Kent's Cavern, Devon. Photo by Linda Wilson
|
|
The
first in-person AGM and dinner since the start of Plague Times passed
without incident in that we weren't banned from the restaurant. Verdict:
must try harder. March was a busy month for caving and socialising, and
as well as the usual Tuesday pub meets in the Eldon House, our new
social secretaries have started as they mean to go on with a pub crawl
to kick off the social scene. We've also had a trip to Clevedon Marine
Lake for some cold water swimming!
Many thanks to Bob Taylor for his contribution in this issue to our 100 Memories project! Please keep your memories coming in!
For the first time in the Society's history, UBSS has an all female
presidential team, with Elaine Oliver and Mia Jacobs at the helm. Say
hello to the new committee and do take the time to watch Mia's brilliant
presidential campaign video. It's the first time we've had one of
those, too!
You can find all the back issues of the monthly newsletter online.
Zac and Linda
|
|
MEET THE COMMITTEE
At the AGM in March, a new committee was voted in and at the
committee meeting a week later, various jobs were dished out to willing
(and semi-willing) victims, so say hello to your new committee and their
appointees! Some of them might even say hello back and tell you a bit
about themselves.
Honorary President : Elaine Oliver
Honorary Vice Presidents: Andrew Atkinson, Cat Henry, Clive Owen, Linda
Wilson (favourite cave: Grotte Chauvet, favourite animal: raccoon)
Student President : Mia Jacobs (favourite cave: Marble Arch, favourite animal (all the rays)
Student Secretary : Elliott McCall (favourite cave: GB, favourite animal : tortoises)
Student Treasurer : Sam Bowers (favourite cave: Poulnagollum, favourite animal ; orangutan}
Honorary Treasurer : Graham Mullan (favourite cave : Tuc d'Audubert, favourite animal : lurcher/greyhound)
Equality Officer : Megan Malpas
Other Committee members : Ben Alterman, Michael Farmer, Connor
Fitzgerald (favourite cave : OFD Top, favourite animal : blue whale),
Zac Woodford (favourite cave : Dan yr Ogof, favourite animal : llama),
Haydon Saunders, Simon Hadfield (favourite cave : Swildon's Hole,
favourite animal : shark).
Other roles:
Social secretaries : Ben Alterman & Michael Farmer
Newsletter editor : Linda Wilson
Student Newsletter Editor : Zac Woodford
Museum Curator : Linda Wilson
Deputy Museum Curators : Nathan Cubitt & Alan Summerfield
Tackle Warden : Henry Morgan (favourite cave : Swildon's Hole, favourite animal : marmot)
Assistant/trainee Tackle Warden : Sam Kelly
Safety Officer : Ash Gregg
Hut Wardens : Liz Green & Haydon Saunders
Librarian : Nathan Cubitt
Proceedings Editor : Graham Mullan
Sales Librarian : Jan Walker
Honorary Gossip Warden : Imogen Clement (favourite cave : none [Imo says
she hates caving], favourite animal : rabbit [but rabbits love holes in
the ground!]
Honorary Worm Secretary Merryn Matthews
CCC caving committee rep : Clive Owen
Ogof Draenen PDCMG rep : Clive Owen
Charterhouse Caving Company Ltd rep : Graham Mullan
CSCC rep : Henry Morgan
CHECC delegate : Merryn Matthews
Social Media Officer : Connor Fitzgerald
|
|
HELLO FROM THE STUDENT PREZZ!
Meet Mia Jacobs (she likes caving) who was elected Student Prezz
at the AGM after wowing the audience with her campaign video, shot
entirely on location abroad.
Hi,
I’m Mia and I’m really excited to be your new president. I’m studying
abroad for the rest of the academic year but I’m looking forward to
being back in Bristol in September and getting stuck in. Yay caving!
|
|
AGM AND ANNUAL DINNER
Sam wasn't bored by Elaine's talk, honest!
The AGM was held in the Geography
Department, and many thanks to David Richards for sorting the room and
the necessary weekend access when a clash with a university open day
threatened to cause chaos with our original arrangements. The minutes
have already been circulated.
This was followed by an excellent talk by Hon Prezz Elaine Oliver on the
club trip to the Gouffre Berger last summer with some great photos and
an example of some truly impressive wild swimming at over 1,000 metres
down!
The afternoon was taken up with a mix of climbing, caving and festering
followed by drinks at the Eldon and a meal at The Square in Clifton
where, yet again, we failed to behave badly enough to get banned.
Standards are clearly slipping!
All eyes on our very own Samogen for the no-expense-spared-the-best-the-pound-shop-has-to-offer awards of 2022.
Sam Bowers and Imogen Clement made a
valiant attempt to oust showbizz stars Ant and Dec with their slick
hosting of the annual awards and, unlike the Oscars, no one got thumped!
So, without further ado we bring you this year's Services to the Club Awards:
Sock wrestling: Gabriel
Buffest fresher: Guy
Most incompetent leaders: Imogen and Merryn
Treasurer award: Elaine ( for the length of time to produce the Berger accounts)
Lost phones: Omri, Lucy, Sam
Tardiest fresher: Theo
Least caving done: Megan
Most fire engines needed for a rescue: Jakob
Most visits to a KFC on the way to a caving weekends: Haydon
Most embarrassing exit from a hut weekend: Lucy
Golden compass: Si, Sioned, Kat
In honour of his election as Student Treasurer, Sam received a share
certificate in one of the club's many offshore bank accounts.
And, by popular acclaim, the award for the Weirdest Looking Chocolate Dessert goes to .....
Yes,
it really did look like this. In fact, they all did! Gordon Ramsey, eat
your heart out! By comparison, the rest of the desserts were quite
normal.
|
|
WET AND GETTING WETTER!
Entrance to Longwood Swallet showing the
number of trees that have had to be taken down due to ash dieback. Photo
courtesy of Chris Eyles, Somerset Wildlife Trust.
Longwood is one Mendip's classic trips, but be warned, the cave can be wet, as Elliott McCall discovered one day in late March.
A beautiful sunny day, no better weather for… caving? Myself, Jakob, and
Elaine travelled in Van Rouge to Longwood Swallet where there are new
access regulations in place in the Longwood Valley due to ash dieback so
if visiting you are instructed to stick to the path, wear your helmet,
and report the date of your date of visit and the number of people in the party to the Charterhouse Caving Company Ltd,
who are required by the landowner to monitor the number of visits. (The
same rules apply to visits to Rhino Rift.) It was nice getting changed
in the refreshingly warm outdoors and as we were making our way to the
cave we met a caver just leaving. He ominously advised us to put up our
hoods if we had them because the cave was very wet. We knew that
Longwood was a wet cave but perhaps had underestimated what we were in
for.
The cave starts with a very drippy climb down that leads to what looks
like a puddle. By lying in a puddle you can get around an awkward bend
that leads to the first climb down/ladder. We realised that we didn't
remember to bring a sling so instead we used one of the ropes we had
brought – deciding that perhaps the cave was too wet for what we
originally had in mind to go all the way to the end. We briefly looked
at the way through August Hole and the waterfall flowing into it before
agreeing we had made the correct choice by choosing the other route.
This was still very wet and included a beautiful shaft that felt exactly
like heavy rain while standing beneath it. By this point we had lost
some of our stoke for this cave and were tempted by the sunny surface
but no! We pressed on to at least see the main chamber.
Longwood Swallet. Photo copyright Peter Glanvill and used with his kind permission.
Having used the rope we had intended to use
as a handline for this chamber we did the climb down to the main
chamber with a much shorter one. I had a waterfall run down my back but
Jakob expertly avoided the worst of it leaving Elaine and I jealous. The
main chamber was quite impressive with a heavily slanted floor and much
bigger than it first seems as it continues on around a corner. We then
looked around and made our way to look at Hangar Pitch which is where
the through trip from August Hole would meet our route.
By this point we were very wet but in good spirits, we decided enough
was enough and it was time to enjoy the sun. We made our way back out
with the tackle bag only getting stuck a few times to the lovely
sunshine.
Changing back into dry clothes was the most pleasant change I had
experienced and I was dry almost instantly. We then ran several errands
for the club, dropping off some cardboard kindling at the Hut, picking
up the UBSS chargers that had made their way to Wales?!?!?! (They had
been caver posted to a very batty hut - does anyone know how this
happened?!?).
We rewarded ourselves with some ice-cream in the sun.
Elliott McCall
|
|
WHO'LL COME A-CAVING, MATILDA, WITH ME?
Access details borrowed from the CNCC website.
Yorkshire has been a popular
destination for the club for the past couple of months. This report from
Hon Prezz, Elaine Oliver, arrived just after our February issue had
gone to press.
The
Sunday of our Yorkshire trip dawned neither bright nor clear, which was
entirely expected given the dreadful forecasts. We had spent much of
Saturday night trying to find a cave which was a) not liable to flood
horrendously in the wet, b) not an hour’s march from the nearest road
and c) new to all of us. FOUL Pot eventually revealed itself to be at
the intersection of these criteria, and Henry in particular fancied a
rematch after only getting partway up the lane due to heavy snow a few
months previously. Apparently the name stands for a rude comment about a
Northern university, not that cavers would know anything much about
rivalry.
We don’t cave for fame and fortune...
A
Grade Two change later (cold and VERY windy, but at that point no
precipitation) and off we set to find the cave, linking arms to prevent
ourselves being blown over. Some faff with Jacob’s GPS coords ensued,
before we decided to look at the description instead and easily walked
straight to the entrance. We made sure to take a bearing back towards
the car, though, just in case.
If a man’s a caver he will find the hole, if not then he’ll roam the fell…
Four
(and a bit) pitches and four team members presented the perfect
opportunity for us all to share the load of rigging and derigging.
Having won the prize of first bag, I set off down the entrance, where a
quick clamber and wriggle into the immature streamway saw me nose to
whisker with a mouse suffering from severe rigor mortis. I carefully set
him out of the water so we wouldn’t crawl on him, and it was perhaps
for the best that I didn’t look at the other side of him, judging by
Henry’s protestations.
The pitches in Yorkshire all end in dead meese…
The
way on was easy enough to find: follow the “puddles or small stream”
(definitely a stream) down a low bedding crawl, through some wriggly
bits and down a handline into a chamber called Octopus Hall. Due to a
smudge on Jacob’s carefully written notes I thought this said Octopus
Hell: it certainly guarded the secret to the way on well, with Henry and
Jacob enduring a thorough and gritty soaking only to discover that
their route did not go. Looking at a previous picture of this chamber,
there appears to have been significant movement and one of the very
large boulders shows evidence of capping. The way on is now through the
back of the chamber passing to the right of the Octopus.
It’s a mud story, baby just say yes!
A
pleasant if drippy pitch with some nice P bolts in the roof ensued – a
good pendulum halfway down let me lasso a spike of rock with a bit of
tat I had found for a deviation. (I am still learning to love pendulums
as I find it hugely disconcerting to fling myself about on a bit of
string, however fun people claim it might be.) Next up was an enveloping
rift, followed by another of even snugger proportions, then it was time
for Jacob to leapfrog me and lead the way to the next pitch. The vadose
canyon in this part of the cave was well worth the effort, with
beautiful straws in the ceiling over a metre long. Henry and I had a
good singsong to make up for the fact that nobody had known the words on
his trip the previous day, then ROPE FREE!
I was slightly puzzled but pleased to find an extra rebelay on the
pitch, which Jacob had added further back along the rift to keep us away
from the very noisy volumes of water descending alongside us!
And he sang as he listened to the murmur of the waterfall...
Henry
was up next and rigged his two pitches in quick succession, landing us
in the final chamber bang on our pre-agreed turnaround time. We went off
to take a quick look at the sump (and in one case add to it) “for
completeness’ sake” as recommended by the guide before the journey home
commenced.
The only way is up, baby, for you and me now...
To
keep things speedy (read: warm), Ash and I headed up as a pair to wait
in the group shelter in a slightly nicer chamber as the others derigged
the bottom pitches, before Ash took over derigging and I became a pack
mule. Back through the tight rift to the last big pitch and I was
suddenly very pleased about my deviation from earlier: the drips had got
somewhat more numerous. I had to get Jacob to wait wedged on his side
in the rift (sorry Jacob) while I got my head down and wished my tackle
sack was lighter. Back in Octopus Hell, the only thing we had to think
about now was the crawl to the entrance (that, and remembering the car
keys).
And he sang as the water flowed into the bedding plane…
But
we needn’t have been concerned: although noticeably up from earlier in
the day, most of the water sinks elsewhere so it was perfectly pleasant
(although Jacob maintains that his wet ear made it officially a duck).
Goodbye to our murine friend and out into the sleet on the surface –
this time a Grade 4 change, and a three-hour wait to regain feeling in
my toes!
Time underground: 5 hours, songs sung: too many to count.
Elaine Oliver
|
|
CAVING, SOCK WRESTLING AND OTHER NOBLE PURSUITS
The UBSS, UBES and UBMC contingent in Yorkshire.
The
recent joint trip to Yorkshire was a great success, but nothing will
quite wipe away the shame of the club's ignominious defeats at sock
wrestling and table traversing! More practice is clearly needed at
things other than caving, as Henry Morgan recounts ...
In late March, a contingent of 60 (yes sixty!) from UBSS, UBMC
(mountaineering/climbing club) and UBES (expeditions society) headed up
to the Yorkshire dales for the long awaited joint societies trip.
We were staying in Hornby Laithe bunk barn, the same place where the
infamous CHECC 2021 weekend was held. Thankfully, the weather couldn’t
have been more different this time around with blue skies and not a
cloud in sight for the entire weekend.
There was remarkable efficiency upon arrival on Friday night (thanks
Elliott for helping to solve the ‘who goes on which trip’ puzzle, my
brain was not working at this stage!) after which a good amount of inter
club socialising occurred.
Yes, some caving definitely happened.
Saturday
was splendidly sunny, just as well we all went underground to hide from
it! My group went to Sunset Hole (more on that from Zac), with other
groups going to Notts 2 and Gaping Gill. We were so efficient that we
even ended up getting some climbing in later on in the day at Castleberg
Crag in Settle, what a top day out!
All societies reconvened in the evening for a mini-Olympics style
competition involving table traversing, sock wrestling, pan and sling
etc. The winning team had the honour of being crowned the ‘Best land
based outdoor society of the year’ and donating a portion of the ticket
funds to a charity of their choice. I’m ashamed to say that multiple
poor performances from UBSS in table traversing and sock wrestling led
to us coming home last, with UBMC smashing everyone else out of the park
(but we did have fewer people there!). It seems that more practice is
needed, so get ready for some more table traversing at the hut soon…
As ever, the aerial bondage workshop was well attended.
Anyway,
congratulations to UBMC! A fantastic night was had by all who attended,
with everyone wanting more joint society trips going forwards, a
fantastic result where we can all share our knowledge with one another
of our respective sports and grow new friendships. Sunday offered
another glorious day for caving, hiking and climbing (although I heard
that the group who went down Swinsto still got rather wet!). I managed
to walk up Ingleborough, and I know other groups went down Notts 2 (not
the same people!) or went bouldering or trad climbing. All in all, it
was a brilliant weekend and I’m so thankful to everyone who came along
and made it the success it was. Roll on next time, can’t wait to do it
again!!
Henry Morgan
|
|
DAYLIGHT CAVING IN THE NORTH
Header details nicked from the CNCC website.
The recent joint trip to Yorkshire
provided a good opportunity for some northern caving and gave Zac
Woodfird a chance to try out his relatively new SRT kit again.
One of my deepest frustrations is my lack of caving experience in the
north. This is mainly due to the pandemic but also just being busy,
busy, busy!
So I was thoroughly excited when the joint UBSS/UBES/UBMC weekend rolled
around (thanks again to all those involved with organising the trip).
After much deliberation the night before it was decided that Henry,
Emma, Haida, Michael and I would go to Sunset Hole. Due to the high
level of organisation on the trip we were at the cave by ten o’clock
having enjoyed a wonderfully sunny Yorkshire on the way.
The cave, for the uninitiated, is a (mostly) horizontal streamway that
we stomped through quickly enough. There was even enough time for Emma
(this being her first proper caving trip) to enthusiastically explore a
very tight and muddy side passage.
After some creative scrambling down the three pots, we reached the
chamber above the pitch. Without SRT kit to continue we turned around
and speedily headed out, stopping for a little climbing explore on the
way. We soon welcomed the warming sun, arriving out into a day far to
beautiful for caving. What was more shocking though was the fact that it
wasn’t even noon, forget being just underground by mid-day.
The second cave I did that weekend was Alum Pot with Jakob and Merryn.
We were immediately concerned when we turned onto the lane for parking
and found it crowded with cars and vans. Undeterred we changed and were
soon consulted by one of the other trip leaders who explained that he
was running a tourist trip for punters and that they may cause delays.
Alum Pot entrance. The copyright on this image is owned by Toby Speight and is licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.
We struck out quickly and soon reached the
entrance where Merryn began rigging. We entered quickly but had
difficulty on the ledge because the third group there that day had
already rigged the traverse. This meant that Merryn had to rig under
their rigging. This problem was only compounded when the tourist trip
arrived and rigged through the same traverse meaning there were three
different ropes along the same traverse. Things only got worse when we
arrived at the next pitch to find it already rigged meaning we had to
wait at the bridge for the other group to ascend and de-rig. When we
finally bottom the last pitch it was the first point at which we had to
turn our lights on, the rest of the ‘cave’ so far having been open air.
We had a leisurely stroll down to the sump where each of us relieved
ourselves, a long way and a lot of effort just for a toilet break. We
then ascended with Jakob de-rigging. I had a bit of trouble with my SRT
kit as that was only the second cave it’d been used in, so I still need
to attune to it. This meant it took me a little while longer to get out.
But once out, we packed up for the day and headed to Malham Cove for
cream teas.
Zac Woodford
|
|
COUNTDOWN TO CAVING WITH ... JAKE REICHS
Heeeeyyyy, I moved to Bristol From Cape Town, South Africa in September
2021 – most importantly to join UBSS and least importantly, to start a
PhD in particle physics. My first real caving endeavour was Goatchurch
during the freshers’ weekend, and I have since been regularly adding to
my mental cave list (yes, I should write these down). In my spare time
(when I’m not caving) - in an ideal world - I’d be playing guitar,
trail/road running, hiking, skateboarding, going to sleep before 8pm,
not crashing my two week old bike, chowing all the crisps in sight and
twiddling my thumbs.
Ten words to summarise your caving career …
1. Worm
2. Mud
3. Squeeze
4. Painful
5. Bruises
6. Adventure
7. Megacool (redefined as one word)
8. Tired
9. ABBA
10. Cavid (cave covid)
Nine cavers (living or dead) you would like to go for a drink with ...
1. Michael – this dude is nutty
2. Merryn – sickest hair in ubss
3. Mahmoud – if he ever comes caving
4. Oliver – best/scariest army stories
5. Mr. Bowers – cutest Evan Peters lookalike
6. Ash – number one contact for caving advice (and zebra onesies)
7. Gabriel – we have history (overcrowded huts result in the need for a long term (non-snoring) head to toe sleeping partner)
8. Ben – Americans freak me out
9. Elaine – strong contender for top cave leader
10 (this is legal, 9 = 10). Malpas – cool surname, cooler fake tattoo sleeves
and definitely not Guy (he didn’t add me to his list. Shame.)
Eight things you never want/wanted to hear underground …
1. “My ballsack is bleeding” (me doing SRT without prior harness adjustment)
2. Loud splashing sounds as I fell into a deep body of water
3. The sound of helmet plastic scraping against cave rock
4. Ben complaining
5. Michael complaining
6. “We’re outta cave snacks” – I’ve heard this many times
7. “We’re past callout”
8. “We may not be back in time for a pint at Hunters”
Seven public figures you'd least like to go caving with …
1. John Mayer – yes, he’s still cool
2. Hugh Brady – through every Swildon sump
3. Geowizard – dude who travels across countries in straight lines
4. Super mario – “it’s a me”
5. Jack Black – “let’s rock let’s rock today”
6. My PhD supervisor – to lower his stress levels
7. The Linux penguin – to help me through OFD streamways
Six of the weirdest things you've done, seen or heard of in connection with caving …
1. Michael – this dude is nutty
2. ‘Walk’ in the spider formation (back facing the floor, walking on hands and feet)
3. A rock falling directly on my glasses lens (and leaving a large scratch)
4. The sheer amount of mud embedded between the fibres of Elliot’s yellow oversuit
5. Rolling through a cave, like a log rolling down a hill (surprisingly efficient)
6. That cursed “no, nay, never” song that Henry won’t stop singing
Five of your favourite caves …
In no particular order:
1. Eastwater,
2. OFD
3. Gaping Ghyll
4. GB
5. Swildon’s Hole
Four pieces of gear you've fallen in love with …
1. Snickers bars
2. Helmet (without it I’d have major brain damage – currently I have minor brain damage)
3. The vaseline I smother between my toes
4. Anything else that keeps me alive
I’m sure kneepads would make this list (if I stopped being such a sodding cheapskate)
Three of the best caving books you've read ...
I can’t read.
Two of your favourite caving regions …
1. Mendips (can’t beat the classics)
2. Yorkshire (this place is cold)
One thing you'd tell yourself as a fresher …
Just fucking get kneepads (I tell this to myself on a daily basis)
|
|
NEW SOCIAL SECS' FIRST SOCIAL!
For their first social, Michael and Ben decided on a back to basics campaign, as Ben explains ....
As mine and Michael's first act as social secretaries, we decided to put
on something that was rather lacking this year - a good old fashioned
pub crawl.
Starting at The Apple on King Street (whose name I never understood
until I realised they only served cider), our plan was to work our way
down the street stopping at each of the 10+ pubs for a pint. At the end,
we only made it to three pubs (surprise surprise), as we were all too
infatuated by the live jazz being played at the Old Duke!
We stayed for a few hours getting down & funky to some classics, and
the most alcohol-soaked of the caving lot decided to end the night in
Crofter’s rRghts for some old school drum and bass. A great success
under the new social secs' belt.
Injuries sustained: 1 bruised knee from falling over.
People Kicked out: Felix, for falling over (hence the bruised knee)
Vomit Counter: 1 (Go Megan!!)
Ben Alterman
|
|
SOME MEMORIES OF UBSS IN THE LATE 1960s
From the left: Marianne Last, Bob Taylor, Ted Brown, Colin Thomas, Mike
Roberts, Dick Marsh. Outside Poulnagollum pothole, Co Clare,
carrying maypole sections.
As part of our ongoing centenary
project to collect 100 Memories of past UBSS activities, Bob Taylor
tells some stories from Mendip, South Wales, Yorkshire and County Clare
in the late 1960s.
Looking back after more than 50 years, here are a few of my best
memories of three great years with UBSS in Bristol 1967-1970, with some
details added by my good friend Dick Marsh (1968-1971).
1968 was famous for student revolutions across Europe. In Bristol too,
we demonstrated for more student participation in the affairs of the
University, held sit-ins in the Senate Building, marched and made
placards. We felt empowered.
On the caving front at UBSS it was a time of great change, with the
opening of the first Severn bridge in September 1966 giving rapid access
to South Wales, expanding UBSS’s horizons beyond the Mendips and
Ireland; an important factor in the discovery and surveying of Little
Neath River Cave.
New technology was starting to be applied to caving and cave surveying.
Cave diving developed rapidly in the late 60s and would drive major
discoveries in the next decade, while “normal” cavers began to free dive
long sumps.
MENDIP MEMORIES
The hut in Burrington Combe and the Plume
of Feathers in Rickford were the centre of UBSS’s Mendip life. In fact,
looking at recent photos of the hut in the newsletter, nothing much has
really changed there at all. I will never forget a long piercing scream
in the middle of the night as someone slipped and fell into the deep
latrine. I remember free climbing the Rock of Ages in the dark on the
way back from the pub and windy walks across Blackdown to GB Cavern.
Looking at the current surveys, it is staggering to me how Charterhouse
has now outgrown and surrounded GB.
Mike Norton, then busy blasting away at Manor Farm, was a wonderful
mentor to the freshers in my first year, before he left for Canada. In
those days the “bang” was stored in a locked box under the hut. The
beginning of the troubles in Northern Ireland would soon change that.
Adrian Wilkins “inherited” his work at Manor Farm. I remember an
exciting ride out to the Mendips on the pillion of Adrian’s Honda 250
motorcycle, with the Kango hammer drill in my rucksack, bang in the left
pannier and detonators in the right.
Of many trips down Swildon’s Hole, one in 1970 is particularly
memorable. We heard midweek that someone from another Mendip club had
successfully free-dived some of Swildon’s sumps. Not to be outdone,
Adrian Wilkins and I headed out to Priddy at the weekend and - to our
amazement - managed to free dive sumps 2 to 6, and back again. It still
gives me jitters to even think about it! The following weekend, a
larger UBSS party returned, and all present repeated our feat, measuring
the sumps on the way. There is a description of this trip (and the
measurements) in the December 1970 UBSS Newsletter.
SOUTH WALES MEMORIES
Little Neath River Cave (LNRC) exploration
and surveying was ongoing throughout my years at Bristol. Although never
completing diver training myself, I was often a sherpa to the divers
pushing on through the long LRNC sumps to the extensive passages beyond.
I recall the establishment of an emergency store beyond the sumps,
which was even rumoured to include suicide capsules, as back then the
idea of extracting severely injured cavers through long sumps was
considered far-fetched.
OFD (and the SWCC cottages) became our second home in South Wales. As
one of our club leaders, I made many trips to every corner of the
system. I still have a hand-coloured wall map of the OFD system, which
was sold (together with a set of colouring pens) back then by the SWCC
to boost their finances.
I shall never forget the sight of Pete Standing, already an intern at a
Bristol hospital, sewing up a huge gash on his own knee after an OFD
streamway trip. Late in the evening we knocked on the door of a nearby
doctor’s surgery. The doctor was away, but his wife, a nurse, was in.
After some persuasion she provided antiseptic, needle and thread and off
Pete went. We all watched, fascinated.
YORKSHIRE MEMORIES
The details of our many potholing trips
during the regular UBSS Yorkshire weekends at that time are now a bit of
a blur, but we did most of the standard ones. There are some good
write-ups in the newsletters of those years.
What I do remember is the wonderful camaraderie in the CPC cottage in
Horton in Ribblesdale, the pressure on us every morning to get out and
avoid festering, the singing evenings at The Crown next door and large
meals and mugs of tea at a transport cafe nearby on the A65.
We started renting Ford Transit minibuses in Bristol to get up to
Yorkshire and felt very grown up. I am still amazed the rental company
trusted us.
COUNTY CLARE MEMORIES
I joined the UBSS party in County Clare
each year in summer. In 1968 we were still staying in McCarthy’s
Cottage, a mile or two north of Lisdoonvarna, but we had some trouble
with the neighbours there, and the following two years we “squatted” in a
disused and derelict small hotel just across the road from Keane’s in
the centre of town. Convenient and free, but rather smelly until we
cleaned it up properly.
In “Farewell to Steve Trudgill” in the January 2022 newsletter, it is
mentioned that he was involved in placing micro-erosion measurement
studs in Cullaun I and II in 1967. There was much excitement one evening
in McCarthy’s when just one year later new measurements were made.
After some calculation, someone (it might have been Steve) shouted, “If
this is correct, these caves are less than 10,000 years old”. The
erosion rates were much, much higher than anyone had expected.
Another highlight of a different sort occurred in July 1969, when,
during an evening in Keane’s bar, we watched rather grainy black and
white pictures on a small TV. It was the moon landing, with Neil
Armstrong stepping off the ladder from the Eagle lander. Later, when the
Lisdoonvarna bars closed and everybody went outside, we all stared up
at the moon riding high above the clouds and what we had just been
watching really hit home. They were right up there, on the moon!
Silence, and some tears.
Back on Earth, we experimented that year with portable, sectioned aven
maypoles made out of aluminium tubing. Fastened together and with a wire
ladder attached, they worked well, but unfortunately the scaling of
some promising avens in Pollnagollum did not lead to any significant new
passages. However I do have a photo of us looking intrepid holding the
aven maypole sections outside Pollnagollum pot.
TECHNOLOGY AND SURVEYING MEMORIES
The late 1960s and early 1970s were a time of rapid technological development, and caving and surveying benefitted.
Neoprene wetsuits became standard for wetter caves, and as the costs of
neoprene came down and kits and patterns became available, we glued our
own wetsuits.
Lightweight, pocket-sized and robust waterproof compasses and
inclinometers machined from solid blocks of aluminium (Suunto from
Finland, if I remember rightly) replaced the heavy and unwieldy ex-RAF
compasses, greatly simplifying surveying in tight or wet passages.
Lasers were still decades away.
Although jumars were already being used by some climbers, what is now
known as SRT (Single Rope Technique) had not yet arrived in caving and
potholing. We used lightweight rolled ladders of wire and aluminium
tubing and made them ourselves in a press in the UBSS tackle room. We
rather looked down on people using jumars, which we felt was a bit like
cheating. This changed rapidly in the ‘70s.
Geolocation with GPS signals was still three decades away, but we did
some interesting experiments with radio location, particularly for
closing long survey transits. A large circular wire aerial, laid out
horizontally in the cave and powered from batteries, together with a
signal detector, were all that was needed. The detector was used to find
the centre of the wire circle from the surface. This was used
successfully to locate the end of passages far beyond the sumps in LNRC.
Finally, I was heavily involved during my time in Bristol in using
computers to speed up the processing of cave survey data, often together
with Adrian Wilkins. Initially on a Hewlett-Packard desktop machine,
and later on the University’s ICL mainframes, programmed in ALGOL, the
UBSS survey programs were some of the first world-wide.
Removing the back-breaking calculating work of converting polar
measurements (length, bearing, inclination) to the cartesian coordinates
(north, east, depth) needed for drawing maps was only the first step.
Later we added routines to distribute survey traverse closing errors
proportionally round the legs of a traverse (even more work if done by
hand), then attached the University’s graphical plotters to plot aerial
views and elevations of cave systems.
We developed mathematical techniques to plot slightly rotated image
pairs, which, when hung on a wall and viewed cross-eyed, created 3D maps
of cave systems. The same techniques could also be used to “rotate the
matrix” in order to view the points of a cave survey from any position
in space. In particular, viewing a system plotted along or across the
bedding plane could indicate interesting passage connections and water
flows.
Adrian and I even gave a talk on this at a cave surveying conference in 1970 at Leicester University.
On a personal note, all this programming triggered the computer bug in
me, and after Bristol I went on to a life-long international career in
software, mostly based in Munich, where I now live.
I hope you enjoyed these Memories. It gives me great pleasure to make contact with the UBSS again after all these years, so please do not hesitate to email me if you want to discuss anything, or correct something I got wrong. Memories can fade.
Bob Taylor
Bristol 1967 - 1970
|
|
KENT'S CAVERN, TORQUAY
Kent's Cavern, photo by Linda Wilson.
On a recent trip to south Devon,
Linda Wilson and Graham Mullan visited Kent's Cavern to take some photos
for an upcoming BCRA workshop weekend in Yorkshire on recording
historic graffiti as Linda relates...
After an issue with the fuel injection on our campervan, Graham and I
ended up on an unscheduled trip to Devon rather than our intended visit
to Lancashire. On the off-chance of catching up with Kent's Cavern
general manager James Hull, who we've not seen for a few years, I fired
off a quick email, and we were warmly with a complimentary tour of the
show cave so I could add to my collection of historic graffiti photos.
William Petre, 1571. Photo by Elliot Ling, used by his kind permission.
As the cave has always been open, Kent's
has an impressive collection of historic inscriptions, with one dating
back to 1571 left by William Petre. This is mentioned in the diaries of
William Pengelly, who excavated in the cave in the late 1800s, and was
recently rediscovered by the cave's Education Officer, Elliot Ling. Graffiti of this age is extremely rare and helps to build a picture of early visits to the cave.
Kent's Cavern. Photo by Linda Wilson.
The cave has a fascinating archaeological
history. The first recorded excavation took place in 1824 by Thomas
Northmore, and this was followed by William Buckland who hoped to find
evidence of the worship of the Roman god Mithras underground. Sadly, he
was disappointed, but got definite points for trying. Then local
chaplain John MacEnery took up work there, followed by Pengelly, whose
work in the caves helped to establish the antiquity of man.
The caves were opened as a tourist attraction in the early 1900s by the
Powe family, who laid concrete paths and installed electric lighting.
Our guide demonstrated how early man carried their own light into the
cave by burning moss in scallop shells. The light tgiven by this was
probably on a par with the early FX2s, for those who remember that sorry
excuse for a dead glow-worm!
Now a major Devon tourist attraction, Kent's is open every day. Advance
booking is recommended. A tour of the caves lasts approximately one
hour, and there are other attractions on site, as well as a cafe.
Linda Wilson
|
|
HUNTING REINDEER IN THE UBSS MUSEUM
Modern reindeer. Photo supplied by Emily Weisendanger.
In 2018, Emily Weisendanger worked
on reindeer in the UBSS museum as part of her PhD thesis. Emily has
kindly sent us a few words on how the museum collection contributed to
her research.
Back in 2018 I was lucky enough to visit the UBSS museum to study the collections.
As a PhD student, a lot of my time over the last four years has been
spent rummaging through the basements and attics of museums, in search
of the bones, teeth and antlers of fossil reindeer. It’s hard to imagine
now, but throughout the Late Pleistocene (126,000-11,700 years ago)
reindeer roamed freely in large herds across most of Britain and western
Europe. This means that reindeer are often a large part of the fossil
animal remains found during cave excavations, making collections like
those at the UBSS particularly important for researchers like me.
My research mainly compared the seasonal movements of reindeer from
fossil sites in Britain and western Europe. In their current Arctic and
Subarctic habitats, modern reindeer move bi-annually between summer and
winter grazing pastures as food becomes less accessible during the
winter. Looking at the movements of past populations can therefore help
us to understand how reindeer may respond to future climatic and
environmental changes. This is possible due to the fact that reindeer
only come together in large herds at certain times of year, with each
season being characterised by different combinations of ages and sexes,
which in turn can be determined from bones, teeth and antlers.
And so, with the help of museum curator Linda Wilson and volunteers
Allan Summerfield and Wendy Russ (supplying both their expert help and
much needed tea and biscuits), I spent two days scouring the many boxes
of cave finds kept in the museum for any hint of reindeer.
This tiny shed antler from Picken’s Hole once belonged to a reindeer calf. Photo by Emily Weisendanger.
For my particular project, the most
important collection from the UBSS was the reindeer from Picken’s Hole, a
cave on the northern side of Crook Peak, near the village of Compton
Bishop in the Mendip Hills. Picken’s Hole was excavated by E. K. Tratman
(then society President) and the UBSS during the 1960s, after the teeth
of woolly rhinoceros and spotted hyenas were unexpectedly found by M.
J. Picken, who at the time was studying the modern inhabitants of the
cave – badgers.
Two large assemblages from the cave contained reindeer, one from Unit 5,
thought to have been brought by wolves around 82,000-71,000 years ago,
and one from Unit 3, brought by spotted hyenas around 57,000-29,000
years ago.
So, reindeer roaming the Mendip Hills, whoever would have guessed it?
However, the findings from this and other sites in southwest Britain
suggest that reindeer were probably not using this area continuously
throughout the year. Instead, the wider trend in Britain saw reindeer
moving between autumn/winter ranges in Devon and Somerset towards
spring/summer ranges further north in Derbyshire, North Yorkshire and
north west Scotland.
Although this pattern was recognisable from Unit 5 at Picken’s Hole,
with reindeer occupying the site in the autumn/winter (just in time for
Christmas), in Unit 3, reindeer were only present during the
spring/summer. This apparent shift in seasonal ranges over time is
particularly interesting and could perhaps relate to changing sea levels
opening up movement between Britain and continental Europe.
As with most research, this certainly leaves me asking more questions about the Mendip reindeer!
I would like to say a massive thank you to everyone at the UBSS who made
it possible for me to include these fossil reindeer in my research.
Emily Weisendanger
|
|
VERY CHALLENGING
As part of the Alumni Network Group
Spring Showcase 2022, another University Challenge contest was staged,
and after their very creditable performance last year, the
gauntlet/muddy caving glove, was firmly thrown into the ring again ...
The student team consisting of Sam Bowers, Imogen Clement, Zac Woodford
and Omri Porat did battle with last year's winners, the Cambridge Blues,
and new entrants, Starter for Ten. The contest was very hotly fought,
with the UBSS team neck and neck with the Blues for most of the contest,
finally being beaten into an extremely respectable second place.
The next round, due to feature a team aptly named the Old Codgers (as
the original equally apt name of the Old Farts was swiftly changed by
the organisers!) consisting of Graham Mullan, Clive Owen and two
non-UBSS members John Barnbrook and Jane Thompson quickly descended into
a degree of chaos as their opponents were a no show. Some hasty
panicking saw a hastily constituted 2BSS team step into the breach with
Zac and Imogen being joined by Linda Wilson and non-UBSS member Josh
Mudie (taking a break from running the scoreboard). This turned
into another strong contest, with the Old Codgers narrowly emerging
victorious.
Sadly, the Old Codgers lost in the final to the Cambridge Blues, with
only 35 points between them at the end. Question master Robert Villain,
the perfect cross between Bamber Gasgoigne and Jeremy Paxman, declaring
himself to have been particularly impressed by the UBSS student team!
And trust me, Robert has a brain the size of a planet and is not easily
impressed.
Linda Wilson
|
|
CAVING CAT READ TO THE END AGAIN, DID YOU?
Thanks to Caving Cat's devoted servant, Graham, for this image.
Caving Cat is back again to cast
his eyes over the readership in readiness for handing out some kitty
treats. First up last month was Buff Fresher of the Year Guy Maalouf,
scooting through to the end in an incredibly fast time. So let's see who
can be quicker off the mark this time around. Remember, Caving Cat is
watching you read....
- I did it! Thank you for giving me one additional reason to stay distracted from my studies! :D [Guy Maalouf]
- Great trips, great descriptions! Candidate for best snarky line ever (by Sioned Haughton): “You
immediately ascend the opposite wall using some very old and solid
stemples and avoiding the very new and shiny stemples which you can
literally pull out of the rock with your fingers.” The Grotte du Poirier
was a fascinating place! [Jan Walker]
- I'm deeply saddened and personally hurt that Guy didn't include
me in his list of cavers he'd wanna have a drink with. [Jake Reich]
[Editors' note: the UBSS Newsletter, ruining friendships since 1919!]
- Thanks for this. Fantastically entertaining and highly
informative. So much that makes one feel that one is actually there!
Nostalgic - for me - picture of GG main chamber. [Tim Hill]
- Finished it - great as always. It was a good excuse to delay
gardening until the outdoor temperature reaches double figures
(currently a balmy 2.3!) [Carol Walford]
- Nice cat! And again an amazing volume of reports, all good. [Chris Howes]
- Thanks for this, you provided me with yet another excuse to
procrastinate rather than get on with the report I am due to submit on
Friday. [Dick Willis]
- Another excellent read! Very wide range of articles, from Mendip mud to French graffiti! [Bob Taylor]
- I love caving cat, hope he doesn’t eat any bats! [Lucy Dufall]
I did it, Caving Cat! Kittie kibble for me, plz?!
THE END
|
|
|
|