Count Ivor Bertrand Bartholomew Fisher (1873-1918) was by all accounts a remarkable man, both cursed and blessed by his highly inquisitive nature and wide-ranging enthusiasm. Fully schooled by the age of fourteen, the remaining 30 years of his life would see him pursue discplines as diverse as alchemy, marksmanship, indoor botany, public debate and subtle buccaneering.
As a young man, Ivor excelled at cricket, association football, tennis, billiards and chess, and his precociousness as a natural musician was unsurpassed. Sir Edward Elgar had this to say of his talent: "Some people play the piano, others play the violin. Ivor never saw fit to do either - he merely tinkles and fiddles, fiddles and tinkles; a gurgling brook of inspiration."(2)
Keen to distinguish himself from the distinguished, Count Fisher journeyed around the British Isles and Western Europe as his horizons broadened. Ever gentlemanly, he was the first to smoke a pipe in the rarified air atop Nevis, he introduced the Hapsburgs to the delights of snuff, and provoked rioting among the peasants of Marseille with his outlandish pantaloons. His lengthy voyage was however curtailed in 1895, due to the Count unwilfully incurring the displeasure of the Duke of Acerenza - "a miserable wisp of a man, half-mad with power and half-blind with syphilis". His stay in Spain was but two months old when, having mastered the language and the fashions of the kingdom, Fisher was observed by the Duke carousing a member of his kitchen staff and teaching the stable boy to play baccarat; both grievous offences among Spanish Royalty. Returning to England aboard a merchant navy ship and displeased with the conduct of its Captain, the Count commandeered the vessel during a storm, dropped anchor and refused to move until he'd "enjoyed a good afternoon's fishing".
Back in England, Fisher frequented gentleman's clubs and museums to build on his reputation as a rather flamboyant autodidact, becoming an authority on most forms of dancing, chinese art, and canine anatomy. In fact, dog breeders the land over would agree that, bereft of the sillett hound, England would be a far less desirable island on which to reside: the existence of this rare and glamorous breed owes itself largely to the whimsy of the Count, and the time he found to commit to its rearing during his two year stint as wicketkeeper for the Marylebone Cricket Club.Although his life was cut tragically short during the Great War (electrocuted whilst attempting to influence thunderstorms into repeatedly striking the German trenches with lightning), Count Fisher's contributions to many disciplines continued to garner acclaim posthumously. Before joining the war effort at the behest of Field Marshal Haig, he was devoting himself to an exhaustive study of facial hair nomenclature and to the completion of his memoirs (finally
published, with corrections by his agent, in 1932).
Interest in the Count was rekindled in the early 1960s when a mysterious cult (calling themselves "The Fisher Chaps") claimed that they had recovered secret documents from Fisher's tomb including the score for an apparently "perfect piece of music". The cult refused to release any specific information about the score, and so their claims remain unverified. However, many prolific high-profile songwriters from the 60s onwards have admitted to being Fisher Chaps, and to recreating elements of the elusive manuscript in their own compositions...
Take a look at the homemade movies up on YouTube
Contact Details
[email protected]
Please email the people below for everything business like. Please don't send it to our myspace, will either read it and forget about it, or it will get lost between here and somewhere else.
Management & Bookings:
[email protected]
[email protected]
