Chalk and Cheese

Charles Hamer was a keen flyfisherman who loved his stretch of chalkstream at Croisy, Normandy, where he and his family had a second home. At work, Charles was a successful interior designer who went on to run luxury fabric company Petheron, later becoming MD of Jean Monro Fabrics. Apart from fishing, he loved horse racing and fine wines, also marketing Pol Roger in the UK. Charles died a few months after completing this book about the river he loved to fish.

This book is an affectionate memoir of living as part of a rural community in ‘la France profonde’, recording how much the author adored his second home on these chalkstreams across the channel, and above all fishing for Normandy’s prolific wild trout. Chalk and Cheese stands as his charming reminder to us all of how there is always so much more to fishing than simply catching fish.