Hugh Falkus (15 May 1917 – 30 March 1996) was a British writer, filmmaker and presenter, World War II pilot and angler. In an extremely varied career, he is perhaps best known for his seminal books on angling, particularly salmon and sea trout fishing; however, he was also a noted filmmaker and broadcaster for the BBC.
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Biography
Hugh Edward Lance Falkus was born to James Falkus, a Surrey bank manager, and his wife Alice Maud. James retired early to a boat, first on the Essex marshes and then in Devon, whereupon Hugh was sent to the Culford School, in Suffolk. According to his entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Hugh caught his first fish when he was four, learned to shoot when he was six, and was an expert helmsman by the age of fifteen. By eighteen he had learned to fly, and at twenty he became a pilot in the RAF.
On 11 July 1939 he married Doris Marjorie Walter, and they had two sets of twins (three sons and a daughter). The youngest son, Anthony, born in 1952, died in infancy. The older twins, Christopher and Malcolm, born in 1940, had successful careers, with Christopher becoming a prominent publisher while Malcolm's career has been in economic history. Falkus' only daughter, Rowena Mary, is a Benedictine nun.
In June 1940 Falkus' Spitfire was shot down over France and he spent the rest of the war in German prison camps, including Stalag Luft III the Great Escape camp. After the war he left Doris and in 1950 he married Diana Vaughan, the young editor of Argosy magazine, but on 12 May 1951 Diana was drowned, along with Charles Osborne, Bill Brendon and Sam Lee, in a boating accident off the coast of Achill Island in County Mayo, Ireland, while they were making a film about the local shark hunting industry. Near the Daisy Rocks, a huge wave estimated to be 27 feet high capsized and sank the lifeboat being used for the filming. Falkus, a powerful swimmer, took command and ensured other members of the party including his wife were equipped with flotation devices; roping them together into a raft, and then set out for help. He collapsed unconscious having narrowly survived after swimming over a mile to the shore, before being able to tell his rescuers the location of the accident and its survivors. As efforts were made to revive him, rescue parties went to the wrong location, Achill Head, based on guesswork. Falkus immediately upon recovering consciousness told the correct location but by then it was too late and the others had died from cold. His wife's remains and one other person's were recovered.