Some years ago, Tom Sutcliffe was tidying out some boxes, when he came across a video he had forgotten about, and he gave me a call. We discussed the video, and Tom, knowing my penchant for South African flyfishing history, asked if I would like the original.
In due course a parcel arrived from Tom, containing a USB drive and this letter:
And for those interested, here is that link to John’s favourite Rachmaninoff piece: https://youtu.be/RxaUQneu3wg?si=wLq-HhC21O_xohHW
The USB drive lay in a drawer for a while, because I was still learning my video editing software. Then one day I had the forethought to at least copy it onto my PC and a few other places, and then later still I loaded it into the software and re-exported it in a more modern file format, while I waited for my editing skills to improve.
And then I forgot about it. Kinda. I mean I knew I had it, but it was out of my mind for a long time.
Then last week I stumbled upon the above letter, and I set to work.
I hope that in trimming it down, I haven’t lost the essence of John’s story, and his take on things.
But you can be the judge. In the interests of posterity, and with a notion that Tom bestowed on me a responsibility to make this material available and keep it safe, I present here the raw, unedited version of the interview, broken into the two parts:
It has been an honour to work with this footage, and poignant to consider that I bought John Beam’s book when I was a school kid (and when Tom Sutcliffe happened to be our school doctor).
In those heady days (the eighties) these two names, and some others with them…Neil Hodges, Hugh Huntley, Bill Duckworth and so on, tended to conjure up an air of nobility to a young flyfishing fanatic that I was.
