REVIEWS
It was the time when the rivers
were full of salmon, and a proper angler only used Hardy tackle to
catch them.
WHEN HARDY'S RULED THE WAVES, RIVERS & LAKES
There is a very poignant moment in this DVD when one of the company’s old staff says of the modern-day Hardy equipment: “There’s nothing there that I would want to make now.”
Unfortunately, Hardy was going bust by clinging on to its old values. And now, as managing director Richard Sanderson points out: “Less than 5% of what we sell will be made at Alnwick.” No longer a manufacturing company, sales and marketing is the game now.
This isn’t just the story of a fishing tackle company that lost its way in the modern world: it’s the tale of many, many firms that clung too long to their old-fashioned values of quality above quantity, and found that too few people cared less. Cheap was good.
Never mind the quality, look at the price.
Ah, but those golden days! Hardy was once the biggest employer in the Northumberland town of Alnwick. For fishermen, a trip to London and visiting Hardy’s in Pall Mall was akin to seeing Buckingham Palace. Hardy ruled the world, supplying tackle to maharajahs, film stars and royalty. When Zane Grey wanted the most expensive reel in the world built. he came to Hardy’s. It said that it could build the dearest, but it would also be the best too. Nobody doubted it.
But the world didn’t stay still. The foundry, gut shop and fly-making all went. One of its old premises is now a squash club, tanother an instant print shop. Hardy still makes cane rods, but you feel that even this final link with the past may soon go.
The film-makers, Andy Heathcote and Heike Bachelier, tell the Hardy story with sympathy and a touch of hope, not for Hardy’s perhaps, but for those who still believe in hand-making beautiful things.
Cane rodmaker Edward Barder is one of these, though even he questions the wisdom of putting beauty before profit. “It’s an inordinately long time to spend on something, 60 hours or more, is it not?”
Every reader of this magazine will love this DVD. It’s a little long at 93 minutes but it has pace, some wonderful anecdotes, sensitive filming and tight editing. You know the ending, you won’t want it to end.
It is enhanced by some great
footage from the
Hardy archives of the 1920s, including a quite wonderful sequence of a
ghillie doing all the hard work with a 40lb Norwegian salmon, while the
angler claims the glory and the leaves the ghillie to carry back both
rod and fish. Unmissable. Buy it now.
©Keith Elliott, Classic Angling magazine