Fishing With Mr Crabtree

Slightly off the beaten track and inspired by John's mention of the strip here.

Mr. Crabtree was a comic strip all about fishing that ran in the Daily Mirror for years. Originally, Crabtree hosted a gardening strip but, during the winter when things went quiet in the garden, Venables persuaded the editors to let him send Mr. Crabtree fishing. This was in the 1940s and the strip ran for many years.

A brief biography of Venables appears at Bookseller World:

Bernard Venables was born on 14th February 1907 in Kent England and few people in recent history can have done more to encourage people to go angling, along with Richard Walker and BB he has hugely influential in the post war boom in fishing. After leaving school he worked for several newspapers, it when he produced his first cartoon strip for the Daily Mirror that he really made his mark. It was so popular that it soon extended to a column as well and eventually books. In 1963 he was one of the people behind the magazine Creel which brought new levels of quality and production to the market. His works are still enjoyed and collected today.

Bernard Percival Venables, who was awarded an MBE in 1995, died on 21 April 2001, aged 94. An obituary which expands greatly on the information above can be found here (Daily Telegraph, 24 April 2001).

Cover by Glenn Steward

Books by Bernard Venables
Tanks, Their Place in Modern Warfare. London, Country Life, 1942.
Fish and Fishing. Harmondsworht, Penguin (Puffin Picture Book no. 53), 1948.
A Fisherman's Testament, illus. by the author. London, Adam & Charles Black, 1949.
Mr. Crabtree Goes Fishing. London, Daily Mirror, 1949; as Mr. Crabtree Goes Fishing. A guide to fishing round the year, London, Unwin Paperbacks, 1990; as Mirror Features Presents... Mr. Crabtree Goes Fishing (50th Anniversary edition), London, Map Marketing, 2000.
Fishing, illus. by the author. London, Batsford, 1953.
Guide to Angling Waters, illus. by the author. London, Daily Mirror Newspapers, 1954.
The Gentle Art of Angling, illus. by the author. London, Max Reinhardt, 1955.
The Angler's Companion, illus. by the author. London, Allen & Unwin, 1958.
Fishing for Pike with Mr. Cherry and Jim, illus. by the author. Peterborough, Angling Times, 1961.
Fishing for Roach with Mr. Cherry and Jim, illus. by the author. Peterborough, Angling Times, 1961.
Fishing for Perch with Mr. Cherry and Jim, illus. by the author. London, Angling Times, 1962.
Fishing for Trout with Mr. Cherry and Jim, illus. by the author. London, Angling Times, 1962.
Fishing with Mr. Crabtree in All Waters. London, Daily Mirror, 1964.
Freshwater Fishing, illus. by the author. London, Jenkins, 1967.
Baleia! The whalers of the Azores. London, Bodley Head, 1968.
Mr. Crabtree's Book of Fishing for Boys. London, Daily Mirror, 1968.
Mr. Crabtree's Guide to Good Fishing Tackle. London, Daily Mirror, 1969.
Coming Down the Zambezi. London, Constable, 1974.
The Piccolo Fishing Book, illus. by the author. London, Piccolo, 1981.
The Illustrated Memoirs of a Fisherman. Ludlow, Merlin Unwin, 1993.
A Rise to the Fly. London, Robert Hale, 2000.

Others
The Angling Times Book, ed. with Howard Marshall. London, James Barrie, 1955.
A Fly Fishers Life [Pris sur le vif] by Charles Ritz; translated by Humphrey Hare; foreword by Ernest Hemingway; with an introduction by Bernard Venables. London, Max Reinhardt, 1959.
Fishes in Colour: Marine and Freshwater by Gwynne Vevers [translated from the original Danish Fisk i farver by Hans Hvass]; notes on angling methods by Bernard Venables; illus. Henning Anthon. London, H. F. & G. Witherby, 1963.

Illustrated Books
The Hunting of Zakaroff by W. B. Macmillan. London, Peter Lunn, 1946.
The Phantom by John Sylvester. London, Peter Lunn, 1946.
Silver. The life story of an Atlantic Salmon by Roderick L. Haig-Brown. London, A. & C. Black, 1946.
Fishing for a Year by Jack Hargreaves. London, Macgibbon & Kee, 1951.
For Poachers ONly, and the Giles stories by Jack Chance; illus. with Alex Jardine. London, Adam & Charles Black, 1955.
Fishing by George Clifford. London, Oxford University Press, 1968.
Farming Year by John Cherrington. London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1983.