Words: John Andrews. Picture: Neil Thomson

Today would have been Roger Barnes 69th birthday, I think of him often but always today as I am sure his family and many of his old friends do too. For them and in memory of Roger here is the piece I wrote after his untimely death three years ago.

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I first met Roger in the winter of 2002 by The Thames at Marlow Weir and in the cloying mist of a dank and cold January day we fished for pike in the lock-cut from his Suffolk Punt The Compleat Angler which he kept moored at the hostelry of the same name. I learnt more about The Thames from Roger in that one day than left to my own devices I would have done in a lifetime…(continued)