SCRAPBOOK OF REMINISCENCES OF DR BELL

 

Many folk have fond reminiscences of Dr Bell and this page is devoted to a miscellany of snippets of information recounted by those who knew him, or else have been passed on down. It is hoped that they will give a closer understanding of a man who very much kept himself to himself and perhaps show a little of the human side of the doctor. As ever, if you have any recollections that you would like to share please get in touch in order that they may be added to this page.

The images of Old Wrington on this page are from a collection of postcards assembled by Bill Rogers. They give a flavour of how the village would have looked during Dr Bell’s early years there and are reproduced by kind permission.

 

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In this collection of extracts about Dr Bell we cannot do better than start by repeating this quotation about the doctor contained in The New Encyclopaedia of Fly Fishing by Conrad Voss Bark. In a few words they sum up his legacy and provide a concise rationale for the creation of this website:

‘Although he never wrote a word about fishing and shunned publicity, Dr Bell of Blagdon had the greatest formative influence of any man on the development of reservoir fishing in the first half of this century.’

Conrad Voss Bark

Had Dr Bell committed his ideas to print there is little doubt that he would have been as equally revered as Walton, Skues, Halford and Sawyer.

 

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Dr Bell's house, surgery, garden and orchard were acquired by the son of another local GP, and the whole lot was demolished, pond and all, and modern houses now cover the sizable plot. There is a residue of the path, now named Bell's Walk, which went through his orchard down to School Road.

Steve Taylor

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In those days [the 1960s], the parking pattern in Broad Street was a line of cars down the centre as well as next to the pavement both sides (impossible today with the colossal lorries which come through, often unable to pass each other, quite apart from the rest of the traffic). Anyway, we often noticed this elderly lady driving into Broad Street, and just abandoning her car almost anywhere and toddling off (nobody locked their cars – or their houses – in those days). We asked around about the nonchalant parker, and were told "Ah, that's Dr Bell's wife." She had, on Saturday mornings, if a seriously ill patient turned up, even to go to Blagdon Lake, to blow her horn to alert him that his presence was urgently required.

Richard Thorn

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Dr Bell’s out-of-hours pastimes were shooting, fly-fishing, gardening, and anything to do with the countryside. He did not ‘entertain’, he was on no dinner-party circuit. He liked to treat patients’ pets, and once, a rabbit with Myxomatosis.

 

In June every year he left all this behind and drove to the north of Scotland to fish in the River Spey (their little dog was named Spey). For this journey he kept a large Alvis sports saloon, seldom seen during the year; survivors of the marque are very sought after today. This was a journey of at least 2 days. While they were away in Scotland produce was sent up from the Wrington garden.

 

In reality, we knew little of Dr Bell. We could be fairly certain that he was a true blue Tory; we knew he was dismissive of the church and religion. But what books relaxed him by the fire on winter evenings? What music moved him – Handelian opera, Bach fugue, the more obscure, esoteric quartets of Schubert or Brahms? Asked, who knew Dr Bell well, the wife of a fly-fishing companion replied, “No one.”

 

Now in 2010, an ageless paternal, more informal, in so many ways less inhibited, the days of Dr Bell and his surgery and patients is so deep in the past, so remote, it seems as though it never was – a little oasis of deference, discipline and politeness, as irretrievable as the rumble of iron-tyred wagon wheels on summer roads, or Mothers’ Union tea on the rectory lawn.

Trevor Wedlake

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After his death Mrs Bell just wanted to get rid of all his [Dr Bell’s] stuff and as she knew that I was very keen on fishing I just got handed all the stuff to sort out. There was an unused priest made out of a chair leg apparently by a grateful patient. It had lead set in the working end, but the most remarkable thing was that it had the names of all the points and bays of Blagdon painted all around the stem! I remember wondering what to do with it, and deciding, perhaps wrongly, that what Dr Bell would have liked would for it to be used for the purpose it was designed for. So for many, many years every fish that I killed from Blagdon got knocked on the head with that priest. It certainly produced some interest from passing fishermen and was certainly viewed much more than if it had been mounted in a glass case. Needless to say though, over the years the paint rubbed off, and finally the priest broke in half when I leant it to a rather overenthusiastic friend! I still have the priest, stuck together with araldite, but it is nothing much to look at now and no longer used.

Dr Charles Tricks

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