In our first author profile, Malcolm Greenhalgh tells us how he went from fishing in Bowland as a boy to travelling the world as a renowned author (if only to escape the dreadful offerings of British television).
Malcolm Greenhalgh was born in Bolton, but his parents were sensible and the family moved to Kirkham in the Lancashire Fylde. From there he spent most of his free time indulging in a passion for wildlife: he watched birds on the Ribble and Wyre estuaries (observations that, in 1975, were published in his book Wildfowl of the Ribble Estuary, with notes on south Morecambe Bay). In his teens the family moved close to the Ribble at Preston, and from there he wandered the Bowland fells and fished the river for trout and salmon. It was from here that his first article was published, about dippers, in an RSPB magazine when he was 17 years old. At Lancaster University he read biology, choosing courses that related to his wildlife interests; whilst there he also spent (too) much time in the Lune valley and on Morecambe Bay. He then studied the relationship between the wading birds and their invertebrate food supplies on the Ribble estuary for his PhD, and lectured until his 40th birthday.
Life begins at forty! MG then gave up paid employment to write about his interests. So for the last 25 years he has travelled widely (including to the Amazon, West Indies, the High Arctic, and every corner of Europe) with binoculars, pond and butterfly nets, fishing rods and cameras. His books include The Wild Trout and Atlantic Salmon (with artist Rod Sutterby), The Birdwatcher’s Year, The Complete Fly-Fisher’s Handbook: Natural flies and their imitations (with wildlife illustrator Denys Ovenden), The Salmon and Sea Trout Fisher’s Handbook (with Hugh Falkus), The Complete Book of Fly Fishing (with Ed Jaworowski), Collins Guide to the Freshwater Life of Britain and Northern Europe, The Floating Fly, An Encyclopedia of the World’s Fishing Flies and The Ribble (which describes the river and countryside where MG has spent countless hours). Besides wildlife, he is a proud Lancastrian and has written a book on Lancashire food, Flavours of Lancashire and the forthcoming The Great Lancashire Quiz. He has made too many boring videos/DVDs, appeared on radio and TV many times, and written for a host of magazines.
He lives in south Lancashire and, besides wildlife, his interests include gardening, good food, wine and his grandchildren. There are four things he dislikes: the dreadful offerings on television, the din one has to put up with (piped musack or TV) in supermarkets, hospital waiting rooms and the like, the self-centred rudeness of so many people today, and neighbours’ cats that choose his vegetable beds as their lavatories.
Malcolm is the author of Ribble, River and Valley: a local and natural history, published by Carnegie Publishing.
