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GREETINGS
It was good to have a reply to the Greetings message I sent to the Axbridge
Caving Group. Just a fanciful saunter around the internet one day! I didn't
realise that the old Society had split into two but perhaps it makes sense.
I was delighted to hear news of John Chapman. John, Tony Kemmish (anyone
know more about him?) and myself did a lot of caving together, usually with
ACG along with Jim Hunt and David Weare. John was a real stalwart, I always
thought him utterly dependable, one of the nicest chaps I have ever known,
and he led caving trips very well; so it is fitting that he is an Honorary
Member now. I send him and his family my best wishes. Does he remember that
Calthorpe motor-cycle?
Talking of Jim Hunt, how sad to hear of his passing. Quiet, unassuming yet
with a wry sense of humour, he was a lovely character but of course we all
lost touch when National Service and Education took us on our various ways.
I think it was Jim who, despite poor eyesight, carefully and painstakingly
assembled the Wint Hill vase. Jim contributed several historical articles to
the Society's newsletter; I thought they were scholarly and informative. He
was obsessed with the notion that St Patrick was born in Banwell. For some
reason he went to London one day in the mid fifties. At a restaurant the
waitress offered him a plate of cakes for him to select, but this country
boy took the whole plate! Memory doesn't serve me well about the origin of
the story – Tony told me but it may have been John, or Mary Phillips who
told him. Jim wanted to prove a connection between the lower Banwell
Stalactite Cave and the higher Banwell Bone Cave. He did. The fire we lit
below drove the bone-hunters out from above!
I liked those Banwell caves. There was an earthquake recorded in ‘The
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle' which probably shook down all those stalagmites
leaving them on the floor of the Bone Cave, to become embedded in flowstone.
David Weare was an Axbridge lad; his father Jack, an elderly active caver,
was Curator of the museum. We all had great fun when the museum was moved
literally to Axbridge from Banwell. The panels were laid flat on a lorry
and the narrow Axbridge High Street had to be closed when it squeezed its
very dodgy way down to the Square, to be erected opposite the toilets.
Shortly afterwards I motorcycled out there for a meeting. With time to waste
I took out of my pocket the old tobacco and pipe I had filched from my
father's drawer. It took me five minutes to smoke it all, two minutes to
feel sick and fortunately there was the toilet – over there! I haven't
smoked from that day onwards. At the Museum's opening on 23rd April 1955 Mr H.E.Balch of Wells was the guest of honour. He signed bound copies of his
collected volumes, I think they are quite valuable now.
Whenever I drive along the Axbridge by-pass, past the old station, I
momentarily look up the hill, where Major McKeand, once ACG's secretary used
to live in a dominating house. It was close to the Ochre Cave which we often
visited. On 5th June 1955 we went there to give reporters from BBC's
‘Younger Generation' programme some caving experience, and they recorded our
comments to be broadcast later.
In one of those Western Mendip caves Harry Dene, a businessman, had a
problem with a small stump on the floor of a crawl passage – he named it
‘Maiden's Delight' and the name stuck, for a time!
ACG seems to have an active programme, including foreign trips. It must be
wonderful to have these opportunities that weren't available to our
generation. That said, I did go on an expedition to survey Portuguese caves
with London University (including Nick Barrington and Denys Brunsden) so
perhaps things were beginning to happen then.
ACG gave me a lot of very happy memories which I will always cherish. The
absolutely indescribable blackness as you approach the main chamber of Lamb
Lair; the rushing of water in the silence of Swildon's; the day we met
another party in Eastwater – overpopulation, I thought. But those are other
tales.
Personally, I did some caving up until recently, but the ACG also has a
tenuous link with my other lifelong interest in radio which started when a
shopkeeper known to at least one of the Society gave me an old wartime
receiver. More later …?
We were tough!
Quite often, fifty years ago, Tony Kemmish and I would cycle out from our
homes in Weston-super-Mare twenty miles to the Priddy area for a caving trip
with ACG, such as a strenuous adventure down Swildon's.
I remember once being left as belay man at the top of the forty-foot pot, so
I switched my light off and waited there for an hour or more in black
darkness, listening to the thunder of the waterfall - an unforgettable
experience though it probably seems old hat today.
Then, emerging tired, dirty and triumphant, we'd set off and do the twenty
miles back home - okay, it was downhill, but not all the way! We were young
and strong, time was unimportant: it was on our side so there was no hurry.
After getting a job in Weymouth, for quarter of a century I took my 16-year
old students for a regular field trip to Cheddar. Usually the day involved a
walk across to Burrington Coombe, via Tynings Farm. We would picnic on the
path with views of the Chelms Coombe quarry. This took me back to the time
when we explored a cave found by the quarrymen; caves weren't popular with
them as it meant an absence of rock, therefore money. The quarry later
became a testing site for steel structures.
The walk across Mendip was a few miles but in the early days only a few kids
pestered me with “Sir, how much further?”
We would reach Burrington Coombe eventually, after looking at Rod's Pot and
the line of swallets. Some, some armed with torches, dived into Goatchurch
and Aveline's, and with the surefootedness of mountain goats clambered up
the slopes by the Café. Suddenly the ennui of the trail was forgotten in
their enthusiasm.
We teachers watched out of the corners of our observant eyes from our coffee
tables in the café - absolutely verboten today!
As time went on, especially in the later years - about ten years ago - the
wails became more and more common and plaintive. “How much further?” “You
said we're nearly there.” “I can't go on.” “Somebody carry me.” The human
trail, years ago a compact group, stretched out for a mile and of course the
backmarkers don't get time to rest.
Are we breeding a generation of wimps? Certainly not – today's youngsters
are every bit as tough, resilient and resourceful as we were, and all other
teenage generations. I think they lack stamina because they rarely need to
exert themselves.
People haven't changed. In a different era these children would have cycled
twenty miles with no problem. So what has changed?
Leisure opportunities. I am convinced that television and computers have
turned our younger generations into couch potatoes and keyboard slaves; the
only Olympics they'll win in future will be in computer games, hands down!
Oh yes - and the compensation/litigation culture where excessive regulations
and prohibitive insurance have combined to discourage activities rather than
support them.
Isn't that why the more sensible of them join a club to foster their
interests?
A Club Rule
Under a rule that appeared in the mid-fifties, cavers weren't allowed to
wear loose fitting, floppy clothes; they also had to be belayed on all
ladder climbs. Perhaps that doesn't apply now, with increasing use of
appropriate clothing such as wet suits, and more technical climbing
techniques.
Here's how it came about.
ACG first explored the newly discovered St Cuthbert's system on July 17th
1954, going down at 4.15 pm for a straightforward evening trip. There is a
25' pitch with an overhang some way in which most of us managed, except for
one poor lad who, unbelayed, lost his footing and fell several feet onto a
sharp cornice of boulder below. He wasn't hurt, but his confidence was
shattered. We reached the end, and had baked beans and chocolate and a
drink. All seemed OK on the upward trail until the 100' Pulpit Pitch when it
became apparent that he was in some distress. He clearly needed help, and it
took at least an hour and a half to get him, rung by rung, up that pitch
while the rest of us waited getting colder – we were of course shivering wet
from the atmosphere and our own exertions – and in some the beginning of
what later became known as hypothermia.
Progress was painfully slow, but eventually at 6 in the morning our party of
cavers emerged, wet, cold and tired – except for a couple who had dressed
warmly with woollen vests and came fully prepared. The Society learned a lot
from that experience and appropriate rules were written into the book.
On the positive side, rocking down through Cheddar Gorge at 7 in the
morning, in Jim Emmerson's overladen pre-war Austin Six, was quite
interesting!! Jim, his car and his language are another story!
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