Sometimes the past has an almost ghostly way of reaching back towards one.
So it was last Thursday night, when I sat down to watch the first episode of Fishing in the Footsteps of Mr Crabtree. Not on my own, but in the company of Bernard’s widow Eileen Venables, their son Aaron, their daughter Hannah Bruford and her husband Richard. Needless to say, I was highly apprehensive – how would they react to our treatment of the great Crabtree legend, the work at the very centre of their family’s history? Although I have known them all for around 40 years, ever since Aaron and Hannah were at primary school with my own children, and fished frequently with Bernard, this was still a very sensitive moment.
I need not have worried. As the evening wore on, they became increasingly involved in the angling action, and approving of the interaction between John and last week’s ‘Peter’, Sam Gallagher. Like me, they were amazed that it had been shot last ‘summer’ and delighted with the way it portrayed our gentle sport, set in beautiful countryside.
At the end, they all said that Bernard would have approved of our portrayal of Mr Crabtree; what more praise could one desire?