[birds chirping]
[peaceful music]
Jack: I used to fish a lot.
We used the fish the River Aln,
and in fact my
wife did, as well.
She used to fish and all, too,
and my father-in-law.
He was a keen fisherman,
and that's ...
We used to all go down,
and we all had
Hardy's equipment.
Everything was Hardy's.
It was the only kind
there was, really.
It was the best kind.
[music continues]
[reel winding]
Auctioneer: Well,
Hardy's is probably
comparable to the
Rolls Royce car makers.
Now, they were established
in the late 1800s,
and I would say the
quality of the workmanship
has been far greater
than probably any other
reel or rod maker.
Ivor: It does mean a lot to you.
You have happy memories of
the tackle you were using.
I mean, I can
remember my first rod.
I can remember my first
reel over 50 odd years ago.
It was my first rod.
It was a 9-foot Hardy CC de
France, Casting Club of Paris.
Yes, and I had a
little St. George reel.
That was my first outfit.
George: People treated them
We had an incident once
where somebody sent
a rod in for repair,
and it was in a
Swan Vesta matchbox.
It was two sets of joints,
and he said that ...
and you could see
when we looked at it,
there were all, like
marks on the joints,
in a letter that
covered it, it said,
"My dog got a hold
of my fishing rod,
"and chowed it all
up, chewed it all up,
"and this is what I've got left.
"Can you build another
rod around it?"
On the bottom, he said,
"The dog is now dead."
Whether that, if the dog
was actually dead or not,
we don't know, but that actually
came in to the firm once.
People did really love
their fishing rods, yeah.
Jim: When Prince
Charles and Lady Diana
were about to get married,
we thought it would be nice to
give them a wedding present.
We thought a nice Salmon outfit,
rod and reel for Charles
would be all right,
and a similar but lighter
weight outfit for Di.
Well, word came back that
what we proposed for Di,
that would be quite acceptable,
but that Prince Charles
himself would like
two 1912 Hardy
"Perfect" salmon reels.
The trouble was, we had thought
to get a wedding present,
we'll just go in the stock room
and take an outfit off the wall,
but we had to go on
to the antique market
and pay a fortune for
these two reels he wanted,
not just one.
[laughs]
Anyway, I met him
a few years later,
and he was telling me that he
preferred the old Hardy ratchet,
as he called it,
the check mechanism,
to the modern ones.
I said, "I know you do, sir,"
but I didn't tell him why.
Mark: I was driving
through Honiton,
and there was a big sign
outside an auction room
for fishing tackle,
so as any fisherman would,
I think, turn in
through curiosity,
and I went in there,
and I was just astounded
by all the antique,
vintage fishing tackle
that was in there,
and the majority of
it being Hardy's.
The prices for Hardy's fishing
tackle was just, you know,
it was just up and up,
and now it just ...
I couldn't believe,
you know, really,
it was sort of going
through the roof.
Man: Five, it's going
to be this one here.
Auctioneer: A rare, Hardy
Five thousand.
Five thousand two.
Five thousand, two hundred,
and selling away then.
Ivor: I've got rods and reels
and they're still
perfectly serviceable,
and they will be for
another 50 years.
You don't get that in many
other manufacturing industries
that'll give you a product
that'll last 100 years,
and still be just as good,
virtually, for catching fish
as the day it was produced.
[winding reel]
[music playing]
Edward: If you were from
and you had any inkling
that fishing was
remotely interesting,
or indeed country clothing,
or whatever, you know,
when one sort of "did London",
Hardy's was very often
somewhere that people made a
pilgrimage to, effectively.
In the same way that they'd
go and see Nelson's Column
or, you know, the
National Portrait Gallery,
or go and have tea at the Ritz.
Everybody worldwide looked
upon 61 Pall Mall as Hardy,
not the factory at
Alnwick, it was Pall Mall.
Jon: That Pall Mall shop was
It was where you went to see
the best fishing
tackle there was.
And you'd see what was going on.
You'd see it, you'd feel
it, you'd pick it up,
and think, "Oh, this
is going to be nice."
It was a great
place just to visit.
Very old-fashioned,
very of its time,
and they still prided themselves
on the quality of everything
that went on there.
Jim: Nearly all the customers
I mean, there's about 8
assistants in Pall Mall,
and people had a particular
one they would go and talk to,
and they'd rather
wait in a queue
and see Charlie
Smith or somebody
rather than take
any other assistant.
It was personal,
buying fishing tackle.
Very personal.
Assistant: And the address
Customer: 230 East 48th Street.
Jim: They used to get an
talking to someone
from New Zealand
about the Tongariro
River or something in it,
make a note that on
the Tongariro River,
a certain fly was very good now,
and when they had a customer
going out to New Zealand,
they could tell them,
"Well, the 'Wizi-Wizi' fly,
"or something was doing
very well just now."
"Oh, I better have
some of those."
[laughs]
Even at Alnwick, they
kept a tremendous log
of all the fishing hotels
in the United Kingdom,
and all the rivers in that area,
and what fly, and what
rod, and what tackle
they should have,
so anybody ringing up
and say they were
going up to Loch Maree.
"I'm going to fish for
sea trout on the Loch,
what should I have?"
They could recommend exactly
what they should have.
It was all done properly.
[music playing]
We're now in Paikes
Street, or Paikes Lane,
as it is sometimes called,
where the two brothers,
William and John James,
had their first shop.
They were both very
keen fishermen.
That's why after a
year or two in the g*n
and in the engineering
sort of business,
they started going in
for fishing tackle,
and I think it was
about 1873 or something.
A notice appeared in
the local newspaper
to say that Hardy's had now
a very good stock
of fishing tackle
for customers to come
and have a look at.
There were lovely
game-fishing streams,
the Coquet, the Aln,
the Tweed not far away,
and they used to fish for salmon
and trout in those waters.
When they were fishing,
they could think,
"Oh, maybe we should do it
this way, or something,"
and they could go
and try it out.
It was a great development time.
I mean, fly reels, for instance,
were thought of as just
something to hold the line,
and they weren't at
all sophisticated.
They were just a winch, and
they used to be called a winch.
It was Foster Hardy, who was
the third brother in age,
who also served a marine
engineering apprenticeship
on Tyneside.
He came into the firm,
and started
developing a fly reel
because he thought they
could be greatly improved,
and after a lot of
experimental engineering,
he produced the "Perfect" reel,
and it was called the
"Perfect" because it,
it was perfect.
It was the first fly reel
which had ball bearings.
It was this mechanism which
Prince Charles liked very much,
and it is a beautiful, simple,
but very strong mechanism.
That's the ball race
there, with the balls
captured in the
circle of bronze,
and that was the pattern
which Foster Hardy developed.
That made the Perfect reels
what they turned out to be,
most popular.
There's a little adjustment
on the side, here,
you could put a strong check
or a less strong check,
if you required.
But that's a lovely
bit of work there.
It was launched in about
and it was acclaimed
a tremendous
breakthrough in reels.
It was still in the catalogue up
to about four or five years ago.
Auctioneer: They
brought engineering
into fishing tackle manufacture.
Chris: These are made
exactly the same way
as the old reels were made.
I've gone back, like
because there's the
modern technology about,
but I'm using the modern
methods of machining
of the quality and the accuracy,
but it's still done
in the old way.
Things like this
are disappearing.
Auctioneer: These both
one of the original
founders of the company.
Both of them are quite unique
because these would not
have been production models.
You can see there's
a slightly wider,
nickel-silver rim on this one,
and you can say,
which is a rare thing to
be able to say nowadays,
both of them are really unique,
so for a collector,
it's the ultimate
purchase, really.
I would have thought
you've got to be looking
at a minimum of 10,000 pounds
each for these, at least,
and I still think
that represents an
extremely good buy.
It's the 4.25-inch Perfect,
previously belonging to
the founder William Hardy.
At 13,500 pounds.
It's on the telephone
at 13,500 pounds
for the last time of asking.
[bell ringing]
The lower shop was
the baker's shop,
and this shop here was Hardy's.
And the firm moved
here in about,
oh, towards the
end of the 1870s.
It was in the baker's ovens
where the bamboo
used to be roasted.
Edward: It's surprisingly
You've then got an
enormous amount of time
devoted to it to turn
it into a fishing rod.
Because in essence,
what you're doing
is taking a natural material
and you are doing all
sorts of things to it
to harness its essential
extraordinary qualities
to make a fantastic, consistent,
sort of high-performance
fishing rod from a
natural material,
and that's the sort of
wonderful thing about it.
As much as I genuinely
loved Hardy's
and loved working in
their shop in Pall Mall,
I was getting home
from working in London
and spending most of
my time in the attic,
making fishing rods,
and thoroughly enjoying it,
and it became apparent
that there was probably
enough work out there
to jack in the job with Hardy's
and try my luck,
and it went from
strength to strength.
I think within the first year,
we got to the point where
we were back-ordered,
where I was back-ordered
for about 12 months.
I had found a little book
with the amazing title,
"How to Build and Repair Your
Own Split-Cane Fishing Rod",
by Colonel Laughton Moss.
that was the title, and it was
very good, very simple book
that explained in
pretty clear terms
how to make split-cane
in a way which had been
practiced in Alnwick,
and was known as
the Alnwick method,
and it started, I
think, at Hardy's.
Jim: Rods in the early days
were made from
hickory, lancewood,
and then in America, they
started using bamboo,
Chinese bamboo, for making rods.
They were made in six sections,
and sections were glued
together like a hexagon.
The Hardy brothers
heard about this
new development in America,
and they acquired one
of the American rods,
and they went into the kitchen,
and they got a kettle boiling,
and they steamed the
rod to undo the glue,
and they took it to pieces
to see how it was made.
In those days, there was a
lot of extraordinarily good
carpenters and wood-workers
in Alnwick Castle
doing restoration work,
and they got one of these chaps
to come and have a
look at this rod,
and asked him, did he
think he could make it,
and he said, "Yes,
I could do that."
So they got some bamboo
and the chap made the first
Hardy split-bamboo rod.
Here we had a new
material for rods,
and a well-designed fly
reel at the same time,
and that was a big advance.
[music playing]
Eventually, they had
a casting tournament,
and the Americans came
over with their rods
and the British casters
had the Hardy rods,
and they competed
and Hardy rods won.
That was a good start.
When they moved from
Fenkle Street premises,
they came to "Bondgate
Without" in Alnwick,
and built their
new factory here,
and they called it "The London
and North British Works".
Quite a name.
They had an office
upstairs with a window,
so they could keep their eye
on all the workers there.
William was in
charge of the office.
He made himself
the office manager.
John James was the factory man,
full of life and vigor,
and he fully believed that
Hardy's fishing tackle
was the best in the world,
and he made absolutely sure
that his work people kept
that reputation alive.
If he picked up a reel
out of a tray of reels
some finisher just made,
and there's something
wrong with it,
he'd get a hammer and
he'd smash them all up.
And the fellow
lost a week's wages
or whatever it was,
and didn't get paid.
If they found a rod
which wasn't good enough,
they'd smash it, and fella
didn't get paid for it.
There was,
I think there probably still is
a casting club in Paris called
the "Casting Club de France",
and they have a, or they had,
a clubhouse in the
Bois de Boulogne.
There was a little brook running
nearby these casting pools,
and it was over hung
with bushes and things.
They used to put little
targets under the bushes,
and then you had to do
all sorts of manouvers
to try and put a fly onto
these little targets.
They asked if
Hardy's could produce
a rod specifically
for this competition.
John James got onto this,
and he developed
what turned out to be
the 7-foot CC de France rod.
He took it across to France.
Then he let members of
the club try it out.
You can see John James
standing with the crowd,
and he's got his notebook out.
He's making notes of what
the members were saying
about the rod.
Jon: It was just a family that
in their own ability.
They just knew that
they were the best.
Edward: You do find rods that
that have somehow
not had much use,
and they're really,
they're really nice.
You can see a very serious
amount of workmanship,
you know, very close
attention to detail.
When you consider that
they would have been,
you know, when you look at
one of these rods and think,
"Well, that's really,
really well made,
"and yet it was one of
thousands of that model."
That's what's really impressive.
Jon: They had their
fingers on the ground,
so they knew that
any information that
was coming back,
for example if they wanted
to develop a new rod,
they'd know somebody
who was involved
in the top end of that,
so therefore, they'd always
get the best designs.
They'd always get the
best information back
about how to catch them.
They were revolutionary rods
when they were making and
selling those split-cane rods.
They were the finest
ones available.
Jim: John James was the
and he was very, very
good at marketing.
In fact, when he used to
go fishing up in Scotland,
which he did periodically,
in the hotel foyer
in the morning,
he'd have all his tackle
laid out, ready for the day,
and as the other anglers came
down the stairs for breakfast,
they'd see all
this stuff laid out
and, "Oh, that looks nice.
"Let me make a note of the
certain rod John James had.
I better have one of those,"
and of course, at
night he'd come back
with quite a few salmon, and
it would all be laid out,
again in the foyer,
and there's nothing
like a few fish
to scare up a bit of business,
and he would be asked,
"What did you get that on?"
"Oh, this is what
you need for that."
Jon: They put an awful
lot into marketing.
They would have in
their 1920s catalogues,
they'd have prepaid envelopes
for you to send back
and send your orders in,
and things like that.
I mean, it was incredibly
novel in those days, you know?
Jim: Of course we had
going back to the late
These catalogues were
distributed all over
the world to people,
and they looked
upon this as great,
like a Christmas
present coming to them.
They'd sit there having a
gin and tonic, or whatever,
on the veranda
with their feet up,
dreaming of home
or rivers to fish.
They introduced the
Maharajahs and people to
the art of fishing.
Nearly all the big Maharajahs
were on the Hardy
books at that time.
We sort of spread.
That was how export began
to get all over the place.
William and John James,
they had an enthusiasm,
and drive really got
the company launched.
We're now in Alnmouth,
where John James and his
two maiden aunts came,
when they left Fenkle Street
because there wasn't room
for the whole family
above the shop,
so John James and his
sisters came down here
and lived in this
house behind me.
He took a stroke while
fishing on the River Coquet,
while playing a
salmon, actually,
and he was brought
back to his house,
and he was put in the bedroom
with the veranda around it,
and it was there where
he d*ed, actually.
I remember as a small boy,
being brought down
to see my Uncle Tuck.
He used to often go
down the steps there,
onto the beach and cast,
and have a little bit
of practice on the sand,
and he had out on
the mud flats there
trenches dug so that
when the tide came in,
they filled with water,
and when the tide went out,
he could get out onto a
platform he had built,
and he could cast against
the wind or with the wind,
or across the wind,
whichever way he
wanted to and practice.
[train passing]
Following on from him,
LR Hardy, himself,
he was managing director
for many, many years.
He was in charge there
for nearly half a century.
One very noteworthy
project he did
was to develop the
planing machine
for putting the angles on
to the bamboo sections,
which were glued up into
those split-cane rods.
His machine revolutionized
that type of operation,
and the production of the rods
was greatly increased.
George: When I first
yes he still was, I think,
boss of the place as such,
and I remember I used
to have to go along
and take him some copies
of flies he designed
and things like that
along to his house.
He was quite a sort
of a short, full man,
and quite grumpy,
and everybody used to be
a bit terrified of him,
and though I used
to go along there,
and I used to get
on okay with him,
and they were quite
amazed one Christmas time.
I'd been there about 2 years
'cause he gave us 10
shilling extra at Christmas,
and everybody couldn't believe
that I got this 10 shillings,
which was quite a
thing at the time.
Jack: He was a real
gentleman and a fella,
the way he was dressed,
and the way he went
about, you know?
Terence: Just some
of the apprentices
went around to the
store department,
to get parts to take
back to their shop,
and while whistling
or something,
LR would turn and shout to them,
"Stop your chirping,
laddie!" [laughs]
"You're not a canary!"
But that was his main saying.
Jim: He was the boss, and
He had a little
terrier called Trigg,
and it used to go to
work with him every day,
and it was in a
box under his desk.
When he was summoned
to the office,
you didn't know if
you were gonna get a,
get a telling off from
LR, or you're going to get
your trouser legs
bitten by Trigg!
[laughs]
He was a terror,
that little dog.
[water rushing]
[piano music]
Ian: Mm-hmm.
Jim: There he is,
L.R. on the left.
Ian: It certainly is.
Jim: He had a
cinematograph camera,
which was relatively
new in those days.
The idea of filming
your fishing activities.
Jon: Just the sheer
ludicrousness
where you're just running
up and down this bank
with a river stuffed full
of 60 and 70-pound salmon,
and then hooking a fish,
and then handing the rod
to your man to land it,
so you don't get your shoes wet,
it's just the sheer scale
of it, in fishing terms.
It's just absolutely immense.
You name another company
that was producing
half-hour films in 1925
to take around to a
certain group of people.
Absolutely unique.
It's just such a
wonderful time capsule
of a time where the
company was at its height.
I think Hardy's was
really at the top of
its game at that point.
I think it is that,
just wonderful,
it is arrogance in a way,
just saying, "Yeah,
we'll do a book on that."
"We'll do a film on that."
"We'll build a rod
that does that."
"Yeah, why not? Blue
whales? No problem.
"We'll knock out a rod
that's going to do that."
And they would, I
think, if they thought
there was a chance
of catching one.
I'm sure they
would have done it.
Landing an 800-pound fish
in Scarborough in the 1930s,
imagine the publicity.
Thousands of people coming to
watch the tunny boats come in.
Nobody in their right mind
would have built tunny
reels or anything like that.
Auctioneer: That's
the biggest reel
that Hardy's made in their
big game fishing range,
and that was for big
broadbill, marlin,
very, very big tuna.
you have to slow one
of those fish down
because a
thousand-pound broadbill
or a thousand-pound blue marlin,
or even a tunny,
when it's moving,
there's very little
that can stop it.
They put in an auxiliary brake,
so when you're
sitting on that boat
and the line is
screaming off the reel,
and they did smoke,
you could apply a
little bit of pressure
to slow the fish down.
Hardy's would, perhaps,
produce 10 of these,
and then see how they went,
and if they sold 7 of them,
they'd run another
It was a very expensive sport.
It involved owning
your own yacht,
and what they would do
is they would take the
yachts out with rowing boats
from Scarborough and
the surrounding ports,
and they would fish
around the herring boats.
So if you didn't
have your own yacht
and you didn't
have your own crew,
and you didn't have
your own Hardy reel,
you weren't going tunny fishing.
Auctioneer: In reel
terms, in 1929, 1930s,
average wage was 2 pounds,
so this is equivalent
to 18 weeks salary
to buy this reel, which if you
put it in today's modern terms,
it's an awful lot of money.
I would think that is in the 6
to 8 thousand pounds bracket,
so it's still probably
one of the most expensive
game fishing reels in the world.
There's a steady investment
for you through life.
We hold it this way around,
so the line goes off the
top and up the guides,
and you'd be seated,
you'd be strapped to here,
and winding from here,
the harness on here.
Made under license and under
the direction of Zane Grey,
a famous author.
He wanted to make the finest
fishing reel in the world.
Jim: When he saw some
of the Hardy stuff,
he approached the
company and said,
"Would you make me the
best and the most expensive
"big game fishing
real in the world?"
So we thought, "Well,
making it the most expensive
"wasn't really a big problem,
"and we'll have a jolly good
try at making it the best."
He was highly delighted with it,
and he caught a lot of record
marlin and big fish with it.
Auctioneer: Marlin, tarpon,
and anything of hundreds
and thousands of pounds
would have been
fished for with this.
It's like a Swiss watch inside.
It is built like a t*nk,
and it's built of
non-porous metals
that's used in
maritime business,
so that's where all
the bits and pieces
of Hardy's experience
come together,
and they produced what
is still guaranteed to be
the best reel in the world.
Fabulous piece.
Jim: It was really the w*r
of the Zane Grey real.
We're on munitions and
various w*r projects,
and you weren't allowed
to make fishing tackle.
Well, you could get,
you had to get a license
to make so many thousand
pounds worth of tackle,
and that was all you
were allowed to produce.
I was on leave in
London one weekend,
and I thought I'd go down
into the shop on a Saturday.
I remember walking
down Pall Mall,
and I couldn't find Hardy's.
Then, I found this
demolished building.
The whole shop was
away, completely,
and just a notice up
saying the shop had moved
to 15 Pall Mall up the street,
but it just completely
took the whole shop out.
I never did find it that day,
and then, of course, it
was rebuilt after the w*r,
and the stipulation was that the
ceiling in the shop downstairs
at street level, it had
to be, I don't know,
so you could wave a rod around.
Jack: I was 14.
I was 14 in November '36?
'36 in Christmas and then
I joined in April '37.
This one was taken 1939.
They'd all gone to the
Glasgow Exhibition,
on the train, and this is
the Alnwick railway station.
All these people here, they're
all different departments,
different aisle,
different shops,
and that's me in the end,
with the little blue coat on.
All were, the biggest majority
of people in there was women.
Fly shop, tackle shop,
oh, just tying shop,
where they would tie
the rods together,
and gut shop.
Oh, you used to have all
your flirts, you know?
[laughs]
I would say it was
the biggest sort of
employer in Alnwick itself.
Terence: My father
in the cane ripping shop,
and my whole life, I
worked in the rod shop,
a long time before I went.
Jack: My sisters, one
one worked in the fly shop.
My eldest was in the fly shop.
My next sister was
in the tackle shop.
There was me in the tackle shop.
My mother, well, she had
us all to look after,
so she didn't get
a chance to come.
Ken: There was quite a few,
there was a lot of
people in there fished,
and I think that was the
backbone of the place,
everybody had an
interest, you know?
Ivor: Some of those
quite common, yes.
That's all lost today.
Ken: The place was fascinating.
You know, some people wouldn't
believe the conditions,
and yet, they were
prepared to work in it.
There was just something
about it, you know?
Ivor: You would
have the foundry,
where it was doing
say, a sand moulding,
and at the other
end of the factory,
you would have
somebody drawing gut,
completely different.
You would have a fly tyer
tying a small-sized 18 fly
at one end of the factory,
and at the other
end of the factory,
you would have a rod finisher
turning a salmon
fly cork handle,
and it was really quite amazing.
George: Well, it was
because all the machines were
run from overhead pulleys,
One motor running all
these pulleys in each shop.
Ken: When you were walking
It was just action.
Belts going up.
Ivor: The floor was
mostly wooden ones,
and it was years and years
of accumulation of glues
and lacquers and
resins, you know?
Some of them used to
really take great pride
in the little stalagmites
that were forming
at the bottom of the vise,
where they'd glued the cork
handles over many years,
and I'm very proud
that I worked there
because I really enjoyed it.
Yes.
Jack: It was all worked by hand,
with pliers and cutters
and things like that.
The variety was so much,
it's impossible to
remember everything.
You used to get different
things all the time.
You were making different
things all the time.
Ken: The people that were there,
they weren't dodgers.
They were passionate workers
'cause they knew that
they were putting out
sort of passionate tackle,
and it had to be right.
That's what they built
their name on, perfection.
Jim: I started
working there 1948.
I had a chat with Laurie, LR,
and he said, "Well, if you want
to go into Hardy's, you can,
"but you'd have to do an
engineering apprenticeship
"before you come in."
I tried Vickers-Armstrong,
where Great Uncle had served
his time, and John James,
and they took me on.
Jack: Mr. Jim, I
remember him starting
just after the ...
It was after the w*r.
He had just done his
national service.
He was on the factory
floor for quite a while.
I think it was in the
reel shop, I think.
I think it was in the reel shop.
he had been on the floor.
He'd seen the mixture
of everybody, you know?
And he talked the same language,
or he was taught
the same language.
He was a bit lardy-posh in
a sense, like, you know.
Terence: The very
first reel he made,
he wanted to keep
it for himself.
He went and asked
his Uncle Laurence,
and he was allowed to keep it,
but he got a bill for it.
[laughs]
Jim: There was a lot of casting
run by the British
Casting Association,
and LR Hardy and my
great-uncle John James
and another uncle, Harold,
they'd all been good casters,
and made a mark
in the early 1900s
on the casting platform.
I thought it would be
nice to be able to do it,
so I asked my Uncle
Laurie Hardy, LR Hardy,
if I could take up
tournament casting,
and he told me, "Well, if I
practice hard and did well,
"then I could because it
was no good to the company
"if I lost all the time."
With a lot of practice
and a bit of help,
I started entering tournaments,
and managed to win
a few now and again.
Ian: Trout fly distance
Initially, yes, Jim
and I used to battle it
out against each other,
but we always
practiced together,
and we taught each other a lot
because one could see the
mistakes in the other,
and we used to help
each other in that way.
I was the first British
caster to cast over 50 yards
in this country,
and I must give the
credit to tackle
because it was the
first time we had cast
with a wet cell line.
Now, previous to that,
they were all silk lines.
Development of tackle came
from tournament casting.
There's no doubt about that.
A tournament caster was
always looking for a rod
that would cast more accurately
or more distance more easily,
and if they found a
material that did that,
then it was put into
production rods,
and the angler benefited,
and the company as
a whole benefited.
Voiceover: What number was it?
Voiceover: 535.
Voiceover: 535?
Voiceover: And so
that's in the case?
Jim: This is the fly shop,
using the fly vise, and
also in the background,
is Tom Wetherett.
He started tying flies
in Hardys in 1927,
the year I was born.
Reporter: How long have you
Tom: This will be
my 45th year now.
Reporter: What
are you doing now?
Tom: This is the Black Doctor,
and you put the butt
on a Black Doctor.
Spin it on.
Reporter: You've tied some
you were telling me.
Tom: Oh, yes.
I've tied for for Mr.
Churchill, the Queen,
Maharajas of India.
Jim: When he came to the
before he retired and we were
closing the fly shop down,
and I got him,
when he tied a Jock Scott
or a Silver Wilkinson,
or whatever the fly might be,
I got him to tie
one extra for me,
and they were really
wonderful flies.
there wouldn't be
anyone in the world
who could tie a better salmon
fly than Tom Wetherett.
Ivor: These are three Hardy
which were tied for
me by Tommy Wetherett.
Probably the last Salmon
fly tyer at Hardy's
who was there over 50 years.
Ken: Tommy was a
good fly dresser.
He was a good
asset to me, Tommy.
Very helpful, even from the
first time I was at Hardy's.
Full dressed flies, now.
It's practically a
thing of the past.
I've always said
dressing salmon flies,
not tying salmon flies.
I still stick with that.
Ian: Ken, he's the last of
I would say that Ken is
probably one of the best
salmon fly tyers in the world,
and there's very few ...
In fact, I don't think
there's any nowadays
who ties salmon
flies without a vise.
As I say, there's
nobody left now.
He's the last one.
I rate him very high, indeed.
Ken: Basic tools.
Pair of scissors, pair of
tweezers, and some wax.
Sometimes in the mornings,
you'd come in, if
your wax wasn't soft,
it wouldn't work, but
it's working today.
To some people, maybe
it was just a job,
but I really enjoyed it.
This is your tail,
Golden Pheasant.
Jim: Well, at one time,
I think we had
about 90 fly tyers.
the men did, or the
boys, the laddies,
came in at 14, and they did
a 5-year apprenticeship.
then they became an
improver for a year or two,
and then they went on to
the full-skilled rate.
The lassies came in
at the same age, 14,
and the first year or so,
all the flies they tied,
they had to cut them down
and start again.
No flies for the first year
anyway, of a fly tyer was sold.
Ladies tied the trout
flies and loch flies,
and the men all tied
the salmon flies
because it was considered
that it took a man's
strength to tie the head in,
wrapping it with thread.
Women tied perfectly
good salmon flies,
but that was a
man's job, you know?
Ken: The old factory
You went in the
shop, packing room,
up the stairs into
the warehouse,
up three, four
flights of stairs.
It was built on a hill,
and the fly shop was
right on the top.
About the year that I left,
the winds was getting a bit
too strong for the factory.
You were sitting,
dressing your flies there,
and you were rocking,
and the windows
were coming to meet you.
We got a laugh out of that.
Jim: When we got
industrial consultants in
to try and step up
production in the fly shop,
they developed the idea of
tyers should all use a vise,
so that the hook could
be held in this vise,
and then they had two
hands for operating,
and they didn't
have to continuously
pick up and put down scissors
or tweezers or whatever.
It did increase the
production quite a lot,
but it didn't save the
fly shop in the end
because flies were tied
out in the far east
and in Africa for very,
very little money,
so one couldn't compete
with the factory overheads
of a sophisticated factory.
Ken: I loved every minute of it.
Fishing has been
my life, you know?
Ivor: You know, I saw the
and then the cast shop,
the tackle shop went,
and the fly shop,
and then there, then
the foundry went.
Jack: It got to
just, people left,
so it was a shame,
and as I say, 1964, they bought
the land for the new factory
built the new factory,
and that one was shut
down all together,
but it was heartrending
to take the place apart.
Ivor: I would imagine
the old factory,
it just didn't lend itself to
modern-day production methods.
It was so higgeldy-pigglety.
It would double back on
itself, and things like that,
and there was naught
processing could do.
Jim: The old factory
and we couldn't do
anything about that
because of the staircase
going all the way up
from the street up to the top
was like a great chimney,
and the fire risk was
really frightening.
We got the opportunity
of purchasing
a building plot where a factory
is now out at Willowburn,
and we took the opportunity,
and built the new
factory out there.
Ken: I believe that from
to the new factory
depleted the finances,
and they decided the
fly shop had to go,
and I was made redundant.
Jack: It wasn't the same
compared with the old one.
It wasn't the same
camaraderie sort of style
but nevermind, it's past.
I enjoyed my time
there, I must admit,
but it was as if 50 years
just flew past, no bother.
Voiceover: Well, Ian,
That rain we had last night
doesn't seem to have had
very much effect.
Voiceover: No, it
doesn't, does it?
It's very, very low indeed.
Voiceover: A lot of
weed lying up there.
Well, we better walk
across to the middle
and see what we're going to do.
Voiceover: Yes, we'll go
Voiceover: What do
you think you'll do?
Voiceover: Well,
I've been looking,
there's not an awful lot of
fly life about at the moment,
but I think I may go down
and gradually work up again,
fishing the nymph
up in the streams.
I may try the wet
fly on the way down.
Voiceover: Well, that
seems a good idea,
although there's not any
flies showing at the moment,
I'll fish the dry
fly and go upstream,
and then later in the day, we'll
meet and see how we got on.
Voiceover: Yes, good luck.
Ian: Man, that Phantom
Jim: Oh, it did.
Ian: It was sweet, you know?
Jim: I think it was the
Ian: Beautiful rod,
beautiful little rod.
Jim: In 1959.
Ian: Didn't you design
that rod yourself?
Jim: Yes.
Ian: Yes.
Jim: It was the
second Hollowlite rod,
Ian: Ah, right.
Ian: Uh-huh.
Jim: The 3-piece
Holokona was the last rod
LR approved before he d*ed.
Ian: Oh, right.
Jim: He d*ed in 1958, and I
which was the Phantom.
Ian: Yes, but good,
beautiful rod.
I mean, I don't think there's
any of the modern rods
that will cast such a smooth
perfect line as that did.
It was a beautiful rod.
Jim: This is history.
Ian: Isn't it?
Jim: You know?
Jim: And it's visible. [laughs]
Ian: I had forgotten
Jim: So did I.
Ian: This is very good.
You see, you could
revitalize the cane market
Jim: Yeah.
Ian: It was a big thing
Well, I never did, but
because they thought,
"Well, that's our strength,
"and we make better
cane rods than anybody,"
which they did, but
people weren't wanting
cane rods anymore, you see?
[bird calling]
Auctioneer: A lot of the Hardy
You were buying one
man's craftsmanship
in one reel which was handmade,
and it was gorgeous,
and they almost, for a while,
couldn't and didn't want to
compete with the mass market.
It took a little while, I think,
to get their heads around this.
The public actually will
buy mass market stuff
at a reasonable price.
Ivor: The Hardy split-cane rods,
which was the majority
of our production
in those days was just
not powerful enough
to handle reservoir
fishing as it's done now.
We're deep-sinking lines
and floating lines.
Jim: Trout fishing was
The pollution was k*lling
off lots of rivers.
If it hadn't been for
the stillwater angling,
I think the fishing tackle trade
would have probably
have gone under.
The old generation,
that is, my uncles,
they didn't like change,
and to consider using fiberglass
was, "Oh, terrible,
you can't use that.
"You mustn't be seen with that."
Funny enough, we
actually used to make
bad fiberglass rods on purpose
so the public would think,
well, if Hardy's can't
make a decent glass rod,
there can't be anything
good in fiberglass.
Then as the old generation
retired and went their way,
the young generation were more
sympathetic towards fiberglass,
and we set up our own
rolling plant in Alnwick.
Auctioneer: So there
maybe a bit of a struggle
for the business for a while,
but it's back on top again.
This would be in the
early '60s, 1960.
We got into a quite a
difficult financial situation.
We were getting worried about
how we were going to
pay next weeks wages,
and then along came Jim Miller,
who was chairman of
Harris and Sheldon,
who besides being
a good businessman
was also quite a good fisherman,
and he put an offer in.
we went back to Miller,
another meeting,
and told him we'd been
advised it was a bit low,
and I remember him
turning around and saying,
"What do you pay for a
company that makes no profit?"
[laughs]
We eventually, we did
join up with Miller,
who took us over,
and one of the conditions
was that Alan Hardy,
Uncle Alan, who
was then chairman,
that he'd have to retire,
and Jim Miller became
chairman of Hardy's.
Ivor: Bill Hardy became
managing director,
and Jim Hardy became
works manager,
and then later works director,
and then newer blood
coming into the system
with different ideas, you know,
things, they changed
quite dramatically.
Auctioneer: Hardy's were
for many years with
a lot of sea fishing,
they have very little to do
with the coarse fishing scene,
and their growth and expansion
wasn't until famous names
such as Fred J. Taylor,
Richard Walker, who were great
pals and fished together,
came and joined the
Hardy's development team.
Jim: We had a meeting in
and Buller and
Moncrieff and Taylor,
and after our meeting, we went
to a fish restaurant for lunch,
and I remember having carp.
I'd never had carp in my life,
and I've never had it since,
but I had carp.
I said, "I'm going to have
carp with d*ck Walker here."
he had the record carp catch
[laughs].
We used their name prominently.
The Moncrieff Rod, or Fred
Buller, whatever it might be,
the d*ck Walker Superlite,
which was really a
very, very famous rod,
and we did sell tremendous
quantities of it.
It was probably one of
the best-selling rods
we ever had, Richard
Walker Superlite.
Auctioneer: That's
the '60s and '70s period,
when it took off for
Hardy's in coarse fishing.
This particular one
was actually from Fred,
and most of these items
are Fred's own tackle
that he used for development,
but in general
terms, if it's Hardy,
it carries a Hardy logo here.
Some of the Hardy parts
will still be stamped,
but you could almost pick
the rod up in the dark,
and feel it, and you'd
know it was a Hardy.
It's that kind of
business that they're in.
A great piece today.
Jon: They were the best.
Hardy's were the
first people ever
to have carbon fiber
in their hands.
They were developing that
before anybody else had it.
The fact that they
lost their way a bit,
having had that opportunity,
I think is a bit sad,
but certainly, they
were technologically
in front of everybody else.
Jim: Using the equipment
we made a carbon fiber rod,
probably the first carbon
fiber rod ever made, actually.
In fact, we had the patent
for using carbon fiber.
We had that with d*ck Walker,
and d*ck Walker
insisted on putting in
that the carbon content
mustn't be more than 25%,
because he thought they were
going to be terribly stiff,
anything over 25%.
Of course, that
was totally wrong
because what turned
out to be best
was nearly 100% carbon fiber.
You see, what you could do,
you could make your mandril.
That's what the carbon fiber
cloth was wrapped around.
Make it smaller,
smaller diameter
and smaller thickness
of carbon fiber,
so he got rid of that stiffness
down to what feel you wanted.
Other people came along
using 70, 80% carbon fiber,
but we couldn't att*ck
them with the patent
because we'd stipulated no
more than 25 in our patent.
We made a bit of a
messy of that one.
[laughs]
Ian: That is the material.
It's so much lighter and faster
and easier to use, really.
The old cane rods
were more sympathetic
and understanding
because it was slower,
but it took a lot
more looking after
and tending to, varnish
and repair, and so on.
George: Then we made a
a multi-piece rod, I
think with 6 pieces
in the 7-foot one,
and this was a phenomenal rod.
Jim: And you could put
and you could carry it anywhere,
and you had your reel
amongst your clothing
in another bag or something,
so you could go fishing
anywhere with your own rod.
Lovely little thing.
George: The 8-foot-2-and-a-half,
we must have made
because it was a
very popular rod.
Ivor: I think in the
we were a very
profitable company mind
because our production
went up leaps and bounds.
Ken: Over the last 25 years,
it went from Hardy
Brothers to House of Hardy.
Now it's Hardy &
Greys, you know?
It's the way of the world.
Jon: What is funny is it's a
in many ways, but it started
to flounder, I think,
certainly in that horrible
period of British history,
certainly British
industrial history
from the '60s onwards.
Where it really lost its
way, I think, as a company,
but still, despite all that,
managed to retain that love and
affection of British anglers,
and still does.
Chris: Hardy's has a name which
That is Hardy's, the Rolls
Royce of fishing equipment,
and people will buy Hardy reels.
The new Hardy Angel
that they're making now
is an exquisite
piece of equipment.
it's beautifully-designed,
beautifully made, but it's
now made in the far east,
which is disappointing
to a guy like myself,
where I like ...
You know, it's an
English company.
It's an English thing.
Richard: Obviously when you
and with the
reputation that it has,
and you recognize that the
business model isn't working,
and clearly you have to change,
there is always that dilemma.
Well, with what I change, to
what extent, am I the going to
throw away a huge
amount of resource
or a huge amount of equity
within the business?
Believe me, I've had a
number of sleepless nights
facing some of the key
decisions that we've had to make
because it was a
fundamental change.
Moving from a
manufacturing-led business
to a sales and
marketing-led business.
Once we've taken the decision,
it was irreversible,
and I would say that
was very painful.
Firstly, it's affected
people's livelihoods,
and even when I discussed
it with Jim Hardy,
and I've shared a lot of the
business decisions with him,
I could see the look on
his face in saying, "Wow."
Jim recognizes that once
we've taken that position,
we can never go back.
Yes, it's been very
difficult for the people
who've been making reels here
for a good number of years,
and then all of a sudden,
this guy shows up and says,
"Well, I'm sorry, we're not
going to make them here anymore.
"We're going to make
them somewhere else."
Less than 5% of what we sell
will actually be made
here in volume terms,
will be made here in Alnwick.
The rest we will still
design and develop,
but then we will be working
with some partner suppliers,
principally offshore,
both in the far east
and also in Europe
to produce the product for us,
who can produce it
much more economically.
For sure, it's not less quality.
In many cases,
it's better quality
than we can make
here in Alnwick,
but what it is, is it's
significantly less in price,
and that enables us to
build a volume business.
Even within the
Hardy brand today,
we have two positions.
One as we call classic,
for those people
that do want the
traditional product,
and cane is part of that
classic product category,
but we also then have
a performance category,
and 90% of our
business is done in
the performance category.
Cane is what I call a nice
to do part of our business.
It's not business-critical.
We sell probably 200
cane rods a year,
so it's a bespoke business,,
but if we suddenly woke
up one day and said,
"Actually, we can't
make cane rods anymore,
"it wouldn't be the
end of the world."
The new business
model has worked.
We've grown the company.
We're making nice profits
now for the owner,
and more importantly,
we're investing
a lot of those profits
back into the business
to improve the
quality of what we do
and how we do it,
and hopefully making
every angler's dream come true.
Ivor: Well, I suppose
doesn't it?
If we can import them
so much cheaper now,
and now there isn't the skill
in making fishing tackle anymore
like there used to be.
Jack: There's nothing there.
No, it's ...
there's nothing there now
that I would like to make.
Nothing that I would
like to make now.
[music playing]
Ivor: There, again, it's the
It's a pity, because you
look at our old catalogues,
and the works of art,
really for the things
we made for anglers.
Auctioneer: With modern
it's really very easy to
make a high-tech reel,
but in 100 years time, when
we look at a high-tech reel,
I don't think anybody
could have the same sort of
love and enjoyment out of it
as they could out of an
which was just like a swiss
watch in a bigger style.
That's going to be sadly missed
because no matter what
technology does now,
it is not bespoke,
it is not handmade,
and that's what's
going to be missed.
Miss the individuality.
[machine sounds]
Chris: I heard there was
which is a really
big country fair,
and I went down to
Chatsworth just with a creel,
with half a dozen
reels in that I'd made,
and I actually got snowballed.
It went dark.
People went and started
looking at what I do,
and it just took off from there.
Jon: There are opportunities now
for almost a
kickback, a throwback
to doing really fine,
appreciative sort
of tackle-making
and things like that,
using modern materials
and modern technology,
which the big boys can't touch
because it's economies of scale
where you have to
make so many reels
and you've got to sell
so many reels, you know,
but in fact, with Internet
and Internet marketing,
I think you'll see
a lot more people
coming up out of the woodwork
actually producing
really quite interesting
innovative stuff.
[sanding]
Chris: Just a little inducing,
but people will pay
the money and wait
for a quality piece of kit,
and now that they've
had it handmade,
it's like that.
It's like a saddle or
boots that you have made.
If you're unfortunate
enough to damage this reel,
I can take it apart.
I can replace a
broken part on it
and screw it back together,
and it will hold,
rivets went loose.
Won't hit it on
the vise anymore.
Yeah, that's better.
Voiceover: Some
modern reels made now,
Where they'll be
made at a price,
and everything done
mass production,
everything's riveted together,
and you don't have any screws.
I make them for customers.
they order them, and I'll say,
"Listen, you're going
to have to wait.
"You're going to
have to be patient."
And 90% of the people
who speak to me say,
"I don't mind waiting.
It's worth the wait."
And there.
A little on the
inside, and there.
That's it, make
sure that sits down.
That's it, make
sure it sits down.
People are ringing in,
"When's my reel ready?
"Oh, end of November?"
I'll get the money
out and off they go.
But it's the people,
the people are ringing,
they'll ring me up for an
hour discussing the reel.
They'll tell me
their life history,
and then when they
receive the reel,
they send me photographs of
the fish that they've caught.
In modern days, you make things,
you put them in a box.
You never see them again.
They're soulless.
These things have got
character and soul,
and hopefully they'll be
about forever, really.
[sanding]
Edward: It's a bit like
and having a suit made.
You can go to Marks & Spencers
and buy a perfectly good suit,
but you can also go and have
one that's made to measure
and there is a
difference somehow.
It's absolutely not necessary.
There is just that
instinctive inherent lighting
for things are which
perhaps a little rarified
and unusual in
which you very often
meet the person who's making
whatever it is for you.
It isn't just an anonymous item
that you've plucked off the
shelf in a shop anymore.
It becomes something that's
very personal and special
in your life, in which you've
got an absolute connection with.
Maybe you've been shown
the raw materials,
the thing is going
to be made from
by the person who's
going to make it,
and you've had
discussions with them
about the way that
they're going to make it
and so on and so forth,
and it's there for a richer,
more fulfilling
deeper experience.
it's particularly
kinky, that knot,
so they sometimes require
quite a bit of attention.
That should do.
That's better.
Then, we'll just straighten
this internodal length.
Once the novelty of
carbon fiber had worn off,
and once the major
developments of carbon fiber
had been made,
the people had got the
hang of it, shall we say,
it sort of lost a certain
amount of impetus,
and then there was that typical
sort of backlash, if you like,
a reaction against it.
There was a
rekindling of interest
in the material which we all
sort of emotionally loved,
and that was split-cane.
This one's getting
pretty straight.
I think split cane
is still a material
from which one can make an
absolutely sensational rod,
which will not put the angler
at a disadvantage in any way.
They make the most
sensationally good
small stream, close
range, fly fishing rods.
There was a sort
of core of people
who feel, and I'm one
of them I must admit,
who feel that tackle,
efficient though it may be,
if it's made from natural
materials and is handmade,
and has a sort of slightly
softer edge to it,
is ultimately a
little more in keeping
with the whole of the
sort of fishing idea.
This is the end result,
the final product,
the outcome of all of that
straightening and hand-fettling.
I feel protective towards it.
You almost feel ...
Well, I mean, you've
got to let them go
because they're somebody
else's property,
but, you know, with reluctance.
[chuckles]
You spend, you know, it's
an inordinately long time
to spend on something, isn't it?
It's 60 hours or more.
George: I think cane will have
because you've got such
a lot of people who
like using cane rods because
it's natural material.
In search of all the fisherman
I think I sort of find
places now to fish
where they like to
tie their own flies,
use maybe a traditional reel,
and use natural material
in the fishing rod,
and they feel they're
getting back to nature,
getting sort of the out of the
rat race and things like that.
Edward: To go to an
unspoilt local stream
and to catch wild trout on
a fly which I tied myself,
on a rod which I'd made myself,
in a landscape in
which I'd grown up
and which, in that particular
spot, was pretty unspoilt,
that would have to be,
I suspect, as fine as,
as fulfilling and
meaningful an experience
as I could possibly
squeeze out of fishing,
and I do remember when
I put the fish back,
because it was no great size
and too small to take out,
I remember the sun was setting,
and I looked upstream,
and there were flies dancing,
and there was peace and quiet
apart from a tractor
in the distance,
and the full sort of impact
of what had just happened
sort of hit me,
and I was so happy,
I had to go to the
pub and celebrate.
It was ...
That was as good
as it gets, really.
[water running]
[birds squawking]
[peaceful music]
Lost World of Mr. Hardy, The (2008)
Moderator: Maskath3