In Memory Of Mike Starkey
Mike Starkey Funeral Details
Monday 16th February 2pm
Sedgemoor Crematorium Bridgewater TA6 4SR
Mike Starkey Tribute - Compiled by Tim Paisley
A great Chris Ball shot of Mike at Sway Lake in 2006.
Mike Starkey was seemingly indestructible. OK, he was an octogenarian, but I know through my association with him that he was active way beyond his years, both in terms of DIY, and his beloved carp fishing. Only those closest to Mike knew he had a health problem so when Sabrina from the Carp Society rang through with the news that he had passed on it came as a real shock. And as he was five or six years younger than me, a jarring one at that.
Mike was the person from the world of carp fishing that I had known longest. We met at the inaugural meeting of the CAA at Billing in 1974, although I didn’t really get to know him until a handful of years back when we were thrown together by the Carp Society on the production of a book. We gelled, and the upshot was that we worked closely together on a number of books over the last few years, mine and the Society’s. He loved compiling publications, and his scanning ability in terms of getting the best out of marginally publishable origins always delighted me.
Mike was a publications man throughout his life, and worked on behalf of the BCSG, the CAA and latterly the Carp Society. He was absolutely thrilled when he was appointed a Society Vice President and Life Member some years back, appointments that were highlighted at the end of all his emails. It is safe to say that Mike’s involvement with carp publications went back further than any other living carper, starting with the BCSG’s embryo Carp magazine at the start of the Seventies. He was employed in the print game and over the last handful of years was a go-to guy for those of us wishing to have some input into our end-product before it went to the printers. His clients included his friend Craig Lyons, the late Chris Ball, Derek Stritton and the Carp Society among many others. When the Carp Society took publication production in-house Mike was a huge help in showing the Sabrina the ropes, and advising her as and when necessary.
He was an author, too, and I had the honour of contributing the Foreword to his third and final ‘Dream of Carp’ book, published in 2024. The sub-title was ‘Book Three; The Twilight Years from 2013 – 2024.’ Prophetic, as it turned out. The book contains chapters by two of his closest friends in carp Fishing, Craig Lyons and John Carver, the only carp anglers who were aware that Mike’s days were numbered through his terminal illness. His third long-term carp-scene close friend was the late Chris Ball, who passed on in 2023.
Mike’s most significant carp book is almost certainly Redmire Remembered, which was a labour of love he undertook with his friend John Carver and which stands as a great memorial to the Redmire days of the Seventies and early Eighties. Our first collaboration was on the Carp Society’s 2018 book Still for the Love of Carp, which was when our association and friendship started. It was an apt beginning because Mike was still carp-mad and kept me informed of his efforts on a number of local waters. His frustration was that he couldn’t put a thirty-pound common on the bank, but early last year he finally achieved that.
Our last book was Hutchy’s Golden Years, which we worked on through the early months of last year, prior to publication in May. Mike had got his carp head on, good style, during that period and in the Spring he fulfilled the long-held ambition to catch a 30lb+ common carp, which had been eluding him to that point: that was strange because he had been a very successful catcher of carp from the Cut Mill days of the early Seventies onwards.
This is personal but Mike’s passing has troubled me. His lovely wife of 60+ years Tricia has dementia and, jointly, they were coping. But how do you tell a partner of so many years that your days are numbered and that she has to leave her lovely house and move into a home where she can enjoy the care she needs? I know it is an end-of-life reflection of the situation people find themselves in, but Mike’s passing personalises it, and I’m finding it disturbing. Rest in peace, Mike. I hope Tricia manages to cope with her loss, and her change of circumstances.
At the launch of the 2015 Chris Haswell book Carp County, designed by MIke. In shot are friends Chris Sandford, Craig Lyons, John Carver, Robin Monday, John Kendrick, Jim Ridgeway, Chris Haswell, and Mike’s wife of over sixty years, Tricia.
In the Carp Society book Every Picture Tells a Story Mike spent some wordage on his quest for a 30lb+ common. This was a big twenty from Leveretts.
