Writer & Fisherman
Charles was born in Zambia. He studied Fine Art at Christ Church Oxford, and was an Art teacher for ten years before becoming a freelance writer. Though he had a two-year stint at Motor Sport magazine and remains a petrol-head to this day with a garage full of motor bikes, it is his other passions – rivers, conservation, travel and fly-fishing that dominate his writing.
Since 1997 he has been the fishing correspondent for The Field and in 2000 his work for them won him the PPA feature-writer-of-the-year award. He has written for The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, The Observer and The Guardian, as well as a number of publications in America. A long time spent painting has given him an eye for an image and Charles’ own photographs accompany all his writing.
His first book, Somewhere Else, was published by Yellow Jersey Press in 2004. It’s idiosyncratic mix of off-beat travel writing, anecdote and history, woven through unusual fishing quests inspired the BBC2 series The Accidental Angler which Charles presented. An accompanying book of the same title was published in 2006.
He was a founder of the Wild Trout Trust and still spends much of his time promoting river conservation – with both the wellie-boot and the pen.
