Nick Fisher Obituary, Death – Nick Fisher, who passed away unexpectedly at the age of 63, was an award-winning writer and broadcaster, as well as an agony uncle, film critic, and passionate fisherman. He led a career that was diverse and full of activity. In recent years, he has become well-known for his collaborations with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. Together, they authored The River Cottage Fish Book (2007); he also starred alongside Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall on television shows such as River Cottage: Gone Fishing (2007); and in 2010, he contributed a volume titled Sea Fishing to the River Cottage Handbook series. Fearnley-Whittingstall was a big fan of both Fisher’s irreverent fishing series from the 1990s on Channel 4 called Screaming Reels, which was always in the top 20 most watched shows on Channel 4, and Fisher’s show on BBC Radio 5 Live called Dirty Tackle. Fearnley-Whittingstall remarked about his friend that the two of them “talked about fishing endlessly.” “However, we also discussed life, a topic on which Nick was an authority because he had experienced such a significant portion of it,” In addition to hosting, Fisher has written for a number of television programs, such as the Emmy-nominated children’s series The Giblet Boys (2005) and numerous episodes of the medical drama Holby City.
Fisher was also well-known for his role as an agony uncle for the teen magazine Just Seventeen, which he held from 1985 until 2004. His friendly and witty manner, which was reminiscent of a protective older brother, subtly revolutionized the way that young men and women thought about their lives and the bodies they inhabited. In 1993, he was commissioned by the Health Education Authority to write a guide to safe sex, but the authority omitted to mention on the cover of the book that it was intended for adults who had reached the age of consent. It was banned and pulped after it received backlash from tabloid newspapers such as the Daily Mail, which Fisher recalled to Richard Coles on Radio 4’s Saturday Live in 2011. Olive Fisher was approached by reporters from the Daily Mail and asked about her son’s “sexual proclivities.”
In 1994, he stated his belief to the Socialist Review that “I don’t believe this government has the interests of teenagers at heart.” “Have they actually thought about how many teenagers are getting pregnant, how many are screwed up because they don’t know whether they are gay or straight, and how many aren’t using condoms because they don’t know where to buy them or how to use them properly?” “Have they actually thought about how many teenagers are getting pregnant?” “Have they actually thought about how many teenagers are screwed up because they don’t know whether they In the end, Penguin decided to publish the book in 1994, and the cover of the edition featured a DayGlo cherub riding a bright pink phallic rocket.
Fisher was raised in Glasgow along with his two older sisters by his father, David Fisher, a TV writer whose credits include Doctor Who and Dixon of Dock Green, and his mother, Olive (nee Wilson), a secretary. Fisher was the son of David Fisher. He recalled “in uncanny detail” the very first fish he ever caught, which was a wrasse using his toy fishing rod. Later on, his parents divorced, and he spent his early teenage years in Cromer, which is located in the north of Norfolk, before dropping out of Paston school and hitchhiking across Europe. In 2011, he related this story to the Times by saying, “I remember selling my blood to buy a roast chicken in Greece.” In addition, he received an education in art history from the University of Sussex. After that, he relocated to London, where he worked as a painter and decorator, dustman, sandwich board carrier, and art and antiques dealer up until the point where a fire in a warehouse where he was renting some space destroyed all of his stock. After finding himself without a place to live and with no assets to his name other than two articles from a design magazine, he decided to reinvent himself as a freelance journalist.
In 1985, he began working at Just Seventeen, where his duties included conducting celebrity interviews with the likes of Tom Cruise and Kylie Minogue, writing news, features, and short fiction, and soon after, he started writing an advice column called A Boy’s View. In 2004, the last year the magazine was published, he continued to write the column that was formerly known as “Agony Uncle,” but it was renamed “Your… Boy Worries.”
Fisher also worked as a freelance contributor for a wide variety of other newspapers and magazines. During the 1990s, he served as the film critic for the Sun, awarding the films with ratings that referred to fish: “fintastic,” “worth a fry,” or “codswallop.” In 1999, he wrote the adapted screenplay for the film Virtual Sexuality, which was about a teenage girl who accidentally brings to life the man of her dreams. In 2002, he wrote the adapted screenplay for the BBC Two sitcom Manchild, which was about men dealing with the messy moments of midlife. Nigel Havers and Anthony Head starred in the show. Other television work included appearances in episodes of New Tricks, EastEnders, Casualty, and Hustle, as well as a starring role in The Giblet Boys, an ITV children’s series about three brothers who like to get into all kinds of mischief that was nominated for and won the award for best drama at the Children’s Baftas in 2006.
Fisher’s talents were exercised off-screen in a 2011 touring stage play called Basket Case, which was led by Havers, and in a 2016 thriller novel called Pot Luck, which was set around the crabbing trade in Weymouth. However, Fisher’s later years were defined by his work as a senior writer for Holby City, for which he wrote 44 episodes (2010-20). He was described as “kind, welcoming, and inclusive; a joy to work alongside” by Kate Oates, who is the head of continuing drama at BBC Studios. The producer of the show, Simon Harper, referred to him as “one of our most gifted core writers” and said that he “wrote many of our most memorable episodes.” Harper also mentioned that he was enthusiastic about incorporating aspects of country living into his narratives.
In 2001, Fisher relocated to the town of Hooke, Dorset, with his wife Helen, a fellow writer whom he had married in 1992, and their two young sons, Rory and Rex. Rory and Rex were soon joined by their other children, Patrick and Kitty. Fisher was a fan of the country lifestyle, and he made his own trout fishing lake, in addition to keeping cows, chickens, ducks, and pigs. He also taught himself how to use a digger. In an article for the Guardian published in 2021, he described his lifelong passion for fishing as being “about escape.” Get out of there, you urban dwellers! Get away from the desks and computer screens so that you can “experience the sting of the east wind as it blows directly off the steppes of Russia and straight across the North Sea into my face.” Helen and his children are the ones who will carry on his legacy.