West Auckland," says John Smith.

Ever anxious for a local angle, the column has been casting its bread upon the water...

It should at once be made clear, therefore, that the Jack Simpson who was once a tiddler in West Auckland is alive and well and still in fishy business up to his oxters.

"I've a few books and a collection of old reels but nothing in the same league as my namesake. I never met him but he was a fanatic," says Jack, whose brother Robert is still in the village.

Nor are they any relation to Robert Simpson, a West Auckland lad known inexplicably as Dalger, who played outside left for Darlington and Hartlepool either side of the Second World War.

The library was sold last week, four books alone raising more than £100,000 between them and The Fly Fisher's Legacy topping £38,000 - almost ten times the estimate. John Simpson's collection of rods and other equipment goes under the hammer on June 2.

"It was absolutely stonking, unbelievable, 99.9 per cent of the lots went," says Julian Roup of Bonham's. "There are 25 million trout fishermen in America alone, this will really have whetted their appetite for the second part."

The sale included a 1676 first edition of William Gilbert's The Whole Art of Neat and Clean Angling and, more discursive yet, an 18th century volume called The Gentleman Angler, Containing Short, Plain and Easy Instructions whereby the most ignorant Beginner may in a little Time become a Perfect Artist in Angling.

The Compleatest Angling Booke That Ever Was Writ was in there somewhere, too, together with a 1707 edition of the Anglers' Vade Mecum - a vade mecum, as readers will know, is a pocket book - illustrated with ink drawings by William Ellay of Thirsk, about whom we can find nothing whatsoever. (The late Harry Whitton, bless him, would have known in moments.)

Ellay added an angling poem, including the immortal lines:

Now happy fisherman, now twitch ye line

How thy rod bends, behold ye prize is thine.

Jack Simpson, who since 1972 has owned a thriving angling business in Hertfordshire and leads regular salt water fly fishing parties to Cuba, began as an apprentice rod maker with Cummings' in Bishop Auckland.

"It's my hobby, I've never done a proper day's work in my life," he insists.

Like most kids he caught minnows and bull heads, though not on the Gaunless in West Auckland. "It ran red in those days with pollution from the coke works at Evenwood; there wasn't a living thing in there, right down to the Wear.

"We'd cycle off to local estate lakes or go with the scouts to Raby Castle. Anything was better than the Gaunless."

Though he rarely gets back up north, more frequent visits are likely now that the Tyne has cleaned up its act as well.

"It's tremendous what's happened up there," says Jack, still a pretty big fish in angling's pond. "After that, I might just fancy Newcastle."

JOHN Simpson's cast of thousands notwithstanding, the most famous angling book ever written was probably Fly Fishing by JR Hartley - first featured in a Yellow Pages commercial in 1983.

The commercial became so popular that book shops and even the British Library were overwhelmed with inquiries - the only problem that neither title nor author existed.

Eight years after it first appeared, therefore, the publisher Random Century commissioned Michael Russell to ghost the book and actor Norman Lumsden - who'd played Hartley in the ad - to launch it. It became a Christmas bestseller.

Fly by night Hartley returned to the small screen in 1994 - on the advice of his doctor, he'd taken up golf instead.

JAKE'S progress: recent recollections that the late Captain Richard Annand VC was universally nicknamed Jake after another cartoon strip character - the 1940s Just Jake in the Daily Mirror - have also prompted further memories.

A reader in Gosforth, seeking anonymity, reckons that he only got to see the Mirror on holiday but remembers Jake well.

Why, he wonders - "I never did find out" - was Jake "just"? Was he a fighter for fairness, or simply a one-off? As in William, probably.

LAST week's column on former Witton Park lad Howard Chadwick's impending historical novel based on that reborn County Durham village brought a note from another Witton Park exile - last year's Mayor of Durham, Ray Gibbon.

Howard's dad was his barber. "I wonder if he thought he was cutting the hair of a future mayor of Durham," muses Ray, a retired polliss. "I doubt if it would have had made any difference to the hair cut."

At the weekly diary meeting with the mayor's secretary, he was told he'd been invited to open the chapel fair back home - "she made it sound as if Witton Park bordered Outer Mongolia" Ray recalls - but that he already had engagements that day.

Told of his unavailability, the Witton Parkers asked when the Mayor could come, and promised, fair play, to move the big occasion to suit him.

"The council said they'd never heard a request like it," says Ray. "I told them they'd never had a Witton Park lad as mayor before, either."

GETTING on a year after the column sang for its supper at one of their dinners, two Spennymoor Rotary Club members have independently sent copies of the club's new book - somewhat ambiguously called Cooking For Men.

Compiler Alan Phillips is thus anxious to explain that it's not about women cooking for men, rather that the lads get into the kitchen and sometimes do it - and the necessary shopping - themselves.

Among dozens of recipes is ragout of lamb with cous cous from Tony Blair, an honorary Spennymoor Rotarian for 15 years. "One of the Prime Minister's favourite dishes," it says, though without revealing who makes it.

Alan also encourages healthier eating, though concedes that cream and alcohol still have their place - as with a dozen oysters.

"Oysters are said to be an aphrodisiac but in my opinion they don't all work. If you're planning a seduction, I would serve them with a bottle of Bolly or similar, which seems to improve their performance."

Profits will go to Rotary charities, principally Spennymoor's adopted Water Aid campaign to provide clean drinking water in countries where frequently it's unavailable for miles.

The unfussy, uncomplicated, unusually readable 150 page book costs £5 (plus £1.50 postage) from David Robson, 24 Zetland Hunt, Newton Aycliffe, County Durham DL5 7LQ.

...and finally, our long insistence that public transport is a good source of stories paid off again yesterday: the longhaired chap hitching by the bus stop at Scotch Corner had not only just been parachuted down by the SAS (or so he said) but not ten hours earlier had taken part in an operation to rescue Princess Diana from a harem in Oman.

If the snow abates and if there's a bit more bait, we go fishing again next week.

www.thisisthenortheast.co.uk

/news/north.html