In my working life I knew many of the angling greats. Walker, Marks, Church,Cove, Shrive and Cutler. Steve Parton was one of these rare anglers who had the enviable ability to see a problem pressing the rest of us and then worry at it until the answer was found. I first met Steve when he was hatchetman at Raleigh.We shared a boat at Rutland -we started the Rutland Flyfishers that night- and he told me that he had been forced to sack a man who had been his foreman who had months to go before his retirement. That was when I met the real Steve Parton. Steve never did like dull people or those instant experts so far up themselves that their egos never quite landed. He wept that night and I was proud to realise that I had found a true friend in who he could confide. I handled the boat for him on a momentous trip to the Dhu Loch in Scotland. On the first drift he caught a 12lb salmon and a 9lb sea trout. The resulting grin was childlike and never to be forgotten. That was the real Steve Parton and the man which those who knew him well regarded him as a true mate. For Steve it was all about being true to yourself, faults and all, and being loyal to those you loved. Can't fault you there, Stevie boy. John Wilshaw.