Hugh Falkus was a British writer, filmmaker, presenter, World War II pilot, and angler. In a highly varied career, he is perhaps best known for his seminal books on angling, notably salmon and sea trout fishing; however, he was also a noted filmmaker and broadcaster for the BBC.

According to his entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Hugh caught his first fish when he was four, learned to shoot when he was six, and was an expert helmsman by age fifteen. By eighteen, he had learned to fly; at twenty, he became a pilot in the RAF.

In June 1940, Falkus’ Spitfire was shot down over France, and he spent the rest of the war in German prison camps, including Stalag Luft III, the Great Escape camp. Rumor has it his German captors were only too glad to be rid of him as he was somewhat less than a model prisoner and drove them crazy.

Hugh did have a bit of a dark side. He was married four times and, according to his biographer, Chris Newton, a sexual predator, gaining the nickname “Huge Phallus” at the BBC.

LINK (via Wikipedia)