View this email in your browser The Hut following work by our wonderful president, Elaine Oliver to paint the outside and clear the patio in May/June 2020.
Welcome
to the June newsletter! As this goes to press, the advice from Mendip
Cave Rescue is still to stay out of the caves due to the dangers posed
by Covid-19, but advice has been published by the British Caving Association (BCA) regarding how club huts might be able to safely reopen
so this is something that the committee will be considering carefully
over the summer. And if there are any changes to the advice regarding
caving, we'll keep you posted. In the meantime, we hope everyone is
staying safe!
The club social scene has continued to provide a weekly alternative to
in-person pub meets, with a weekly quiz, followed by virtual pub,
which has the advantage that members from all over the country can join
in, so if you'd like to come along for either the quiz or the pub or
both and don't get to see the announcements and links on Facebook, let us know and we'll make sure you get sent the link for the calls.
We made use of Zoom for a successful committee meeting recently, and
are trying to get our collective heads around the account for quiz and
pub, so bear with us for the traditional faff!
Please keep your articles coming, and don't forget our creative writing
challenge! Megan and Linda got great reactions to their fanfic, so will
be inflicting more literary genius on an unsuspecting public in this
issue, so don't be shy! We're open to all forms of writing, prose,
poetry, whatever takes your fancy!
Particular thanks are due to Dick Willis, who got pounced on by Linda on
Facebook when he posted a photo of an old oversuit he wore on a rescue
in the Pierre Saint-Martin in France. Ever the opportunist, she asked
him for a few words to go with it for the newsletter and Dick completely
excelled himself with a huge feature article for us!
We're very sorry to inform everyone that long-standing UBSS
member Isabel Buckingham has recently died. Isabel joined the society in
her second year of a Geography degree at Bristol in 1966. She was
closely involved with the discovery and exploration of Little Neath
River Cave in 1967. Isabel was interviewed as part of our oral history
project, Travels Beneath the Earth, an extract from which is reproduced
here, in which Isabel talks about Neath and an incident involving green
dye...
I
got involved because the Society had found the Little Neath River Cave.
Chris Gilmore was a lucky man, who dived the sump in Bridge Cave and
broke into a streamway. And then upstream we found what’s called the
‘Flood Entrance’, which is a little way in, and we were surveying that.
Now in those days, there was no laser surveying. You did it the hard way
with a compass, a clinometer and a tape. We were also trying to do
water tracing on the Little Neath River Cave. South Wales Caving Club
said that it went into the Hepste Valley, which was down the dip of the
rock, so it was unlikely, but possible. We simply could not replicate
their results.
I was driving friends over. And we were putting down bags of activated
charcoal at every spring, seepage and rising that we could find. Going
back two weeks later, collecting the bags back, looking at them under a
UV light on a lamp, and there was nothing. Activated charcoal would have
absorbed the tiny amounts of fluorescein we were putting down. So that
we’d have known where it came out.
There’s a river down this bloody cave, so there’s a lot of water. We
really wanted to get this sorted, there was a whole lot of us graduating
that summer. We did our finals, and then we had a wait to see if we
were going to be called for a viva. There was about seventeen or
eighteen of us. We all went across, and we camped very near to Little
Neath River Cave. And I remember as I fell asleep hearing somebody say
he’d put two blocks of fluorescein down the sink. Well the next morning,
somebody turned up and said, ‘What the hell have you done? The river is
fluorescing down at Glyn Neath.’ And it didn’t go into the Hepste
valley, it came further down the Neath valley. But we still didn’t know
where it came up. My friend Eve Gilmore (Eve Wheeler then), she and I
got changed, scrubbed up, put a skirt and dress on. We went and picked
bluebells. Completely innocent.
We wandered up the valley. And we met two guys from the Water Board. Now
this was Whit weekend. It was a bank holiday, anyway. And South Wales
Caving Club had published that the water went into the Hepste valley.
And this was before the reorganisation of the Welsh counties. So
basically, we were in a Welsh county that was a different county to the
sink. And there was a brewery and a photographic lab that had picked up
this contamination. And literally the whole river fluoresced.
So we said, ‘It’s a funny colour, what has been going on?’ Absolutely innocent. two lassies picking flowers.
They said, 'Bloody cavers, they've done this.'
We said, 'That’s really interesting, why has it?'
We chatted away. Actually Eve Gilmore was very good at chatting people
up. And we wandered off and went back and said, 'We’ve found the river.
It’s down the valley. And that’s the pressure rising'.
After that we knew where it was. When you’re surveying what you try and
do is try and close your survey, or else you exaggerate the effect. And
Pete Standing had managed to get some radio equipment. And we thought
that the main chamber was related to a fault on the surface. And we were
trying to use this radio location, but it wasn’t that successful, and
everybody got rather cross. But in fact, we had found the pressure
rising. Yeah, it was good fun. Best way to finish your degree in finding
something out.
GO STRAIGHT ON
Yep, four months into lockdown and
we all want to go caving. We really, really want to go caving. So our
resident genius Jacob Podesta has found a way of getting all of us
underground from the safety of our (hopefully) Covid-free armchairs. So
grab a beer or your tipple of choice and settle down to play Go Straight
On: An UBSS Text Adventure.
To play, follow THIS LINK
and then make sure you read and follow all the instructions on the
graphic on your screen, including making sure that you type all your
commands in UPPER CASE.
YAY CAVING! And many thanks to Jacob for all his hard work on this!
WHAT TO WATCH IN LOCKDOWN
To help you while away the long,
miserable non-caving hours, Imogen Clement and Sam Bowers have nobly
subjected themselves to some of the best - and worst - films that
feature caves and have written these up as enticements - and warnings -
for the rest of us!
I feel like these reviews need a bit of an introduction. Basically I’m
very bored in quarantine (and missing caving) so I thought I’d give some
of the cave films out there a watch and review. A quick google informed
me, though, that there are basically three actual cave films
(non-documentary, anyway). And all of these are horror films. Then I
remembered that caves feature in other films, so I thought I’d add them
to my list. Some of them are more ‘cave-y’ than others, but we’ll take
what we can get. Sam and I are reviewing half each from our list, and a
couple of the ‘cave’ films we hadn’t seen are shared. Our rating
for this, uh, ‘serious project’ is as follows. They get a score out of
10 for ‘caviness’ and then a score out of 10 for how good the film is.
Here’s the first five reviews of the project.
Imogen
The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit (reviewed by Imogen)
The Mines of Moria, The Fellowship of the Ring
These are the reviews on the behalf of a newbie who had not seen the films before. Proceed with caution. Also, spoilers.
There are a surprising number of caves in Middle Earth, which is pretty
cool except for the fact that all the hobbits seem to just wander about
in them with no shoes. The cave (okay, it’s a mine) in The Fellowship of the Ring
is actually pretty difficult to get into: they have to say some things
in Dwarfish, putting our own drama about cave keys to shame. It’s pretty
sad too, since all the dwarves inside are dead for some reason. Anyway,
it’s mostly perilous, there’s Gollum hanging out in there, some orcs
and a cave troll too (insert joke about whoever you like). The cave
troll thing kills Gandalf but it’s actually for the best because it
means he gets to come back to life with a blond makeover in the next
film! Another positive is the cave decoration in the form of some pretty
sick dwarf rock engraving. But it’s still mostly harrowing due to the
whole Dwarf genocide and orc murder situation, so the film gets a 3/10
caving score. As a LoTR newbie, the film felt very silly at first since
it was basically just lots of men in wigs speaking very dramatically
about dwarves and stuff but I did start to enjoy it by the end. 6/10
Helm's Deep, The Two Towers
In The Two Towers, Helm’s
Deep is sort of built into a cave system I think, but they don’t really
focus on it, probably because they’re a bit busy fighting Sauron’s
armies. This is fair enough, since I suppose recreational cave
exploration does take a backseat when you’ve got orcs to kill. (I have
since googled this… apparently in the book it’s a proper cave system!
Based on Cheddar Gorge??? Offended by the lack of this in the film!) But
this film was really very fun, I liked the talking trees a lot and the
battle was pretty spectacular. Once you get used to Middle Earth logic
and the weird names (why are most people called things like Eroyan but
one of the hobbits is called Sam?), Lord of the Rings is actually pretty
good: 8/10. 2/10 for caving – they
could have definitely done more… it basically looks like a castle on the
side of a mountain, when it could have looked like *this*!
Gough's Cave, Cheddar Gorge
In The Return of the King, we get back into Middle earth's cave systems.
Frodo doesn't appear to be enjoying his first trip down Goatchurch.
The goth guy and the blond elf go caving
together and some ghost people show up but they end up being good guys
because the goth is a king now. (This is the actual plot as I understand
it) Next up we’ve got these sort of cave tunnels in Mordor that the
hobbits have fights in for most of the film. This caving experience is
definitely less than ideal; mostly due to the presence of Gollum who
basically sabotages the whole expedition by stealing their bread. This
is a bad caving food anyway, since I’m certain it would all crumble.
Also there’s a big fuck off spider at one point and they almost get
eaten.
But they make it to Mount Doom, which I’m not sure counts as a cave, but
if it does, British Cave Rescue should really be using this Eagle
tactic for getting cavers and hobbits out of sticky situations. The
caving in this film gets an 8/10 as it conveys an
incredibly important caving message: never go down a cave without enough
snacks. Overall, this movie concluded the trilogy in a satisfying way
and is actually a really cool fantasy film. As a LoTR newbie: I’m
converted. I’ve decided I’m moving to New Zealand. 9/10
The Hobbit is a part of LoTR to
which I am not a newbie, having read the book. But the (three!) films
barely hold a candle to the (one!) book and the rest of the Middle Earth
cinematic universe. But since a cave features, we must add this to our
list. The only cave, like literally every cave in Middle Earth, it would
seem, is inside a mountain. This time we’re in the Lonely Mountain,
which is pretty good due to the vast quantities of gold. Except
there’s a dragon, which is an obvious threat. So 4/10. The films get a 1/10,
they’re weirdly paced and are redeemed only by the presence of some
great actors and also that one really good deep song. Might start a
campaign to get some Dwarf songs into the cave song book.
The Incredibles (reviewed by Imogen)
Dash, our hero.
The Incredibles is Pixar at its
best, hitting that sweet spot between a children’s film and being
genuinely entertaining for an adult audience; weaving in commentary
about family dynamics and suburban life amongst comic book antics,
delightfully camp villains and kid-friendly gags.
The animation is slightly clunky at times, but doesn’t feel like
something made in 2004, so it’s particularly impressive for the time;
worthy of its two Oscar wins and the memorable score which scooped a
Grammy. While the film features two separate caves, it’s not exactly a
cave film. The caves are used for hiding from the villains on the secret
island, but nobody really ventures outside of the first few metres of
them and Edna Mode’s lycra creations aren’t exactly the oversuits of our
dreams.
The Underminer, the baddie.
I’ll give credit where credit is due
though; Pixar did pretty well with making some convincing volcanic caves
and there’s a moment where a stal is used to hide behind. Also,
our own Henry Morgan gets a surprising homage and the villain at the end
is a dead ringer for any member of UBSS exiting a cave. All in all, due
to some pretty poor cave conservation in the form of a cave getting
exploded by a rocket, I’m giving it a 3/10 on that front, but a good 9/10 for an on the whole, dare I say it, incredible animated classic.
Harry Potter (reviewed by Sam)
When looking at caves within the Harry
Potter universe there are three that immediately spring to mind: The
Chamber of Secrets, Gringotts Bank and the Crystal Cave, where
Dumbledore and Harry travelled to in the Half-Blood Prince in search of
Slytherin’s locket.
The Chamber of Secrets.
Starting with The Chamber of Secrets, it is
an example of beautiful interior decorating with an ornate and
serpentine theme throughout but has a complicated parseltongue entrance
system that could be hard to operate when deathly hungover as most of us
usually are. Plus, the Chamber is home to a fuck off massive killer
snake that could also prove to be an obstacle to any possible
exploration. Overall, its unique design gains it a 6/10.
Gringotts Bank.
Our next contestant, Gringotts Bank, is by
far the largest cave in the wizarding world and is equipped with a
rather precarious cart system for navigating between vaults who I for
one, as a lover of rollercoaster, feel only adds to the cave. However,
much like The Chamber of Secrets, Gringott's is inhabited by yet more
fuck off massive reptiles, this time dragons. Also, there are various
anti intruder traps in place so leaving this certain cave alive could
prove difficult. Its added theme park style cart and the fact it
contains lots of gold mean Gringotts is rewarded a 7/10.
The Crystal Cave.
The final cave of note, Crystal Cave, is a
sea cave off the coast of Devon. Apparently unapproachable by boat this
cave would require some definite cave diving ability and I know the
danger would not deter some of the more mental members of UBSS. Once
inside, it is quite nondescript, but I am sure if you looked you could
find some marvellous crystal structures, as the name implies. Following
the perilous theme of these caves this one is inhabited by the water
born living dead, i.e. water zombies, that could possibly interrupt your
stalactite studying session. Due to its less exciting interior, in
comparison to the others, and seeming inaccessibility the Crystal Cave
only scores 5/10. To conclude it would take too long
for me to individually review each Harry Potter film but to sum them up
they are a collection of action packed, nostalgia filled masterpieces
and they all get 10/10.
The Croods (reviewed by Sam)
From the off it is easy to see how Dreamworks’ 2013 film The Croods
is an Oscar nominated picture. This family friendly festival of fun
follows an adventurous cavegirl and her cave family as they try to
navigate the difficult problems that come with living on a prehistoric
earth whether that be out running an extinction level disaster that
threatens life as you know it or deciding if the sexy caveboy you just
met has a crush on you.
Being cavepeople, they of course reside … in a cave but compared to the
wonders of Mendip it is nothing special. Dark and cramped it is more a
place of shelter from life endangering foe than a cave for exploration,
but it serves its purpose all the same. Although the cave aspect of the
film is poor the flick is redeemed by the fact that Nicholas Cage voices
one of the major characters meaning that unsurprisingly hilarity
ensues. Overall, the cave leaves much to be desired for, making it a 2/10, but as a whole the movie makes for a reasonably enjoyable 90 minutes, achieving a 6/10, and takes up time I would have otherwise spent quarantine napping.
The Descent (reviewed by Sam & Imogen)
Freshers' trip down Rod's Pot.
As a newbie to the world of caving film both we are both pleased to conclude that The Descent was
an excellent first exposure. It begins with an introduction of the main
character Sarah, her husband and their daughter, both of whom are
swiftly killed off in truly brutal fashion.
As all normal people do, Sarah decided the best way to deal with the
terrible grief of losing her family was to go on a girls' holiday…
‘spelunking’ (America has a lot to answer for!). Surprisingly this fails
to improve her mood. We have decided to put this down to the fact that
each girl had their own separate bed, so no alpine bunk fun was allowed
occur.
Moving on to the actual caving aspect of the film we were pleased to see
that, despite deciding to go caving in… vests and leggings (?) all the
attendees were deathly hungover before they set out for the cave the
following day. Apart from Juno, though we’ll get onto why she fucking
sucks later. Once the group had made it into the cave it quickly became
apparent they were utterly lost, mainly due to the fact that Juno had
decided to take them to previously unexplored cave as a part of her plan
for personal glory.
Gollum doing a bit of moonlighting in a lower budget production.
In an incredibly baffling sequence somebody
gets stuck, and somehow this causes the cave to collapse. Yes, rock
that has not collapsed under the pressure of thousands of years breaks
apart because a pretty normal looking woman pushes against it. Yet
another reason to call Juno a big twat. After scrambling around for
hours, looking for an exit, the group run into a horde of flesh-eating
cave zombies who take it upon themselves to try and eat the cavers'
flesh (as their name implies). This is where the movie really takes off.
A series of scenes filled mostly with screaming, blood and guts ensue
and Juno proves her twatdom on multiple occasions. We would not invite
her on any post-pandemic caving trips.
We’ve agreed that the cave set in The Descent is the best
either of us have ever seen in a film although the formations in places
do look like they were made from play dough, probably because they were.
Also this is a film so it’s not as dark as it probably would be, and
we’re treated to some very pretty red and green lights underground
throughout. However, due to the realistic nature of the cave-based set
and the fact the whole film is pretty much set in a cave it is awarded a
stellar 9/10 for cave. The overall film is very
entertaining as a whole and mainly comes down to the characters falling
victim to wrong place, wrong time so it achieves a 7/10. Let’s all hope that flesh eating monsters haven’t taken up residence underground in our absence.
Imogen and Sam
MEMORIES OF WETNESS
After being pounced on in Facebook,
Dick Willis, one of the club's most experienced expedition cavers,
kindly agree to relive some memories from a rather damp trip down a
classic French system. Dick takes up the tale...
In 1975, 20 British cavers set off for the
highlands of Papua New Guinea. Among the group were two UBSS members, me
and Phil Chapman. Phil had earned his place having taken part in an
expedition to Venezuela where he excelled himself as a caver and a
competent bio-speleologist. By a cunning combination of bribery and
flattery, I had managed to persuade Phil to put in a good word for me
with the New Guinea team and tagged along with a crowd of mostly ULSA
members, all good vertical cavers and as hard as nails. But that’s a
whole set of other stories…
Despite leaving PNG early (I was due to come back and earn enough cash
to go on a UBMC trip to Kulu in Himachal Pradesh. Unfortunately, no one
wrote to me to tell me that there was a recession and no jobs, so I
missed that trip) I managed to not be written off as a complete arse and
was invited to take part in an ULSA expedition to push the bottom of
the Gouffre Pierre de la St Martin (PSM), in the commune of
Sainte-Engrâce in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques.
The PSM was renowned for two features. It had the largest known
underground chamber, La Salle Verna which has a diameter of 250 metres, a
height of 194 metres, a surface area of 5 hectares with a volume of 3.6
million cubic metres. A river, which takes water from the main system
higher up the mountain, cascades into the chamber from halfway up the
east wall and sinks in boulders on the chamber floor. The more
interesting feature was that at -1342m it was the world’s deepest cave.
This was the drop measured from the then top entrance (The Tete Sauvage
entrance) although the system has been extended upwards by finding
higher entrances. [If you read French, there’s an excellent account of a
traverse of most of the system at Traversée de la Pierre Saint Martin le 05 août 2014 - GCPM]
This expedition was a follow-up to an ULSA trip in 1971 during which
they descended the final pitches to establish PSM position’s as the
deepest. These final pitches took a stream but the way on at the bottom
was apparently too tight [Sid Perou made a film of the ’71 expedition which is well worth watching, if only to gloat at how easy it all is now with better clothing, SRT, decent lights etc.] and the aim of the ’77 trip was to try to push beyond this point.
On arrival we set up our main camp at in the village of Licq, a little
way down the valley from the track to the cave. The ground was very wet
from recent heavy rain and we wandered down take photos of the
spectacular waterfall over the top of the local hydro-scheme. With the
benefit of hindsight that should have told us something…
After a day of fettling gear and sampling pastis in the village bar we
loaded sacs and set off up to the entrance. There are several ways into
the system, the most famous being the Lepineaux Shaft in which Marcel
Loubens had died in 1952. But our interest was in the bottom of the cave
and we took a short cut into the Verna. This route had been helpfully
constructed by EDF in the late ‘50s when they attempted to drive a
tunnel into the chamber to capture the river for hydro power.
Unfortunately for them, they got the levels wrong and the tunnel comes
into the chamber halfway up one side, a long way above the river. But
they did cavers a favour because it’s a damn handy way in and out. It also enabled the Verna the be developed into a spectacular show cave.
EDF Tunnel entrance..
The workmen had built a hut immediately
outside the tunnel entrance and that was our advance base. Over the next
couple of days, we shipped supplies up the mountain and then moved
there to begin exploration. The tunnel entrance was protected by two
heavy steel doors which had to be opened and closed quickly, before the
colder air in the cave started blowing out. If that happened, it might
take three or four people to close them. 70m further on, the other end
of the tunnel opened out onto a ledge on the side of the Verna or, as it
appeared at the time, onto a hillside on a moonless night.
It’s hard to imagine what it was like to enter that space lit only by
‘stinky’ carbide lamps. In that huge volume, the light they cast was
almost nothing, even with the jet turned up fully. We did have a number
of ex-mining Oldham lamps amongst us but even those lights couldn’t
reach the opposite wall with any force. Having been in New Guinea, I was
used to some big caves but this was an altogether different experience.
Our first trip in was just to take photos and mine showed small pools
of light in blackness and were hopeless. But I only found that out after
having the films developed back in the UK and had chance for a second
attempt. This much more modern photo below is looking towards the
cascade where it enters the chamber, the tunnel comes into the obvious
ledge left of the picture and the pool of light on the right is the
entrance to the Aranzadi passage which was reached by an 80m climb using
a tatty fixed rope for self-belay.
Over the next couple of days, teams of
cavers took it in turns to take rope through the tunnel and up the climb
to the Aranzadi Passage. This huge gallery leads deeper into the
mountain and our way turned off it into the Meander Martine. In contrast
to the Aranzadi, this is a long, energy-sapping and painful experience
traversing a narrow, often bottomless rift which finally ends in a small
chamber, the Montpelier. Here the nature of the cave changes yet again
as a stream enters and then drops into the first of the pitches that
lead down the Parment series to the lowest point.
Compared with today's equipment, ours was pretty rudimentary and the water in the Parment series was cold. about 30
Celsius and, of course, a strong wind wich made it colder. My gear
consisted of a thin, home-made wetsuit and hood over Damart Thermolactyl
vest and long-johns. Over the top I had an orange Ladysmith Busywear
boilersuit, waterproof, highly flexible, and one of the best bits of
caving kit I have ever owned.
Unfortunately, the fabric outer coating was prone to chafe and you had
to be careful not to damage it. This outfit was finished off with a pair
of orange Marigold washing up gloves. For lighting we all had stinky
carbides (I don’t remember anyone having an expedition model) a
scattering of Oldhams and for back up, we each had a Pile Wonder, a 4.5v
bike light that we hung round our necks on string.
Techniques had moved on from 1971 and
ladders had given way to SRT although, if my memory serves me well
(which is increasingly rare) we might still have been using yachting
rope as specialist stuff for caving was only just coming on the market.
For descending, I used a 7-bar titanium rack, which had been made by one
of my colleagues on the New Guinea team, or a figure of 8, and a
frog-rig for ascent with Jumars. In those days, battery powered
electrical drills were science fiction and we placed bolts manually by
fitting the sleeve to a metal bolting tool, holding the end against the
rock and whacking it with a lump hammer whilst turning it back and
forth. We generally carried a thin plastic tube to put in the hole from
time to time in order to blow out dust. When it was deep enough, a
spreader was inserted into a new sleeve which was pushed into the hole
and smacked home; hopefully it would be sound…
Among the ULSA membership were a few engineers and one of them, knowing
that parts of the Parment series were relatively narrow, had
manufactured an extendible bar bolting tool. A bolt could be fitted onto
one end and the device braced across the passage. By turning a ratchet
handle the assembly could be used to drive the bolt hole much faster
than the conventional percussive approach. It was great and worked a
treat in appropriate settings, but it was spoilt slightly because the
end hadn’t been machined perfectly with the result that the hole was
always fractionally oversized… Over a period of a few days, teams of
cavers took it in turns to rig the pitches. The cave was very wet, very,
very cold and progress was slow. Placing a single bolt might require
the efforts of a couple of people, taking it in turns.
On 6th August, Andy Eavis, Paul Everett and I went down to take over. The cave had been rigged to the bottom of the 3rd
pitch in the series where there was a ledge and we reached that easily.
Andy laid a rope down from the last bolt to an old 1971 peg and from
there to a large boss at the start of the next 25m drop. Here he put on a
tape belay and descended, shouting at me to replace the tape with a
wire belay. I didn’t have any wires, so I put a rope protector under the
tape. I remember the belay clearly because it was up out of the stream
and dry.
At the bottom of this pitch was a dry spot and Andy placed another bolt
so that we could abseil down the next obstacle, a steep set of cascades
which ended at the head of the penultimate pitch (c30m). Here there is a
connection to a ledge at the head of a blind pitch where an earlier
Bulgarian team had left a large pile of rope. Andy placed a bolt for the
next descent and I distinctly remember trying it and pointing out that
it was loose. He countered by commenting that it was in at an angle and
providing we kept it weighted, it wasn’t going to come out. I couldn’t
fault the logic, but it did prompt him to drill another which was sound.
Having done that, off he went, and we followed. At the head of the
final pitch we repeated the process and then descended to the bottom,
placing a lot of rope protectors on the way, as I recall - re-belays and
diversions were almost unheard of in those days, especially if you were
in a hurry!
The bottom of the PSM is not a place I would recommend; it was very cold
and unpleasant with a strong wind and spray. A tight, dry rift led off
into which Andy scrabbled before reappearing and confirming it wasn’t
the way on. That left the only option as a narrow vertical slot under a
large boulder, too small for any of us. So, while they continued to
proddle about, I started back up the rope. Andy soon followed me up,
confirmed that there was no passable way on and told me Paul was
following. There was no point waiting for him, so I started up the
penultimate pitch at the top of which Andy joined me again, confirmed
that Paul was following OK and that I should get going.
The amount of water on the cascades seemed very high but I hadn’t really
paid much attention to it on the way down and blundered on, focusing on
what I was doing. I later found out that when I was halfway up the
cascade, a wall of water came over me but I didn’t notice, I was already
so wet and concentrating on my footing. I reached the bolt at the top
of the cascades and moved onto the next rope. This was very, very wet,
far more so than I remembered on the way down, and I had a lot of
trouble with the rope not running through my jammers. The changeover at
the top, which had been more or less dry while I had fixed the rope
protector below the tape on the way down, was very hard. In effect I had
to do the changeover with my hands and gear underwater the stream had
risen so much. I finally managed it and moved up the traverse to the
ledge from which I called down to the others to tell them that the rope
was free. I heard no reply and moved on to make myself safe on the bolt
at the bottom of the 3rd pitch and shouted again and again.
Dick Willis in the PSM.
There was no response of sign of lights
coming up the cascade and I was soon very cold. My carbide had gone out
long ago and I was worried about my Oldham going flat. The noise of the
stream appeared overwhelming, but I still couldn’t make the rational
decision that I was in the middle of a flood and should get out.
Part of me said that I was just panicking, and everyone would take
the piss out of me if I left ahead of the others. This internal debate
may have taken minutes, but it felt like hours. Eventually good sense
won and I clipped onto the next rope and started up.
The next few sections were desperately wet and I began to worry that I
wouldn’t make it. The top pitch, which had been dry on our way in, was
now carrying heavy water where it had previously been dry, and I noticed
the noise of trundling boulders. I made it to the Montpelier, where we
had a small supply dump and was able to have a snack. I kept listening
for noise from below but could hear nothing other than the flood. By now
I was firmly convinced that I was in the middle of a major flood so I
fettled my stinky with fresh carbide and when I was confident it would
stay alight, I dumped my Oldham, jumars, harness and oversuit in case
they’d be useful in a rescue. I scribbled a note to say that I’d gone
out and got going.
In complete contrast to the way in, the Meander Martine was very wet
with streams pouring out of the roof and I kept having to stop to
relight my lamp. At the top of the Aranzadi climb I found that it was
carrying a stream which, worryingly, had loosened the boulders at the
top. The noise in the Verna was overwhelming, it was filled with steam
and when I reached the base of the climb I found that the chamber was
now a lake, so much so that I had to boulder hop across to reach the
other side. Although I found the path up to the tunnel, I got lost part
way up the slope and had to hunt around to find its entrance. Having
survived the flood, I nearly broke my neck on the way out by catching my
carbide reflector on the roof as I was running. I exited at about 0845,
after about 17 hours caving, having come out more or less non-stop from
the bottom and I was so pumped that I was able to close both tunnel
doors without assistance.
In the hut all was calm. I shouted people to wake up and told them what
was going on below and a rescue was swiftly organised while I had a
brew, some food and tried to sleep. It transpired that during the night
there had been a huge electrical storm (everyone had been out
photographing the lightning) and it had been raining in torrents onto an
already sodden mountain. Some cavers were dispatched down the valley to
get more ladders, rope, radios. They were also told to bring back our
stock of dye so that a visual message could be put into the water to
tell and Andy and Paul that colleagues were above them. Dave Brook and
two others took brewing kit to the Montpelier, while others took in
rigging gear to make safe some of the more difficult parts of the route.
By 1800 that day, all the gear had been brought up to the hut, and a
first group had come out with no news of Andy and Paul but confirming
that that water levels in the cave were beginning to go down.
At 2030, Neil Dean, Martin Lafferty and Martin Hicks set off into the
cave carrying sleeping bags with the intention that two of them would
attempt to descend some of the pitches. At 04 45 Neil Dean reappeared
with news that Andy was okay. They had met him below the Montpelier and
he was following them out under his own steam. But the news of Paul was
less good, he was on the ledge at the bottom of the 3rd
pitch, where I had had the debate with myself, his lights were out
and they had found him attempting to change onto the next rope, in the
dark and beginning to suffer from exposure. They had taken a sleeping
bag down to him with hot drink and food. At the time, DB had been
working in the textiles department at Leeds University and had been
given a sample fibre pile pit to try out. The team put Paul in this,
even though he was standing in water and fed him hot drinks, that bag
probably saved his life. I learned later that Andy had prussiked out
with a knife in his teeth, anticipating that he would find my body
hanging on a rope. He expected me to have been killed by large stones
carried down on flood waters and someone later told me that two French
cavers had been killed in this way in a nearby system during the same
storm.
Andy and Paul had been very lucky. Paul had reached the head of the
pitch before the flood pulse hit and they were able to move out of the
water where they were able to sit out the flood for 24 hours in a sort
of next of rock and discarded Bulgarian rope. A second, larger
flood pulse had followed the first, probably when I was attempting the
submerged change-over at the head of the pitch. Later they saw the dye
come through and knew that a rescue team was in the system but they
didn’t know if the colour was just a simple message or had meaning (
red=stop, green=go!) When they decided to make a move, they agreed that
they would be unable to help each other and had to go it alone. They
each had a stinky although they were useless in the circumstances, and
Andy had his Oldham. He left Paul with both their Pile Wonders and
started up the cascade with Paul following. Having reached the
Montpelier, Andy spent about three hours in a sleeping bag being fed and
given brews before the others would let him start to go out.
Paul fought his way up to the ledge where I had stood and waited, trying
to make up my mind whether to stay or go. His light had been flickering
erratically, which made it very hard for him to assess what was going
on. By the time the rescue team reached him his was already beginning to
suffer from exposure. They attempted to haul him up the next pitch but
were unable to do so. Instead, they lowered him back down, put him in a
sleeping bag and fed him hot soup and drink brought down from the
Montpelier. After a while, Paul recovered sufficiently to make it up the
next pitches to the Montpelier under his own steam. He spent a few
hours resting in sleeping bag and then came out with the others. The
sleeping bag was one of the first fibre pile bags that had been made by
Mountain Equipment. At the time, DB working in the textiles department
at Leeds University and he’d been given a sample bag to take on the
expedition. It proved its worth and almost certainly saved Paul’s life.
Out on the surface we had been joined by a group of French cavers who
took over part of the hut. Watching them prepare to go caving was a
revelation. Instead of the gear that we all had – tatty wetsuits, a
mishmash of boiler suits, homemade harness etc the all had nice
oversuits with matching Petzl harnesses and SRT rigs. No wonder we had a
reputation for being scruffy bastards!
Actually, I think that I had looked vaguely respectable at the start of
the trip in my clean, bright orange Ladysmith oversuit, although I’m
sure that I would have looked like a rank amateur compared to them.
Unfortunately, although the rest of my gear was recovered OK, the suit
was trashed during the rescue. But that seemed a small price to pay for
survival!
The spammers have been at it again spoofing
emails. These always seem to come from Elaine's presidential address,
but then when you look at the actual address, it's something else
entirely, but recently, they have been quite convincing, and Elaine has
received some phone calls and messages on Facebook asking if she's all
right.
So, having nothing better to do during lockdown, a conversation on the
club Facebook committee messaging group led to an unusual approach being
decided on, and various people, including Imogen and Graham, decided to
see how long they could string a conversation along for. This seemed to
have frightened the spammers off fairly quickly! To give you some
flavour of the conversations, one is reproduced below.
So if you end up getting an unexpected message from the Prezz, or anyone
else, check the actual address the email has come from, and don't reply
.... unless you're really bored and not worried about validating your
email address for the spammers. And remember, never send money or gift
cards, even if Elaine sounds really desperate for them!
Here's what happened when Graham started talking to 'Elaine'...
_____
Hello Graham,
Are you free at the moment?
Regards,
Elaine
______
Hi Elaine
The UTI isn’t still playing up, is it? You have been taking the
antibiotics have you? Hope none of the others caught it from you.
Graham
______
The UTI are still playing, Yes have been taking the antibiotics and no one caught me with it.
Sorry
to stress you not gonna take much time, will be tired down. Can you get
this done ASAP? We need some couple of gift cards. There are some list
we are presenting the gift cards, as we have some charity donations to
make soon. Don't worry you get a Reimbursements check back before or by
next meeting. How quickly can you arrange these gift cards, I need to
send them out soon? I would provide you with the type of gift cards and
amount of each.
Regards,
Elaine
______
Sadly, things petered out at this point before we could have more fun! But Merryn reports that she's received replies
asking for Amazon cards for a corporate meeting and £400 of iTunes
cards for a family present! Some years ago, it was common to receive
requests from Bob for money to be sent as he was stuck in Istanbul! But
we're an unsympathetic bunch, so the scammers never got any dosh.
INTERIOR DECORATING & WORK OUTSIDE
Many thanks to our wonder Prezz,
Elaine, who spent some very socially distanced time by herself at the
hut doing some interior decorating by cleaning and painting the kitchen
floor with lovely grey masonry paint (photo left), and in the rest of
the hut, she's cleaned and wood-stained the floor (photo right) and it
all looks fantastic, along with the newly creosoted outside!
Elaine also did work at the back of the hut and cleared the paths and
creosoted the shower, whilst at the front, Hut Warden Liz Green worked
hard strimming and raking the grass, so many thanks to both for making
sure the hut has been looked after during lockdown. We've also asked
local caver and builder Alan 'Butch' Butcher to take a look at the
chimney and carry out some necessary works to stabilise the brickwork.
KINGDOM OF LOST SOULS
Is this G.B.? If so, where?If not, does anyone know where this photo might have been taken?
The photo shown here was sent to me by Mary Wilde, the Librarian for the British Caving Library.
It comes from an archive of work done by a photographer called JG
Clarke and is captioned “the Kingdom of Lost Souls.” According to Adrian
Clarke, a relative of his who is working with them on the archive, the
envelope containing the negative has “Kingdom of Lost Souls GB” written
on it. Likely dates for the picture are either around 1960 or 1946.
The helictites are in some ways reminiscent of G.B. but although I am
familiar with most of the displays in the cave, I could not align this
photo with my exact memories of any of them. I have never heard this
particular name used to describe any part of the cave, or any formations
within it, either.
However, there are people in the Society who knew the cave at around the
time that this photo was taken, certainly for the later date, and whose
detailed memories are probably much better than mine. So, any ideas,
anyone?
There are no prizes for this one, save the satisfaction of knowing something that nobody else did.
This photo, taken in July 1974, was
received from Dick Willis, and the competition was to name the people
and, as a bonus, the place. Only one person knew the answer, and that
was our wonderful treasurer, Graham Mullan, who also appears in the
photo. The fun thing about this was that even Dick admitted on Facebook
that he couldn't name everyone, so here we go with Graham's answers ....
From left to right: Brian Ottway, Trat, Julian Walford, Graham Mullan,
Dave Nuttall, Ian Cassely, Cathy Sullivan, Steve Warr, Dick Baldock,
Oliver Lloyd, Carol Walford (then Carol Thomas), Dick Willis, Alison
Roberts, Charlie Self, Mick Roberts.
Where: outside Glenview, Lisdoonvarna. The
derelict hotel that we stayed in during the 70s. Burke’s Garage is just
to the left. The hotel was demolished years ago and only the outer wall
remains.
POETRY CORNER
A caving haiku, from the lovely Jacob Podesta!
Nay Caving
My legs are so sore; without caves, pain is no fun. This was a dull run.
THE GREAT UBSS FANFIC CHALLENGE IS BACK!
We have several entries this week!
The incredibly talented Megan Malpas is back by popular demand with the
second chapter of Harry Potter and the Spelaeological Stone, continuing
the adventures ofThe Boy Who Wasn’t
Mauled to Death by a Honey Badger. Linda Wilson is underground again in
Middle-earth, this time in the Mines of Moria. Over the next few
months, she's aiming to do 100 words (known as a drabble in fanfiction circles)
for each of the nine members of the fellowship of the ring as they
undertake one of the most dangerous traverses in Tolkien's trilogy. And
we welcome a new author this week, Elaine Oliver, with a creation that
every caver is going to want to take underground (or to the Hunters')
...
Graphic by Graham Mullan.
In
a distant and second-hand set of dimensions, in a bedding plane that
was never meant to fly, the curling cave-mists waver and part...
See...
The
Burrington Master Cave stretches out, water trickling gently through
the Stygian gulf, calcite frost glittering on limestone walls, huge and
ancient stream passage pocked with scalloping.
Through
fossil phreas crusted with dried mud and the detritus of prehistoric
floods, an evanescent draught sighs. In a chamber bigger than a
cathedral, hollowed out with geological slowness, hitherto undescribed
troglobitic species gather. Most of the biomass is of course accounted
for by Albe, Gwyn, Geal and Bán, the four blind cave trout who swim
these subterranean streamways, garlanded by a long waterfall at the
cavern’s westernmost edge and domed by the ebon vault of Lower
Carboniferous limestone.
Speleopsychology has been, as yet, unable to establish what they think about.
The
Master Cave was a mere hypothesis until the day a small and secretive
faction of the UBSS, the wooden floor of whose Hut conceals a pothole of
dimensions that would make a Yorkshire caver quiver, built a gantry and
pulley arrangement at the tip of the most precipitous bunk and lowered
an observer over the Edge in a harness of questionable provenance to
peer through the mist veils.
***
The Worm pointed towards the tortuous crawl. “You’ve been through that?” he asked.
The
caver rubbed a red, raw hand across his eyes. “I was there when the dig
started. See him? Back there?” He pointed back down the passage to
where his companion was still approaching, having adopted a method of
traversing that involved slipping down the vadose trench every few
seconds.
“Well?” said Worm.
“He started it,” said Peter simply.
Gethin and Worm looked at the figure, now hopping across a slightly wider part of the passageway with one foot in his footloop.
“Geology student, is he?” said Gethin at last.
“No,”
said Peter. “Not precisely. Let’s just say that if utterly miserable
scrot holes were lightning, then he’d be the sort to cling to a via
ferrata in a thunderstorm wearing wet SRT kit and shouting ‘All gods are
bastards’. Got any food?”
“There’s a Tunnocks bar,” said Worm, “in exchange for a story.”
“What’s his name?” said Gethin, who tended to lag behind in conversations.
“Séamas.”
“Séamas?” said Gethin. “What a funny name.”
Worm
looked past Séamas at the shape in the passageway behind him. It was
closer now, and clearer in the pre-dawn light. It looked for all the
world like a–
“A tackle sack on legs?” he said.
“I’ll tell you about it,” said Peter. “If there’s any Butcombe, that is.”
***
Several
days before these events, a Megabus descended Cheddar Gorge and fetched
up, among many other coaches, in the maze of extortionate parking
spaces stretching out from Cheddar Rising. It carried a cargo of foreign
tourists, students returning from university, an elderly couple who’d
popped up to Bristol for the weekend, and a man.
It
was this man who engaged the attention of Old Sheppy, one of the
parking attendants on early duty opposite Jacob’s Ladder. He nudged Big
Perry in the ribs and pointed wordlessly.
The
stranger was standing on the pavement watching several straining
Megabus employees carry a large blue-and-yellow tackle sack off the
undercarriage of the coach. Another man, obviously the driver, was
standing beside him. There was about the driver – every nerve in Old
Sheppy’s body, which tended to vibrate in the presence of even a small
amount of impure gold at fifty paces, screamed into his brain – the air
of one anticipating imminent enrichment.
Sure
enough, when the tackle sack had been deposited on the cobbles, the
stranger reached into a pouch and there was the flash of a coin. Several
coins. Gold. Old Sheppy, his body twanging like a hazel rod in the
presence of water, whistled to himself. Then he nudged Perry again, and
sent him scurrying off down a nearby alley into the heart of the
village. When the driver climbed back into the bus, leaving the newcomer
looking faintly bewildered in the car park, Old Sheppy snatched up his
ticket book and made his way across the street with an ingratiating
leer. At the sight of him the stranger started to fumble urgently with
his money pouch.
“‘Ello,
sir,” Old Sheppy began, and found himself looking up into a face with
the reddest beard he had ever seen, and was it his imagination or was
there a faint rainbow aura surrounding the little man?
He turned to run… “!” said the stranger, and grabbed his arm.
Sheppy
was aware that the girls on their way to work in the tea rooms were
laughing at him. At the same time his specialised senses detected an
overpowering impression of money. He froze.
The stranger let go and quickly thumbed through a small black book he had taken from his belt. Then he said “Tábhairne.”
“Whassat?” said Sheppy.
The
man looked blank. “Tábhairne?” he repeated, rather louder than
necessary and so carefully that Sheppy could hear the vowels tinkling into place.
“Tábhairne yerself,” Sheppy riposted.
The
stranger smiled widely, fumbled yet again in the pouch. This time his
hand came out holding a large gold coin. It was in fact slightly larger
than the £5,000 coin the Royal Mint had launched the previous November
and the design on it was unfamiliar, but it spoke inside Sheppy’s mind
in a language he understood perfectly. My current owner, it said, is in
need of succour and assistance; why not give it to him, so you and me
can go off somewhere and enjoy ourselves? Subtle changes in the parking
attendant’s posture made the stranger feel more at ease.
Sheppy
was aware that a small crowd of scrumpy merchants, cheese shop
employees and freelance gawpers were watching them with interest.
“Look,” he said, “I know a good pub, is that enough?” He shuddered to
think of the gold coin escaping from his life. He’d keep that one, even
if Roger confiscated all the rest. And the big tackle sack that
comprised most of the newcomer’s luggage looked to be full of gold,
Sheppy decided.
The red-haired man looked at his book. “Tábhair–”
“Yes, all right. Come on then,” said Sheppy hurriedly. He picked up one of the bundles and walked away quickly.
The stranger, after a moment’s hesitation, strolled after him.
A
train of thought shunted its way through Sheppy’s mind. Getting the
newcomer to the Hunter’s so easily was a stroke of luck, no doubt of it,
and Roger would probably reward him. But for all his new acquaintance’s
mildness there was something about him that made Sheppy uneasy, and for
the life of him he couldn’t figure out what it was. Not the red hair
and the rainbow, odd though they were. There was something else. He
glanced back. The little man was ambling along in the middle of the
street, looking around him with an expression of keen interest.
Something else Sheppy saw nearly made him gibber.
The
massive tackle sack, which he had last seen resting solidly on the
pavement, was following on its master’s heels with a gentle rocking
gait. Slowly, in case a sudden movement on his part might break his
fragile control over his own legs, Sheppy bent slightly so that he could
see under the bag.
There
were lots and lots of little legs. Very deliberately, Sheppy turned
around and walked very carefully towards the bus that would convey them
to the Hunter’s Lodge Inn.
It
still being that hour when most of Mendip was just rising or about to
go to bed, there were few people in the Hunter’s to watch Séamas enter
the front bar. When the Tacklesack appeared behind him and started to
lurch confidently along the flagstones, the customers at the rough
wooden tables, as one man, looked suspiciously at their drinks. Roger
was browbeating the small sproglodite who swept the bar when the trio
walked past him.
“What in ‘ell is that?” he said.
“Just don’t talk about it,” hissed Sheppy.
Séamas was already thumbing through his book.
“What’s ‘ee doin’?” said Roger, arms akimbo.
“I think it’s a guidebook. Tells ‘ee what to say. I know, it’s gert ridic’lis,” muttered Sheppy.
“I would like the dish of the day and a glass of your finest local ale,” announced Séamas.
Roger looked at Sheppy.
The parking attendant shrugged. “Think ‘ee means an ‘am pasta and a pint of bitter,” he said.
“Tell him that's eight fifty, then. And that thing’ll have to go out the back.”
All
eyes in the room were watching the stranger – except for a pair
belonging to Peter the caver, who was sitting in the darkest corner
nursing a mug of very small beer. He was watching the Tacklesack.
Watch Peter.
Look
at him. Scrawny, like most cavers, and clad in a dark red t-shirt on
which details of a CHECC forum long since past were inked in faded grey.
Some might have taken him for a mere fresher’s week dabbler who had run
away from his club out of defiance, boredom, fear and a lingering taste
for cleanliness. Yet around his neck was a rusty SRT knife that marked
him as an alumnus of at least one trip to Yorkshire, the high school of
vertical caving whose pothole entrances are never precisely Here nor
There. Graduates were usually destined for an expedition at least, but
Peter – after an unfortunate event – had left knowing only a single
knot, and now made a living of sorts up in Bristol by capitalising on an
innate gift for writing complicated code. He avoided both work and
caving as a rule, but he enjoyed the company down on Mendip, and had a
quickness of wit that put his acquaintances in mind of a bright rodent.
And he knew sapient cordura when he saw it. He was seeing it now, and
didn’t quite believe it.
He stood up and made his way to the trio. “May I be of assistance?” he ventured.
“Shove off, Peter,” snarled Roger.
“I only thought it might be useful to offer this gentleman a caver’s perspective,” said the young man gently.
“‘Ee be doin’ all right on his own,” said the innkeeper, but took a few steps backward.
Peter
smiled politely at the stranger and extolled the virtues of the local
swallets and slockers. He prided himself on his knowledge of Mendip
geology, but the stranger only looked bemused.
“Adit?”
questioned Peter. “Pothole? Shakehole? Doline?” Each was met with
polite incomprehension. Please don’t be a spelunker, he thought. In
desperation he tried the Irish term uaimh, and the little man's face split into a delighted grin.
"At
last!” he said. "Me fine fella-me-lad! This is remarkable! Someone who
knows what I’m on about! My name is Séamas.” He extended his hand.
“Pleased to meet you,” said Peter. “I’m Peter. Look, this is a bit of a “local” place.”
“Good! Exactly what I wanted!”
“Eh?”
“What is this stuff in the mugs?”
“This? Butcombe. Thanks, Roger. Yes. Beer. You know. Beer.”
“Ah, the typical Mendip drink. Good. You say this is a local place. Frequented, you mean, by cavers and men of adventure?”
Peter considered this. “Yes?” he managed.
“Excellent. I would like to meet some.”
An explanation occurred to Peter. “Ah,” he said. “You’ve come to invite them to the SUICRO symposium?”
“Oh no. I just want to meet them. So that when I get home I can say that I did it.”
In the Hunter’s Lodge Inn, Peter listened open-mouthed as Séamas talked.
“So
I decided to see for myself,” the little man was saying. “Eight years’
saving up, this has cost me. But worth every euro. I mean, here I am. On
Mendip. Famed in song and story, I mean. By the fields that have known
the tread of Jeremy Twospade. Steve the Surveyor, and Gethin the
Welshman and the Worm... It’s all just like I imagined, you know.”
Peter’s face was a mask of fascinated horror.
“I
just couldn’t stand it any more back in County Clare,” Séamas went on
blithely, “crawling around in a wetsuit all day, just bedding plane
after tight flooded bedding plane, fearing that a badger’s about to rush
out and bite you on the arse, and nothing but a sump to look forward to
at the end of it... where’s the romance in that? Séamas, I thought,
it’s now or never. You don’t just have to listen to stories. You can go
there. Now’s the time to stop hanging around the bars listening to
cavers’ tales. So I borrowed a copy of Mendip Underground and bought a
passage on the next ship to Holyhead.”
“All right,” said Peter desperately, “let’s eat somewhere else, though. There’s a dig meeting about to start.”
“A dig meeting? We must join them!”
“Well, you see, I – what?”
“I
thought I made myself clear, Peter. I want to see genuine Mendip life –
the pastures, the caving huts, the lead mines, the truculent farmers...
and a genuine dig.” A faint note of suspicion entered Séamas’s voice.
“You do have them, don’t you? You know, people swinging on crowbars,
dragging buckets of spoil along the floor, the sort of thing Steve the
Surveyor and the Worm are always getting involved in. You know –
excitement.”
Peter sat down heavily on a bar stool. “You want to see a dig?” he said.
“Yes. What’s wrong with that?”
“For a start, people get muddy.”
“Oh,
I wasn’t suggesting we get involved. I just want to see one, that’s
all. And some of your famous cave surveyors. You do have some, don’t
you? It’s not all bar room talk?” And now, to the young caver’s
astonishment, Séamas was almost pleading.
“Oh, yeah. We have them all right,” said Peter hurriedly. He pictured them in his mind and recoiled from the thought.
All
the digging teams on Mendip passed through the doors of the Hunter’s
sooner or later. Most of them were from the clubs nearer to Priddy,
which had a sort of export trade in digging teams. Almost all of them
employed tatty buckets rigged up on crude hauling systems which ignored
any effort to operate them in a smooth and efficient manner, but Peter
didn’t object to them on that score. He knew himself to be a caving
dropout, so it didn’t bother him that his biceps were up to about three
bucketloads before he was ready to call it an evening and head out for a
pint. No, what he didn’t like about diggers was that they were usually
suicidally gloomy about the trending passageway in their dig when sober
and homicidally insane when drunk. There were too many of them, too.
Some of the most notable prospecting areas on Mendip were a veritable
hubbub in the season. There was talk of organising a rota.
He
rubbed his nose. The only diggers he had much time for were Gethin and
the Worm, who were out of town at the moment, and Steve the Surveyor,
who was practically an academic by digger standards in that he could
calculate how many caps would be required to enlarge a passage without
moving his lips. Steve was said to be roving somewhere near Elphin.
“Look,” he said at last. “Have you ever met a digger?”
Séamas shook his head.
“I was afraid of that,” said Peter.
Chapter 2 - Dudley's Birthday
“Up. Get up boy. Up!”
Harry groaned at the glaring light seeping through his eyelids, and
clutched around for his glasses, bringing the room into focus. He lay
under a thin blanket in a room made entirely from glass. Looking up from
his position on the floor, he saw the wide expanse of the early June
sky, punctuated by fluffy wisps of clouds.
Turning his head, he saw through the transparent walls into the garden
that enclosed his bedroom. A few birds chirped and pecked futilely at
the AstroTurf. The effect was rather like being in a fishbowl. From a
young age, Harry had always shown a strange aversion to direct sunlight.
Prolonged exposure brought on awful migraines, and even the weak winter
glow was enough to induce a rash across his forehead. As soon as Vernon
and Petunia Dursley has discovered this, they moved Harry from his cosy
cupboard-under-the-stairs nest into the conservatory.
“Are you up yet?” barked Aunt Petunia, rapping on the door.
“Nearly.”
“Well, get up, and come help me in the kitchen. We’re making Dudder’s special birthday breakfast.”
Harry pulled himself to his feet and stretched, cursing himself for
forgetting the worst day of the year. He wandered into the kitchen and
eyed his fat cousin warily. Dudley was waddling after his mother and
complaining in a loud wheedling voice.
“But I don’t want to go to the nature reserve. It’s boring and I hate animals and it’s my birthday and I want to go paintballing instead.”
Petunia wrung her hands anxiously. Paintballing meant filthy clothes and
muddy faces, and Petunia had spent the best part of her married life
making sure Dudley never had to experience the horrors of dirt.
“You can’t miss the school trip, Duddikins,” she protested. “I’ve already promised the PTA that I’ll chaperone.”
“I don’t care about your stupid PTA. I don’t want to
go to any stupid nature reserve. I want to go paintballing!” Dudley
stamped his foot against the kitchen floor, his bare feet leaving an
imprint in the damp surface cleaner. His face began to turn an alarming
shade of purple and, sensing a row, Harry ducked past them and into the
dining room.
Aunt Petunia flung the pack of bacon she had been holding onto the
kitchen counter and descended on Dudley, fussing over him and pinching
his cheeks.
“Oh, my poor sweet Dudders!” she cried. “Of course you don’t want to go to that nasty, dirty farmland.”
She said ‘farm’ bitterly, as if it were a swear word. Harry could see
the lines in her forehead crinkle up, as she was torn between the
horrors of upsetting her baby, and the horrors of upsetting the PTA.
“How about this, popkins?” she said. “If you come on the school trip
today, this evening we’ll go to Pizza Hut, and you can order absolutely
anything off the menu!”
Dudley sniffed, and wiped away an imaginary tear.
“A-a-anything?” he asked, feebly. “Even the ice cream machine?”
Aunt Petunia paled at the idea of that germ-infested monstrosity but managed to hold her smile.
“Even the ice cream machine,” she said, gritting her teeth.
Dudley thought for a moment. It clearly took a lot of effort. “Oh. OK then,” he said.
An hour later, Harry found himself standing outside the information
centre of the local nature reserve with a bored Dudley, a fretting
Petunia, and around 30 other uninterested kids. Their tour guide
was a tall spotty man called Dave, who was currently explaining the
different species of sparrow with excessive enthusiasm.
“Now kids, if you follow me into the information centre, we’ve got a
real treat for you all,” Dave said, oblivious to his listless crowd. “We
have actually built an indoor reserve to showcase some of the most
diverse species we have here. Bet you weren’t expecting a mini zoo to
make your school trip even more exciting!”
He grinned at the school kids, mistaking their moody silence for
thrilled anticipation. Unlike his peers, Harry did feel a flutter of
excitement. His aunt and uncle were staunch believers in the corrupting
influence nature had on the youth, and he had seen very few animals up
close.
The mini zoo turned out to be a few glass cages with some frogs,
squirrels, and one sleepy grass snake. Harry shuffled around for a bit,
staring at the bored, inactive animals, when he felt himself
inexplicably drawn to a cage in the corner. The plaque on the wall read:
European Badger. Meles meles.
Conservation level: Least concern.
Carnivore. Nocturnal. Found underground in badger setts.
Harry peered into the cage, scanning for any sign of a living thing.
“Hey kid. Weren’t cha ever taught not to stare?”
Harry jumped back in shock. A badger had emerged from a hole in the dirt
layer at the bottom of the glass cage. Perched over his eyes were a
pair of dark aviators, and Harry could have sworn the voice had come
from him.
“Humans!” the badger exclaimed. “They’re all the same. Gawking and
gaping at you all day long. You never seen a badger in shades before?”
“I-I haven’t,” Harry stuttered. “I’m so sorry, I had no idea badgers could talk.”
The badger twisted his face, and Harry wondered how an animal could look
like they were raising an eyebrow without actually owning
eyebrows.
“Funny huh,” the badger said. “I’ve spoken to every single human that
brought their ugly mugs to me, and you’re the first to speak back. Where
did you learn to speak Badger?”
Before Harry could respond, he felt a force collide with him from behind
and knock him to the floor. Dudley slammed his sweaty palms on the
glass and shouted.
“This badger is wearing sunglasses!”
Harry felt anger sweep through his body and started to jump up when
Dudley beat his palms against the glass and the front panel shattered on
impact. Dudley shrieked, and fell face forward into the cage. His face
slammed onto the dirt, and his head disappeared down into the hole the
badger had emerged from. Arms and legs flailing around, Dudley squirmed
and wriggled, his screams muffled by the earth. Aunt Petunia screeched
and ran over, desperately trying to pull her son out of the ground and
back onto his feet.
“Oh my darling,” she cried. “My Dudders! My baby boy! My sweet sweet floppikins!”
Harry stepped around the broken glass and snuck out of the building in
all the confusion, and out of the corner of his eye, saw a small body
vanish into the bushes. A pair of sunglasses were left discarded on the
path.
The path was wide and level, easy for two to walk abreast.
The light Gandalf conjured to aid their passage cast long shadows up the sheer black walls.
But despite that, the darkness wound tightly around Frodo’s chest and stole his breath.
Every footfall was magnified tenfold, each step a drum beat in his ears.
He clutched his cloak to him, the mithril shirt a comforting weight on his shoulders.
Beside him, Sam’s breathing was ragged but his footsteps never faltered.
When fear threatened to overwhelm him, Frodo held tightly to Sam’s hand and the weight lifted from his chest.
PHOTO CORNER: UBSS AS ANIMALS
WHO READ TO THE END?
Naturally, we hope you all did, and
if so, take a moment to click the link at the end and send us a quick
message! A league table is building up and there will be prizes, so
how's that for an incentive? So, without further ado.... drum roll....
here's last month's lovely I-read-to-the-enders...
- Me me me (Graham Mullan) (But as he presses the Big Red Button to send the newsletter out, he gets a separate prize!)
- Maybe this time? :) (Elaine Oliver) (Yep, the Prezz wins this round!!)
- Cave? (Merryn Matthews)
- I can’t wait to get underground 😊 (Kat Osie-Mensa)
- Thought you’d try and catch us out by sending it at the crack of
dawn? Well I’ll have you know my curtains are very thin and I was well
awake, so who’s laughing now? (Megan Malpas)
- Yay caving (Stu Walker)
- A dyslexic read to the den (Chris Howes)
- The extremely erudite FT Bear and I applaud Linda and Megan for their literary genius! (Megan Malpas)
- BIt late but I did! BIg fan of the harry potter story, the whole
thing is great I wish I had more time to join these pub meets and stuff
sounds like the society social scene is thriving despite lockdown! (Cat
Henry)