Richard Walker remains an enigmatic figure to the majority of fishermen under the age of fifty, who can hardly fail to be aware of his influence on angling, yet find there is little of his work to read outside magazines. One of the ways that Dick did influence angling (beyond his prolific journalism), was that he was an enthusiastic correspondent and it is fitting that the best known book to bear his name is the 1953 Drop me a Line, the major part of which consists of a series of letters between Walker and Morris Ingram. So thirsty are anglers to read more about Walker that even library copies of Drop me a Line change hands for £75 or more. The good news is that no less a person than the late Peter Stone has edited together a new collection of Walker letters, which is presented here as an attractive new Medlar hardback.

Stone and Walker met in 1956 during a talk the latter gave at Oxford on specimen hunting and the pair began to correspond soon afterwards, the chain only being broken by Walker’s death in the early eighties. The problem Peter Stone faced when he first contemplated publishing the letters was that very few of his own had survived, so this book consists of letters from Walker accompanied by a commentary from Stone. In the final analysis, the text is none the worse for this, and there are some real gems inside, including advice from Walker about how to get into angling journalism and the actions to be taken should one accidentally catch a bream.