Trip Reports

Them was the Days

Collated by Andrew Ketley

(or "How to Thread a Journal Article")

CUCC's recent spate of excessively lean years has been the focus of much debate. In the midst of dire predictions of doom, measures were mooted and plans forged, with the result that the club is now at least out of intensive care -- but not before some of the wrinklier contingent, in a haze of half-centennial nostalgia, had seized the opportunity to maunder off down Memory Lane...

From: Chris Sharman
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998

I recall taking some novices down Swildons some years ago with Mark Russell. We may have been old lags, but we had no sense of direction, and knew it, and said so. The meet leader refused to believe we could get lost in Swildons, and so did the novices...

... For several hours. They gradually came around to the idea that we weren't winding them up and really were completely lost -- was it something like 7 hours overall ambling around in Swildons short round?

Were the novices put off? Well, no, they were Jeremy Rodgers and Mark Fearon. Getting lost is really not a problem, provided you're aware of any special hazards (such as blind pit in Simpsons).

From: A J Day
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998

I seem to recall that three years ago, the only novice who stopped on after the P8 meet was one who'd been led a merry dance by Aggy and Sean, initially down something that wasn't P8. I think his name was Duncan, or something...

From: Penny Reeves
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998

I seem to remember a Yorks meet a few years ago where one minibus went to the Red Rose and one to Brackenbottom. The Red Rose team walked over to Leck Fell on Sat evening to rig caves for the vast numbers expected up there on Sunday, to be efficient. The Brackenbottom team went to the pub. The next morning we were treated to the sight of Becks losing her rag with the hungover Brackenbottomers who didn't feel up to going underground to derig and were about to let the poor Red Rosers put wet gear back on and go underground again (having already done their Sunday morning trip). As a very poorly Jared commented whilst changing into his gear: "I never knew caving was compulsory!".

And I seem to recall Dan and I sending two novices to 'look for the way on' down Stump Cross when we hadn't the faintest idea where to go next ... Julian Haines and Mark McLean, if I remember rightly.

As long as you can express confidence that you can find your way back the way you came in I think it's alright not to know where you're going -- involving novices in route finding makes them feel more involved in the trip, and less like it's a guided tour.

From: Wookey
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998

Ah, yes, and I was sat in that bus on one of my very first meets, thinking 'this lot are an odd bunch', and enjoying the fact that I wasn't going to get dragooned into fishing out the rope as I didn't know anything about anything. I think we novii then did a nice Short Drop/Gavel trip.

From: Andy Waddington
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998

Well, it used to work ! However it's true that the club is likely to integrate more quickly if they are not overwhelmed by outsiders. I seem to remember that at Brackenbottom we stayed fairly separate from the Bradford, but at Greenclose, everything happens in the one common room.

Well, there are very few NPC up at weekends who have not themselves been students at some time, quite often fairly recently. Much of the NPC membership used to come from CUCC, and more recently has been ex ULSA and Imperial. We never managed to put the Imperial off, despite nicking their breakfast after the pub on Saturday night far more often than was remotely hospitable. Took them years to learn to keep it in the minibus overnight.

I'm sure CUCC would be most welcome at Greenclose nowadays (we only stopped going there because NPC got a bit pissed off at CUCC turning up en masse as guests of NPC members who were recent ex-CUCC, which is hardly surprising really). Greenclose is a jolly nice caving hut, much cleaner than when Nick Thorne got bollocked by Bob Hryndji for calling it "Bucolic" in print (Bob was the only NPC member apart from Nick to have the vaguest idea what it meant - I had to look it up too! :()

From: Sam Lieberman
Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998

Del said:

It was the wet pitch in Swinsto. I remember it well, 'cos I was on the ledge, under the waterfall, having wellies dropped on me, whilst Del did his hero job. I think her name was Rachel and she did turn up at the pub the next Tuesday but never again after that. Although she didn't seem that upset over the experience.

My main recollection of that day was helping the hapless girl down the master cave streamway with Tony in front and me behind. 'Sporting' might be the way to describe it. At one stage Rachel lost her footing and got swept away -- this got me off balance and I quickly followed leaving Tony hanging horizontally off the wall and unable to get his feet back on the floor due to the fast flowing water.

It was only a week later that that chap died when he was swept into the sump at the bottom of the ladder.

Sobering stuff, really.

From: Nick Thorne
Date: Sat, 24 Oct 1998

To be fair, I thought Greenclose was 'jolly nice' too, but I just couldn't help but feel that it wasn't the way all the fresh faced novices would see it... remember those outside toilets... worse than The Cambridge Arms!

And we weren't always made that welcome, although I think we only had ourselves to blame. At the time we had so many CUCC members who were also NPC members -- even the 'bucolic' episode didn't stop me being black-balled :) -- that we'd just turn up on spec with the maximum quota of guests and more or less take over the place!

This all reminds me of the cottage warden at the time, Bob Newton. Used to lean on the Aga until late in the evening, pronouncing about our ladders, "Them ladders... fooking shit... them ladders... fooking, plastic shit." I used to do an impersonation of him incorporating the famous cigarette trick. Bob used to be able to get a cigarette out of a packet in his trouser pocket, without getting the packet out! Sadly, I understand he was murdered a few years ago.