The details of Dr Bell’s life are extremely sketchy as the following biography demonstrates. For a start it would appear from the reminiscences of those who knew him that he told them little of his early days. It could be said that no one knew him really well. Also, like many of his contemporaries who endured the traumas of the Great War, he disclosed nothing about his wartime experiences abroad. Nevertheless, as a result of forensic genealogy it has been possible to piece together many facts about his early life from official records, census returns and other archive material.

 

It is pertinent to point out that some of the statements made about Dr Bell, and recorded here, are somewhat conflicting and this makes disseminating the true facts problematic. For example, when recording Dr Bell’s casting strategy one writer tells us that ‘he made no attempt to go for distance’, another says that he ‘cast out as far as was comfortable’ whereas a third tells us that he ‘cast a long line’. Such inconsistencies demonstrate that we will probably never arrive at absolute truth in many of the details about the man.

 

Nevertheless, as further research is carried out it is hoped that this biography will be expanded, and corrected where necessary, as additional information comes to light. It is very much a work in progress.

 

BIOGRAPHY OF DR BELL OF BLAGDON

 

By Adrian V W Freer

 

THE EARLY YEARS

 

Howard Alexander Bell was born on the 21st February 1888 at Bletchingley, near Reigate in Surrey. He was the third child of William Alexander Bell who official records describe alternatively as ‘Gentleman’ and ‘of Independent means’, and Adeline Eliza Bell (née Tooth). His father was absent from the family home for the 1891, 1901 and 1911 censuses (he was not deceased, separated or living elsewhere in England, Wales or Scotland at the time) and speculation suggests, and it is only speculation, that being of independent means he could possibly have been abroad as a result of profession, business or pleasure. The fact of the matter is that we simply do not know where he was.

 

Howard was brought up in a well-to-do family home at Quarry House, Bletchingley. The 1891 census records that the household employed a cook, parlour maid, housemaid, two nurses and a scullery maid.

 

Later the family moved to Callis Court Road, Broadstairs, Isle of Thanet, Kent where Howard was educated at Hildersham House School, a small private boarding school for boys located in St Peter’s Road in Broadstairs. In 1901 the school had just 50 pupils. The school no longer exists.

 

It would be fascinating to learn whether it was as a young boy or adolescent that Howard first discovered the pleasures of the ‘contemplative man’s recreation’. Very likely that would be the case as most anglers of the day were introduced to the sport in their early years and angling was a pastime practised by much of affluent society. That is, however, merely conjecture as there are no records of where or when he first began to fish. We do know that by his army days he was already a keen angler and his later forays to fish the Spey would suggest that he was already familiar with salmon fishing.

 

Howard Bell went on to study for a degree in medicine at Cambridge University where he graduated with an MD; training during that period at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London and lodging in Clarendon Road, Notting Hill whilst in the capital. Afterwards he may have worked for a while in an as yet unidentified London hospital (possibly St Bartholomew’s) before the war came to change his life irrevocably.

 

THE WAR YEARS

 

With the onset of WW1, as a young man, Dr Bell joined the army and he served overseas in the Royal Army Medical Corps both in France and Palestine. He was undoubtedly a dedicated fisherman by his time in the Middle East because he once told a friend that he had wished that he had brought a rod with him to Palestine so he could ‘have a go’ in the various rivers there. Seeing cyclamen growing in the wild in the Middle East led him to cultivating them in his house and garden.

 

He was a shy, sensitive and reserved individual and the horrors of war affected him deeply. He was one of the few who survived the appalling Battle of Passchendaele (also known as the Third Battle of Ypres) in 1917. The emotional scars of what he had witnessed as he tended the wounded and dying in Flanders were to remain with him for the rest of his life. It could well be that his wartime experiences led to his desire to live in idyllic surroundings and pursue the gentle art of fly fishing with such single-minded dedication.

 

Upon his return from the war Dr Bell first took up medical practice in Sussex, sometime around 1918/1919, although the precise location is at present unidentified. One guess is that it might have been somewhere around Brighton as his future wife’s family lived there but until further research reveals precisely where, or the 1921 census is published, that remains a mystery.

 

BLAGDON

 

Dr Bell first came to fish at Blagdon Lake in 1920. Blagdon was one of the first reservoirs in England to be opened as a trout fishery in 1904 and not surprisingly he immediately fell in love with the lake and its trout. That love for Blagdon was to remain with him for the rest of his life

 

Some while after his return to England Dr Bell had met Sophia Mary Cross, born in Ayrshire, who had been a nurse during the war. On the 7th August 1924 they were married at Brighton Registry Office. At the time of their marriage Howard is recorded as living at The Surgery, Stow-on-the-Wold and so by that time he had moved on from Sussex and she was a qualified nurse residing at The Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton. They had no children.

 

The delights of Blagdon, and the phenomenal catches it was then producing, attracted the young man so much that he bought a medical practice in Wrington in order that he might be close to Blagdon Lake. There he fished every Friday after his early morning surgery. That was apart from his annual holiday when he drove an ancient Alvis (reportedly at great speed) to a house that he and Mrs Bell occupied near Grantown to fish the Spey for salmon and sea trout. Although not a very socially inclined person he was nevertheless much loved by his patients and those who knew him.

 

After spending the first forty-seven years of his life moving from place to place (Bletchingley, Broadstairs, Cambridge, London, Flanders, Mesopotamia, Sussex and Stow), once he had discovered the delights of Wrington village and neighbouring Blagdon Water he decided to remain there for the rest of his life. There he would serve the local community as their general practitioner and in return be able to enjoy the quiet and peaceful life that he craved in relative obscurity.

 

As is so often the case his intention to live in tranquil surroundings enjoying his passion for fly fishing did not go according to plan. Four years after Dr Bell had moved to Wrington the Second World War commenced and, being fifty-one years of age at the time war broke out, he was too old for active military service. As a result he remained in Wrington for the duration of hostilities where he served as the Medical Officer to the 8th Somerset Light Infantry Home Guard. The only photographs of him in existence (there are just three) all show him in Home Guard uniform and it seems likely that he did not permit his photograph to be taken in civilian life.

 

After the conflict had ended Dr Bell was able to take up fly fishing once again with renewed vigour and he continued to fish Blagdon, honing his flies and methods there. In his final years he had to be transported to the water by a friend who was the local policeman but eventually age and frailty called to an end a distinguished angling career.

 

DR BELL’S FLIES AND METHODS

 

Dr Bell was a bank angler and, as far as is recorded, he never fished from a boat. In its formative years Blagdon anglers would normally employ large sea trout or low water salmon flies during the daytime, very often using tandem and multi-hook arrangements; or alternatively lures at night. Dr Bell would use neither, but instead he preferred to fish with his own small imitative patterns. His leader would typically (according to those who fished Blagdon at the time) consist of a 1X gut cast with a Worm Fly on the point, a Grenadier on the middle dropper, with a Buzzer as the bob fly.

 

He liked to fish alone, always on the move, slowly covering sunken ditches, holes and weed beds as he sought to locate the trout.

 

He tied all his own flies and, although they may not have won any prizes in a fly tying competition, they worked and did not fall to pieces. Examples of flies which he designed and tied were donated to the Flyfishers’ Club, Brook Street in London.

 

From the records that do exist we know two very important facts about Dr Bell’s flies and his methods. Firstly, he attempted to copy the natural creatures he found at Blagdon by analysing the numerous autopsies he performed. At a time when the standard fancy flies of the period were colourful, flashy and retrieved quickly to provoke the trout into taking them, Dr Bell’s flies were a good deal smaller and much more subdued in colouration. It must have taken a good deal of courage and self-confidence to experiment with his radical designs, contrary to the accepted practices of the time, but Dr Bell was a bit of a loner who was never concerned with what others thought. By so doing he proved his theories correct.

 

Secondly, Dr Bell discovered that by moving his flies very much more slowly than the currently accepted custom, to mimic the progression through the water of the natural creatures they were tied to represent, he could catch many more trout. The supreme importance of this elementary, but revolutionary, discovery cannot be over-emphasized. The result of this breakthrough forms the basis of nymph fishing today.

 

Next time you are slowly retrieving a team of imitative flies and get a ‘pull’ from a trout that has been deceived into taking them as food, rather than having been provoked to seize them as a result of curiosity, annoyance or anger – you have Dr Bell to thank for his part in originating what is probably the most commonly employed branch of our sport today.

 

It would be interesting to read how Dr Bell came to formulate his theories and flies, but sadly he left almost nothing in the way of written records of his exploits, although one surviving article he wrote has been brought to the writer’s attention by Steve Taylor and Dr Charles Tricks of Wrington. This has been reproduced in Reservoir Trout Flies (Crowood Press, 2010) and it gives a fleeting insight into the thinking of this little known pioneer of reservoir trout fishing. Dr Bell shunned publicity and it is regrettable that such a noteworthy figure in the history of our sport is veiled in such obscurity.

 

FLY PATTERNS

 

Dr Bell’s fly patterns were revolutionary and although looking at them today we would consider them to be much in line with current thinking, when they were created they were truly radical. It proves how far ahead of his time he was. Why no one else had thought of copying the natural creatures of reservoirs so closely is somewhat surprising, especially bearing in mind the fact that exact imitation was the norm on rivers.

 

The past can be a good pointer to the future and studying Dr Bell’s work is not merely an interesting academic exercise; it can also teach us a great deal about how we should set about facing the problems which reservoir trout pose today. Fishery policies, stocking rates, the management of reservoirs, and the insect populations present are all gradually changing over time. In response to these changes the behaviour of the trout is progressively adjusting to adapt to these new circumstances. Trout are extremely adaptable creatures and that is why they have been successfully introduced and acclimatized into such a wide variety of locations around the world.

 

The design of reservoir nymph patterns is still evolving and looking at what was done in the past, and re-examining what we are doing now, gives a better insight into how to modify existing flies and design new ones. There is always room for improvement and it is likely that this development will never come to an end and this must surely be for the benefit of the sport.

 

It is hoped that by reminding anglers of Dr Bell’s flies, designed way back in the 1920s and 1930s, and the methods he employed to present them, they will have a clearer perception of the way things have progressed.

 

Considering his importance, the legacy of flies which Dr Bell left behind is exceedingly small. Most anglers will be familiar with the Amber Nymph and Grenadier, his Buzzer and Corixa are perhaps less well-known – but he produced several other patterns which are doubtless unknown to the majority of fly dressers. In all likelihood there are other patterns that he originated but regrettably these have been lost in the mists of time.

 

THE LATER YEARS

 

Aside from his fishing exploits Bell was a keen gardener who meticulously tended his borders, lawns, vegetable patch and fruit trees, and he won many prizes for his eating apples. He was keen about music and played Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky and the other great composers on his ancient gramophone (and at a loud volume in later years as his hearing deteriorated).

 

Dr Bell's house, surgery, garden and orchard, together with the goldfish pond in the front garden which was designed in the shape of Blagdon so that he could point out its features to friends, have since been demolished and the sizable plot redeveloped to make way for modern houses. There is a residue of the path however, now named Bell's Walk, which went through his orchard down to School Road. It is a fleeting reminder of the man who lived there.

 

Dr Bell eventually retired from medical practice in 1963 and carried on fishing for a few more years until, as a result of advancing age, he was unable to continue. He died on the 2nd December 1974 at the age of 86. His wife Sophia Mary ‘Millie’ Bell died a little over two years afterwards on the 9th February 1977 and they are buried together in the churchyard at All Saints’ Church, Wrington. So rests a true visionary of reservoir fly fishing.