Nature Book Reader June 2020 - Flipbook - Page 114
A Nature Book Reader
ROB ST. JOHN
Occasional writer, musician, academic and fly tangler
Mr Crabtree Goes Fishing
by Bernard Venables
Mr Crabtree – that pipesmoking, tweed-decked,
square-jawed archetype of
1950s man – was the creation
of Daily Mirror cartoonist
Bernard Venables, initially
part of a cartoon strip
dispensing gardening advice
to readers. At a loss for how
to fill the dark, barren winter
months, the newspaper’s
editors suggested Venables
migrate the stoic Crabtree to
the river-bank, accompanied
by his son Peter, who –
like his JM Barrie-created
namesake – seems never
to age past the cusp of
short-wearing adolescence,
regardless of the weather.
In a series of pen and ink
cartoon strips, Mr Crabtree
leads Peter through a
seasonal fishing education.
Through Peter, we see
the natural world through
114
fresh, innocent eyes – every
new experience a quiet
revelation, mediated through
the lens of Venables’ postwar, pastoral vision of the
British countryside. And this
idyllic landscape is what’s
so compelling about Mr
Crabtree: the changing seasons
determine quarry and tactics
(if not Mr Crabtree and Peter’s
clothing…), emphasising the
importance of understanding
the environment over the
need for complicated,
technical equipment. Venables
himself suggested that this
intimate understanding of
the freshwater environment
makes fishermen amongst
the most effective
conservationists.
Beautifully written and
illustrated, Mr Crabtree Goes
Fishing draws an idyllic,
semi-idealised line between
