THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILL
Warwick Powell delves into the life and times of David Scholes.
David Scholes was more than a fly fisherman. So much is clear from The Other Side of the Hill, a recently published biography of him by Donald C. Boden.
We learn, for example, that Scholes flew bomber missions over Europe during the Second World War, surviving through a combination of skill and good fortune to return and marry his first love, Pat. He was a gifted commercial artist, and his water colours were sought after by appreciators of the art form. He was a family man.
But it is his contributions to fly fishing for which he is best known. Thirteen of his fourteen published books concerned fly fishing, and many of these were groundbreaking. He was from time to time an active member of various fly-fishing associations and organisations, and remained an active contributor to the literature until his death in 2005.
Given Scholes’ major role in Australian fly fishing for the best part of half a century, Boden’s treatment of this part of his life is unfortunately limited and uncritical. Of the 212 pages that make up the biography, no more than 47 consider Scholes’ angling experiences and exploits. Simply put, too many questions remain unanswered, or are not even posed.
We are informed, for example, that for Scholes the Shannon Rise “should just remain a glorious memory” (p. 91), but no explanation of this stance is given. Boden reproduces correspondence from Rob Sloane and Jim Allen from May 1988, urging Scholes to reconsider his resignation as patron and member of the Flyfishers’ Club of Tasmania in protest at the Club’s decision to support Tasmania hosting that year’s World Fly Fishing Championships. For Scholes, the idea of competition was anathema to his view of what fly fishing is about.
Unfortunately, there is little exploration of either his philosophical approach or the upshot of the Championships on fly fishing in Tasmania and Australia. I am also left wondering what the consequence was of Scholes’ resignation on other fly fishers and on the Club itself.
In any case, there was obviously some form of rapprochement between Scholes and Sloane, as Scholes became a regular contributor to FlyLife, established and edited by Sloane. What was the nature of that rapprochement?
His disapproval of the Club’s promotion of competitive fly fishing coincided with an attempt to establish another ‘club’—the Esk Valley Syndicate—which was to be limited to five members, namely those that he had invited to a meeting at his residence to discuss the idea on 17 August 1987. Was there a connection between this (ultimately unsuccessful) effort and his impending resignation from the Fly Fishers’ Club of Tasmania in late 1987? Did this effort precede the Club’s promotion of the World Championships, or did it come after? Or was the parting of ways between the Club and one of its founding members a consequence of a progressive erosion of shared interests and ethos? Just as lake fishing emerged as the preferred fly fishing mode in Tasmania, Scholes retreated increasingly towards the rivers and the streams. Did his emerging lack of interest in the lakes mark the beginnings of the parting?
The absence of critical scrutiny of such major events was disappointing. As a bio-graphy, it often read more like a string of anecdotes and vignettes, cobbling together Scholes’ own personal reflections on, or recollections of particular events.
I was left puzzled, for instance, by the jump from one paragraph describing Yarra River flora and fauna to the next which explained how Scholes never learned to swim well. Similarly, a host of unwarranted diversions into topics like the family history of Lord Rowallan, with whom Scholes fished on one occasion, added little to our understanding or appreciation of Scholes’ life.
The pages devoted to Scholes’ angling exploits read more like a potted diary, recalling as they do a small number of discrete fishing days and events, punctuated by dry-fly recipes that would have been more at home in a technical flyfishing publication than a biography that sought to convey something about the man, not just the angler.
By all accounts, David Scholes was a remarkable man; all the more so by his continued active engagement in his passions despite being diagnosed in 1960 with multiple sclerosis. Unfortunately, Boden’s biography doesn’t quite capture this magic for me. From the biography, I found out about some of the things David Scholes did. What I did not learn was really what David Scholes was about.
But don’t take my word for it; read it for yourself.
The Other Side of The Hill by Donald Boden (Stevens Publishing; 2006) can be ordered direct from FlyLife Publishing: price $59.