For security reasons it is not possible to reveal the names of the cavers or cave featuring in this article, but the Editor assures me it is still worth writing [I had not seen the article then, Ed.] It was about eleven o'clock - no, 23.00 - when my companion (hereinafter referred to as J) and I parked the car. This was the Longest Day, or, more relevantly, the shortest night, and we were appalled by the bright twilight in these northern parts. All the same, we blundered about in a most amateurishly criminal manner in trying to find the entrance. If you ever take up cat-burglary, it's worth knowing which house you intend to rob.

Eventually we located the desired orifice, cunningly masquerading as a brick wall. We ploughed through various watery crawls, and negotiated a long duck which I didn't reckon much to. Now we found ourselves in a much more comfortable part of the cave, which - for security reasons - we had been unable to enter by. We set off upstream, which was very pleasant for a few hundred feet, until we met a lake. The problem here was that it was a Deep Lake, deeper in fact than J, and the entire caving world knows that he can't swim; fortunately some underwater ledges came to his rescue. Beyond was a Bloody Great Rock, which we dodged before threading ourselves through several conventional sized rocks.

By now we were deciding that Crime Pays and that the younger generation were entirely spineless not to accompany us. Big, open streamway followed, punctuated by another lake, which I survived. We reached a large muddy chamber and went right, upstream. J had done one cave already and was feeling tired, so I carried on alone, through wide ducks and cross-rifts until the water met the roof. After a nosh we retreated - despite the ludicrous hour of the morning - to daylight; we were met by a scene of memorable tranquillity. We drove back to our companions without meeting another car, which - for security reasons - was no bad thing.

"BATPOND"

(Our Northern correspondent, Old Bill, reports that the question put to certain members of a leading Speleological Association by members of a different but no less notorious organisation - namely, "'Ullo 'ullo, what 'ave we 'ere then?" - was not entirely unconnected with the discovery, on the previous weekend, of two sets of muddy pug-marks scarring the white gravel paths in the cave mentioned).