Pre-war angling update: the Gazette has received a letter responding to a recent Obiter piece and photo featuring Saville Cohen, lawyer of yore and prize tunny fisherman.


Though he did not know any more about Cohen than we did, the letter's author, John Edwards of Tubbs & Co in Scarborough, did recognise erstwhile lawyer, town clerk of Scarborough, angler and angling writer Eric Horsfall Turner. John has thoughtfully sent in a book by Horsfall Turner, in which there is a picture of the great man with a huge tunny fish very similar to the one we published of Cohen.



John also knew who one of the other people in the Cohen picture was - Tom Birch. The book he sent us - Angler's Cavalcade, published in 1966 - is full of pictures that show how serene fly-fishing must once have been. Almost no one else features in the shots of be-wadered anglers hip deep in glorious country streams. Carefree days and daze, with not a BlackBerry in sight.



Horsfall Turner is also, if not quite a Hemingway, adept at conjuring the excitement of Scarborough tunny fishing, and Cavalcade's final chapter brings to life what Messrs Cohen, Birch and all must have experienced in their quest for the mighty beast while wrestling with the dark North Sea.



'Shipping his oars with a clatter, the skipper slides down the gunwhale like a cat. He begins to heave convulsively at something we cannot see; but he has it, the last 12 feet of steel. The head of the great fish rises slowly from the sea and the gaff goes through the jaw. The fish slides forward, inert in death. His curved side shows, even in the dim light, as a dusky indigo rainbow. The rope becket goes round his tail and it comes clear of the sea. The tunny, the massive blue-fin, is ours at last. As our parent craft steams slowly alongside in the gathering light, her derrick is out. The traditional flag flies from the mast: "Tunny aboard."'



Peerless stuff. Thank you, Mr Edwards.