BOOK REVIEW

Farewell, And Thanks For All The Fish

By Neville Fickling

(Reviewed by Dave Phillips)

On February 1, 1953, the greatest storm on record raged down the North Sea, causing devastating floods, in which thousands of people drowned. Norfolk was particularly hard hit, especially Joyce Fickling’s home town of King’s Lynn, but she had more pressing things to worry about. She was in labour and eventually delivered a baby boy. 

That infant, Neville John Fickling, was destined to cause plenty of storms of his own in the world of angling, growing up to become the undisputed greatest predator angler who ever lived, breaking the coveted pike record, as well as the zander record – the latter, twice. He was also one of our first professional anglers, making a living from the sport he loved. 

For most of the last century, fishing was the nation’s biggest participant sport, yet to the general non-angling public, fishermen weren’t noted for their charisma. Blokes who sit on riverbanks huddled under umbrellas, basically doing bugger all, seldom are. There are no household names, although Neville comes close. I can’t think of any other angler who has appeared on the front cover of the Sunday Times Magazine, but he did when he broke the long-standing British pike record in 1985. A sure sign of legendary status is when you’re known by your surname and, in the world of angling, Fickling achieved that status. 

He also courted plenty of controversy along the way, from which emerged several versions of Fickling, according to who you listened to. That made Neville something of a Marmite man, with folks who had never even met him declaring their love or hate for him. After all, Fame inevitably turns up with his unwelcome sidekick, Infamy.

I’ve heard him described as aloof, grumpy, greedy, pessimistic, moaning, crafty and antisocial. I’ve heard him accused of illegally stocking zander in practically every river and lake in England – and even known him banned from some fishing clubs because they were genuinely scared he might introduce the dreaded zander to their waters. 

But as someone who has known him almost 60 years, I can vouch for the fact that Neville Fickling is one of the funniest, generous and most honest people I have ever met. It’s a view shared by most people who actually know him, rather than the crude caricature peddled by his detractors. But I don’t need to expand on that, because you can read all about it for yourself in his memoirs.

Neville has written countless articles for the angling press, as well as several books, but at the age of 72 he has called a halt on his writing career with the recent publication of his autobiography, Farewell, And Thanks For All The Fish. It is, he says, his last book. It is also his best.

The book is brutally honest, to the point of being confessional. Describing his early years, you could be forgiven for thinking he was ultimate bad boy, always clashing with authority, but in truth he was a very funny lad whose sense of humour didn’t go down very well with some teachers at the rather strict and austere grammar school he attended. I know, because I was there. Neville got into plenty of scrapes through his adult life, too – all of which are described in the book, which I thoroughly recommend.

This is not an instructional, how-to-do-it, sort of book. It doesn’t set out to tell you how to catch pike and zander, but you can’t help but learn a lot from a man who, at the last count, had caught more than 500 pike weighing over 20 lb, 19 over 30 lb and two of 40 lb-plus.

The book’s title, by the way, is a tribute to Neville’s favourite author, Douglas Adams, of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy fame. A strange choice – and one that has had unfortunate repercussions, with several anglers assuming that he had died. I recently spent a few hours on Facebook patiently contradicting the well-meaning but happily incorrect tributes that had been paid to the “late” legend by some of his fans. Neville is in fact very much alive and keen as ever. 

• Neville’s book – which I highly recommend –  is available online HERE – priced £30 (plus £4.99 postage).