Add MS 88918/122/1-5

Mainly autograph journal entries written on loose sheets of paper and in children’s exercise books and notebooks. The journals contain details about Hughes's fishing trips to different locations including Grimersta (in the Outer Hebrides), the River Tweed, Ireland, Kenya, Fairbanks, Alaska, Vancouver and the Dean River in Canada.

Folders, Add MS 88918/122/1-4 contain fishing diary entries. A number of fishing journal entries dating from the 1980s have been written in a large 19th century ledger (Add MS 88918/122/5). Two drafts of typewritten reports on the Dean River [Canada] by Ron Cordes, Jay Rowland, Ehor Boyanowsky and Ted Hughes dated the 29th August 1987 (one of which is entitled 'Totem Flyfishers'); a narrative entitled 'Mayflies: Ireland May 1982; photographs of Ted Hughes fishing with Ian Cooke (c. November 1992) and Jean Valentine and Barrie Cooke are also included in Add MS 88918/122/3. As well as fishing the diary accounts also include some personal reflections by Hughes on his life, family members and work; notes about a poetry reading in Vancouver; a trip to Dhaka and animal sketches.