Jack Hargreaves - A Portrait

publication date: Nov 2, 2007

Reviewed by Allan Sharman

 
By Paul Peacock
Published by Farming Books and Videos Ltd – rrp £20

For those of you in the U.K. too young to remember him and for those of you outside the U.K. Jack Hargreaves is best known for a TV programme called ‘Out of Town’. In 1960 a new kind of groundbreaking (for the U.K. at least) TV show was first broadcast. It was a mixture of outside broadcasting on all matters to do with the countryside including all forms of angling. This was mixed with Jack sitting in his shed discussing all things pertinent to the countryside and the crafts that were being lost. An unlikely sounding format but it proved to be a great hit.

This book is a biography of Jack Hargreaves written in an easy readable format by Paul Peacock. It gives a very good insight into the man we came to know through the TV. At times this is not what you necessarily expect! He obviously had an eye for the ladies and lived and worked in London for a number of years in senior positions – a very different persona to that of the soft spoken chap in his shed wearing a battered hat, whiskers and smoking a pipe who joined us via the TV.

 
Sadly because of the type of film used very few of the programmes survived. The National Film Archive has however preserved two episodes so that ‘when they finally cover Britain with concrete they will have something to remind them what it was all about’.

Jack also came up with (among other things) the children’s programme called ‘How’ which by various means explained to children how things worked.

A very readable book which seems to have been thoroughly researched.

How to Purchase

Luckily for us, the original series are now available on DVD and are proving as popular today as they were originally.

To get the book, please click on the following link - Jack Hargreaves: A Portrait

You can also check out the DVD series by choosing from the images below and don't forget to watch out for the all new 'Out of Town 2' series coming to Fish & Fly and the Country Channel TV soon - you'll see some news on this in the links at the bottom of the page.