UK actor Geoffrey Palmer greatly loved for his film and tv roles roles in such sitcoms as Butterflies, As Time Goes By and The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, has died aged 93
A reserved man, he usually remained out of the public gaze when not appearing on stage or screen, and rarely gave interviews. However in one he was quite passionate about rivers.
A keen fly fisherman, he told country magazine “The Field” “I was born a north Londoner but the great urban masses don’t understand the countryside or that Nature’s tough. If it weren’t for the fishing lobby, industrialists would have polluted every river.”
Fishing was his great passion.
“Fly fishing is the reason why I work, as (actor friend and fly fisherman) Michael Horden once said ‘I work to fund my hobbies'”.
Geoffrey loved nothing better than standing knee-deep in water in rivers in Scotland, Hampshire and Wiltshire.
“It was my wife who got me into it unwittingly. I was working hard and she thought it would do me good if she bought me a couple of casting lessons as a present. Now I hardly ever see her.”
“I just wanted to do this all my life. But I always thought fly fishing was something that terribly grand people did, like hunting and shooting grouse.”
‘Once he was offered a super part in a film – but the date clashed with fishing in Scotland. ‘My son Charlie said, “Dad, you’ve been working for sixty years – do the fishing.” So I did. And the film wasn’t any good, anyway.’
And that’s where he was often found – at a fishing lodge in distant Sutherland, with wife, son and daughter, equipped with rods, flies and waders – a world away from the film and TV screens he had dominated so effortlessly for nearly seventy years.
<c> The late Geoffrey Palmer fly fishing in Scotland
We fresh water anglers in New Zealand need to maintain the same campaigning stance advocated by Geoffrey Palmer in the UK for exactly the same reasons: ‘If it weren’t for the fishing lobby, industrialists would have polluted every river.’
Only in our case we need to fight against agricultural commercialisation polluting and depleting every river.
The corporate dairy farming in Canterbury, Mackenzie basin and other areas is really industrial and quite different to the traditional Kiwi family farm. The corporates are not only polluting with nitrates but also depleting water flows. The Key National government was irresponsible, its Minster of Conservation and Environment Nick Smith openly and publicly sneered at public concern and the Key’s government sacking of ECAN was undemocratic and shameful just to facilitate dairying expansion for corporate mates.
Given that GodZone has lost serious revenue from tourism, and despite any euphoric thoughts about a vaccine, we can expect a diminished economy for some time to come – probably many years.
Printing $100 billion will have a massive effect, and will have to be repaid somehow.
Watch for the economists pitching in with demands to increase overseas investment, import trout flesh, more mono-culture and far more intensive agriculture and dairy.
None of which bodes well for our once pristine environment.
Politicians have forgotten they are public servants. Governments are really cabals as by my Heinemann’s NZ Dictionary – it says “a cabal is a faction or group working towards a common aim, especially by secret methods.”
The three parties in 2017-20 coalition promised to clean up rivers. There efforts were mediocre and just token. I appreciate the work the Federation of Freshwater Anglers is doing – voluntarily too. It’s more vital because Fish and Game councils sit on their hands – generally. I suggest Federation put up good, energetic candidates in next FG elections in all regions.
The person who most needs to note the value of the fly fishing environmental advocates is the new Minister of Conservation, Kiri Allen. It is likely that the Forest and Bird ideologists have already started to poison her against wild trout and the commercial sector who want to farm them.
Tim Neville