I chose you my people
To suffer through fire
I it was who loved you
As you struggled in the mire
The sting of oppression
Only kindled your desire
To see what lay beyond
The walls I laid to waste
Through centuries of wandering
I watched you unappeased
Through famine and disaster
Sought to bring you to your knees
When at last you answered
I promised you a home
Years in the desert
Again you were alone
The homeland stolen from you
Yet still you turned to me
Petrified the awful truth
Destroyed by history
For two thousand years you fought
To safeguard a dream
The kingdom a reality
Broken by your screams
The temple was built at last
Carved from blood stained stone
Raised of ruins and ancient songs
Gold and soil a conflict zone
I tried then to comfort you
Your pain I couldn’t ease
My hands bled as I listened
To your impassioned fading pleas
I wish that I could bring meaning
To the evils you have known
Show you that man has learned
From the sand riddled with bones
Show you a world of justice
Of love as yet unknown
Yet the man I have created
My love would still forego
Forgive me my children
I would not have it so
For profit wrought in pain
For power etched in blood
For all, forgive me
You gaze unflinching as the bell tolls
Wallking to your death
Lit by the halo of eternity
The SOS call from an unknown cousin,
the frail bird bones you had become,
lost in the hospital bed,
the fierce blazing plea a shock
as our eyes met.
I knew you instantly, knew you to your soul,
felt your pain and also knew straight away
that you were dying.
You were Dad’s cousin, another generation,
Too old to matter as I was growing up, and yet
closest to Great Aunt Belle,
the dragon lady I would love to meet again,
now that I have the wit to listen.
You were the ultimate grey man, desk jockey, civil servant,
yet there were whisperings of traffic
from the massive secret bank of computers,
the possibility that all was not as it seemed.
And as I finally got to know you,
poised on the edge of the abyss,
I find that you would have been my favourite McNicol.
Proud, warlike, formidable, lord of your isles,
You too sought silence and solitude,
to leave the world behind and follow the wind up to the high ridges.
You too loved the story that the rocks tell,
the myths of their beginnings and
the journey from the centre of the earth.
Some stories have only one ending
Ours was a brief moment in your time not mine,
All I could do was ease your passing
And mourn for another relative stranger.
****************
The blast from the past that breezed into clinic,
Sporting a lump, there for some months,
Suspicious and needing removing.
Several new tragedies had affected your circle of
friends that used to be mine.
Fear of cancer eroding your equipoise,
the denial plain in your eyes.
To cut out the lump might involve a ballectomy,
even in our darkest moments
I would never have wished that on you….
How I feared for you those anxious weeks
The eventual operation less radical,
The weird histology positive relief,
This story may have many more endings.
****************
Pinned high alone amongst giants
The satellite phone died first.
The community bitched with baited breath
But the winter vault didn’t relent.
The champions of old went out to do battle
so the clan might escape unscathed-
in the same way you took on our dreams,
majestic peaks, climbed in the deftest style,
treading lightly on the high places,
leaving no sign of your passing.
You wore riches beyond measure, of sky and precipice,
you plumbed the depths of your own desperate hell,
dug into your soul and there perhaps you found peace.
Your story only ever had one ending.
We are the disco generation of climbing, boogying away on plastic holds, piercing the cliffs with fool’s gold bolts, bright in the spangled Goretex uniform of our times, and living out the marketing men’s dream.
“To climb – to move oneself upwards especially by using the hands and the feet”.
Such a staid definition does nothing to encompass joy, meditation, absorption, satisfaction, freedom, or abstraction- the metaphysical reasons why we climb. In many ways however this sterility describes the direction that “climbing” is taking. International competition may have driven the exponential explosion in climbing grades but rewards only technical prowess, the physical action of human moving upward on rock, the measurable progression of trained straining muscle and sinew.
“Mountaineering – the sport of climbing mountains”.
Sport? This is anathema- surely mountaineering is a pastime, a lifestyle, a state of mind, a lifelong three dimensional meditation on the meaning of life and of human frailties exposed best in the wild places….
We live in an increasingly risk averse society. Climbing has metamorphosed from the historical preserve of the rich, exploring classes, through a period of alternative, fringe activity, practised by the dispossessed, to now being an inclusive, healthy, leisure pursuit, supported and promoted by a government, and serviced by a thriving consumer industry which has even spawned a new breed of self improvement professional.
Ice-climbing is listed as a must-do before you die, but only on a top rope in a safe environment supervised by a qualified instructor. It has become unacceptable to take responsibility for one’s actions. When unfortunate accidents happen, these must be blamed, investigated, litigated or explained; mistakes, poor judgement, weather, conditions, gear, or worst of all, your own twisted selfish psyche for daring to risk your life alone out in the dark dangerous hills.
In this sound bite obsessed society where every experience is packaged in easily digestible diverting snippets, twittering and sport climbing are the ultimate expressions of our times. Easy access, instant gratification, objectives which are specific, measurable, achievable, time limited, safe, vain, narcissistic, you can compete, preen, impress, win, all without paying the ultimate price. It is difficult to express the complex welter of emotions encompassed in even one move on a traditional climb within the 140 characters allowed in a tweet; certainly impossible to describe the suffering, deprivation, stamina and slog of Alpinism or Himalayan endeavour in a smooth, slick slogan.
“Adventure- a bold unusually risky undertaking, hazardous action of uncertain outcome.”
The back lash must come. Surely it is only a matter of time before the prescription pill of pseudo-adrenaline offered up by the modern convenience cragging experience palls like sickly saccharine placebo and the newly awakened break for the wilderness once more.
It is our duty as temporary custodians of crag and mountain to ensure that, when the frustrated anarchic punk rock rebels break free from mass media marketed tribal conformity and head out once again for true adventure in the wild high places, we have not irrevocably altered the nature of the challenges that we chose not to face.
Disco must die!
I carefully built this nest of mine
According to a flawless plan,
Gilded the cage a bar at a time,
Feathered the gaping gaps with books
Stepping stones to safe suburbanity
Grade by test, certificate by exam,
The snare tightened slowly to stifle
The bewildering array of possibility.
Medicine the longest road, the broadest church,
The route’s prescriptions offered perverse freedom.
A new language, fascinating precision,
Ancient echoes chanting scientifically,
Poetry in the purity of parsing.
Predictable targets, hurdles easily cleared,
Requisite focus obscured the final goal.
A better doctor than I could ever be a person,
I found a strange kind of love in healing,
Surgery surprised a powerful passion.
The first cut shocked, the first cure thrilled, I craved
The addictive lure of fixing nature’s ills
Total absorption, drip feed adrenaline,
Instant inviolate clarity precious beyond time,
Technical challenges, perfection, satisfaction,
What greater good could there be but reward
Me crafting stronger lives for living
Daily dingy tragedies wear out the best in me.
Unbidden warmth eased passing and recovery.
The luxury of cancer a wealthy old disease,
Prolonging the inevitable, the cruellest joke,
Death is not the greatest fear nor the worst fate.
The ghosts have slowly grown in number
They chill the soul, these whispering dead.
There is a limit to the well of caring.
There must be a way to be good again,
To share the skills that better fitted me for life….
There he is, he’s here again. I knew he’d be in, well let’s face it that’s why I’m here. That’s why people drink here; it’s THE pub in St Andrews where the talent hangs out. How else does Herr Flick palm off the most diluted beer at the most exorbitant prices in town? Why else does nobody mind when they can’t get a seat…you can’t check the room when you’re sitting down anyway.
God, he’s gorgeous…blond of course, aren’t they all? Built well, he played rugby at school…there’s a point, wonder which school he went to? I bet it was one of the names, where you mortgage the country cottage for connections, kudos, and an entry to that most elusive of societies, the old boys network. A chance to excel at conforming maybe pick up an A level along the way. Yup, that’s the accent, gilt-edged with poise, the supreme self-confidence that nothing is beyond one because, after all, everything does have a price.
I wonder what he drives. He does drive that’s for sure. I bet it shifts anyway; none of the old tin can on wheels crap that I might just manage to afford one day.
He is sooo cool. OK so his clothes help. He probably spent more on that shirt than I will spend on toothpaste in an entire lifetime. Funny how they all seem reluctant to get out of uniform- lumberjack shirts, Arran jumpers, a mass identity to affirm their superiority. The Establishment has nothing to fear from this lot- give them twenty years and they’ll be rotting within the hallowed halls of Whitehall. There’s no brave new world budding here.
I watch from another world. I too went to one of the schools but Daddy didn’t pay for my accent. There’s no gentrification going on in my part of London, although we did get a 7-11 store and a dual carriageway. When all my mates got cars, I got a bike and beat them all to school.
Do you think he’ll notice me? Can he fail to? I knitted this jumper myself when I was thirteen. I t doubled as my spare tent then, now it just does duty as a scarecrow when the wind’s up. Out on the bike in a stiff breeze I must look as if someone dropped a house on my sister. As for the rest I make up for in colour what my clothes lack in cut. Eccentric chic I call it. One thing I can guarantee is that he will notice me.
Especially when I’m here with my mates. They say Julia Roberts made a fortune out of her laugh; she has nothing on me. The rats in the pub must pray for the return of the Pied Piper as a blessed release. When the lads from SAUSAC are in and we spend hours retelling the best jokes and the tallest stories, I’m sure the architect could quote structural damage. Come to think of it, my laugh would probably register on the Richter scale.
OK so he’ll notice me. The fact that he will probably run a mile is irrelevant; he’ll just never talk to me. I’m just not in the right crowd. Not to mention the aloof expression I have been cultivating for years, a supercilious smirk, a cross between Cleopatra and Buddha’s cat. Let’s face it, would you talk to a girl sitting cross legged on the bar with a full pint, a cigarette and a superiority complex to match even your father’s bank balance? In front of all your rugby mates?
Well then
HE SPOKE TO ME….I ca’t believe it, I want to skip and laugh and dance and go wild, I want to run down the street singing West Side Story. Get me a Tequila, a fag, anything, to celebrate. He spoke to me.
OK so he was pretty damned rude. The attempt at humour may pass in a prep school locker room but really….maybe I spent too much time as an appendage to the bar with the diving crowd. Maybe I’ve forgotten how to flirt?! Maybe he has no sense of humour. Tongue-tied? I couldn’t even light a cigarette for crying out loud, my hands were shaking so much. OK have it your way, maybe humming the tune to Thunderbirds in response to a particularly inane comment was just a tad obscure. OK, so I have no small talk, that’s never bothered me before. No, I’ve never been to a cocktail party. So? I’m going to be a doctor. I don’t need small talk, just an endless supply of platitudes, silly jokes and gruesome stories for endless dinners.
Once he got talking to me? Well he disappeared pretty quickly, to talk to a girl in a matching jumper.
So I’m doomed to watch him across a crowded pub. So we have nothing in common, or if we do it is beautifully disguised. Do not pass go, do not collect £200. We do not have blast off. Crashed and burned.
How do you spot money anyway? Does it have a special smell? No manners, no sense of humour? Or does it just drink anther type of coffee?
One thing though. Why do you talk to me? You’re one of them. Oh thanks, live on the backhanded compliment with sledgehammer attached, delivered with consummate skill. Thanks. Time for the Buddha act again.
Double Tequila please, with the works. To this chip on my shoulder. To a brave new world. To oblivion. Cheers.
Copyright Fran McNicol
published The Chronicle 1999
The Vagabond Mountaineering Club has its’ club hut and spiritual home in Nant Peris, the cluster of slate stone cottages guarding the Llanberis Pass, cowering beneath the mighty Snowdon. The hut has recently been renovated and refurbished to a very high standard. Those of you who know the Vagabonds will be all too aware of how desperately overdue this work was, and of how the VMC struggled to maintain numbers, activity and cohesion as a club whilst without an effective base from which to venture forth. This article attempts to summarise the saga, in the hope that other clubs may benefit from our experiences. It has been a long haul but we finally have a Hut with a capital H, to enjoy and to share with the wider climbing community.
The Vagabonds MC started life as a splinter group from the West Derby YHA Club in Liverpool. YHA clubs were originally set up in 1943 to promote wholesome outdoor activity but membership was only allowed to the maximum age of 21. In 1948 a keen group of members at West Derby YHA were approaching cut-off time and decided to form their own club. The group first met on Tues 11th Jan 1949 and became the Vagabond MC, taking the name from a local tennis club. There were 9 original members; including 2 cyclists who resigned in the first year, the rest were walkers and climbers. Trips were mainly to North Wales by hitch-hiking or later by motor bike, staying at Idwal YH or the Tyn-y-Shanty, with occasional trips to Ben Nevis and Skye. The club membership grew slowly; in the mid ‘50s the Vags numbered about 30.
In 1952 the Vaynol estate had many unoccupied cottages and one in particular, near Nant Peris, had come to the club’s attention. Initially a 7 year lease was agreed at £13 per year and an additional £34 was raised to make it habitable. Water came from the stream via a tap but there was no sewage or electricity. The hut was officially opened on 6th September 1952. The Vagabonds club continued to grow steadily over the years, in numbers, objectives and stature. Club mags from the 70’s report early and significant Alpine ascents, exuberant cragging all around the country and a healthy social (drinking) scene centred on the Vaynol Arms in Nant Peris. Around 1980 the hut was sold by the Vaynol estate to a private owner, but the lease continued until 1989. The Vagabonds were in limbo for several years and finally decided to try and buy the property, valued then at £35,000. In 1994 after raising £9,000 from donations, we received a £30k grant from the Foundation for Sport and the Arts and the hut was ours. In 1995 £2.5k was spent on essential repairs.
However it soon became apparent that, after the years of uncertainty regarding the lease and the resultant lack of renovation, rising damp and a perishing flat roof meant that we needed to spend considerably more than this. The hut was lacking basic amenities, cold, damp, unhealthy, infested with rodents and people were increasingly reluctant to spend more than a single night there, particularly in winter. In 1998, proposals were put to AGM for a total re-build and accepted by the majority of members. Requirements included a better toilet and washroom, shower, new entrance, wet room / drying area, better kitchen, improved parking, and removal of the wooden stairwell (fire hazard). There were some strong objections; climbing huts were meant to be basic, certainly did not require a shower and there were fears that change would lead to a loss of the hut’s unique character. Around this time the BMC set up the Hut Group, a support committee which organised an annual symposium aimed at assisting clubs specifically with hut management, insurance, outside usage and other issues. This meeting and the associated resources were invaluable.
Planning was a minefield and took years to negotiate. Bed spaces in the Snowdonia National Park are closely monitored, as is undue expansion. Extensions have to be in character and materials used appropriate. There was little local support; as outsiders we were simply lucky not to conflict with home-grown interests. Plans were first presented in 1999 to raise the roof by one metre, move all sleeping upstairs, and extend into the car park, (estimate £60-70k for re-build). In 2000, Snowdonia Park turned down the plans, citing overdevelopment. Modifications were presented and turned down again. In 2001, a third set of plans on a new design were submitted, and rejected, still regarded as overdevelopment.
Eventually, a meeting was arranged between a Snowdonia Park official and senior club members, at the site, and a design thrashed out on the back of an envelope, with modifications in keeping with local tradition as recommended by the Park official. These hand drawn plans were then re-submitted to the Park Committee. In November 2001, the plans were finally accepted. Detailed drawings were completed by architect Allan Owen and three loose quotes were obtained from assorted local builders. We chose Mike Bailey, a CC member who came highly recommended by Ken Latham.
Now all that remained was how to fund the expansion? There seemed to be money available, lottery grants, sports foundation money; other clubs had been successful. Application followed application, tedious, time consuming, eventually fruitless. Sports England Lottery revised its policy in Feb 2001 to focus on sport development (Olympic) and disadvantaged groups. In 2003 they rejected our application as our hut development was of no strategic significance to the development of mountaineering, did not contribute to ‘sport development’, and offered no opportunities for target groups. There was no evident partnership funding or other source income and Sports England Lottery stated that they would only come in as a last resort to top up a prime sponsor. The Foundation for Sports and Arts could not offer a grant but suggested that they may offer an interest free loan. In later correspondence they would rescinded this offer as money was scarce. The Welsh Tourist Board offers grants for developing sites and buildings such as caravans and stables but would only commit to a cause if local jobs were to be offered. There are literally hundreds of minor sports charities in the North West that offer up to £3-5k to develop social amenities of an outdoor nature. We contacted a selection of these, all of whom would only offer support if the club itself had charitable status. We even wrote to a few sports stars and celebrities with connections to Merseyside, out of curiosity, asking for a hand out! Only 1 major soccer star replied, again in the negative. After 4 futile years of applications we came to the grim realisation that as a small and effectively private members’ climbing club, we did not qualify for a single penny of outside funding.
The solution that was found and the rebuild achieved is a truly magnificent reflection of how climbing can inspire and unite a group of disparate individualists into a team pursuing a common dream. Anyone who walks into the hut now, bowled over by the dryness, comfort and the warmth, is benefiting from the fruits of a collective obsession. We decided to fundraise within the club to cover the cost of the basic building work and to rely on members and work meets to subsequently fit out the interior. This tiny club, a total of only 60 members, spent its’ savings and in addition raised the money for a substantial loan from regular contributions from members and supporters. We had assets of approximately £18k and planned a loan of £20k. The entire membership committed to a small monthly payment, usually about £20, for 3-5 years, in order to service the loan and enable us to start work. Everyone has paid; many former members who haven’t been seen for years continue to contribute. There was no overt pressure applied yet the only excuse employed not to pay (temporarily) was unemployment.
The keys were handed over and the hut acceded to the architect in Easter 2004, supposedly for a year. Mike Bailey worked tirelessly and mostly alone for the best part of 3 years. There were some delays. It is not quite clear whether it was the heavy work on the cottage or the Ogwen guidebook which led to his heart attack! Luckily his recovery was relatively swift, although he went back to climbing well before he resumed work on our cottage (it was a dry autumn). The plans had to be returned to the Snowdon Park for minor alterations. For those 3 years we were vagabonds in more than name. The Climbers Club saw a vast influx of Vags, particularly the girls, keen to benefit from the convenient accommodation in our home turf and keep climbing. Helyg was the most popular, cosily communal, it felt the most like home. We also owe huge thanks to the Ceunant Mountaineering Club (Birmingham / Nant Peris) for their generosity with beds when we had none, often associated with vast quantities of port and Stilton. The Ceunant have been true friends indeed; they provided us with practical help and DIY expertise, fund raised for us as well as their own club, and finally donated a floor, which was then graced with “Bunney” tiling.
In autumn of 2006, we were returned the keys to a shell, which was warm, dry, insulated, and sound. That first weekend, we all rushed out to Wales to test the weatherproofing! We slept on the floorboards in the new bunkroom upstairs and the excitement was palpable. It was at this stage that the club really pulled together in a spectacular fashion. A year of work meets followed, all attended by 20 plus people, laughing, singing, working, painting, mixing, plastering, carpentering, plumbing, tea making and even doing a bit of climbing. Folk were generous with equipment, money, time, skills, and labour.
The first showers were symbolic, surreal and almost solemn moments, the smells of soap, shampoo and drying hair around the new fire a heady aroma of homecoming and success. The opening party was pure emotion; the recycled gymnasium floor was thoroughly tested as we danced ‘til dawn with the doors thrown open, light, music and fireworks pouring down the valley. Members came flooding back, those who had previously eschewed the cottage as a grim health hazard came in for a peep and ended up staying. New members were keen to join; 14 aspirants attended a weekend meet and have kept coming back. The club is buzzing again now, a vibrant climbing cooperative, based in Liverpool, commuting to North Wales nearly every weekend, climbing their socks off.
There are many reasons to join a club. The “old” reasons were partly financial: to share lifts, to split the cost of accommodation. But the true benefit of club membership is the opportunity to meet like minded folk with whom to dream and plot and scheme. With the advent of indoor climbing walls, new partners have become easier to find. Since the roads have improved, Liverpool to North Wales can be done in a day trip, although rising fuel prices may curb this tendency! However, the best part of any climbing trip is the craic around the fire; glowing with adrenaline, alcohol and achievement we can re-enact the highlights of the day, retell the tall tales, rehearse the dreams. Without a functional hut, the Vags were drifting and fading away. There was climbing aplenty going on; individual achievements in those homeless years were spectacular, (E7, 8a, new mixed routes in Scotland, new routes on the “Great Wall of China”, new peaks in Greenland) but there was no cohesion, no collective inspiration. Now we are a family again. The hut is occupied every weekend, membership is increasing, beers downed and routes climbed soaring. The crags of North Wales are crawling with Vagabonds!
If you are lucky enough to live in the Cheshire/Merseyside area you can join the Vags. If you live elsewhere but are a member of an “adult” BMC affiliated club then you can apply to use the main room and see North Wales in its true glory. This room is available one weekend per month, see website for dates and rates (www.vagabondmc.com). We are justifiably proud of our Hut, the location is truly unique and the facilities now more than adequate for your perfect climbing weekend. We will share it occasionally, partly because we are still paying for our collective dream, but most of all because we would like others to have the chance to see the sun set over Snowdon from our front lawn after the best of climbing days! growing upcentre of the known universeDon’t forget to look back
What is it about climbers and clubs? Recently I have noticed a certain antipathy expressed by some sectors of the web-based climbing community towards clubs. Now I know that many climbers are far too busy training obsessively, working hard and driving up and down the country every weekend to have time for spurious web chat, and therefore the forums may not represent prevailing opinion. I also know that climbers are fierce individualists and climbing offers an escape from the confines of humdrum suburbia, if only for the day. But you must have noticed that in order to sell us increasingly technical clothing fit only for a polar expedition, climbing has been re-packaged as a radical adventure sport. Climbing is suddenly ultra-cool, but clubs are not. To me the advantages of club membership and the rewards far outbalance the little bit of work required on my part. (I am ‘recruitment officer’ and so have the terrible job of chatting to strangers about climbing wherever we go). I thought I would describe what I get out of club membership and see if we could liven up the debate. If nobody cares because they are all so busy climbing the best ice for 10 years with random punters they met on the internet then great!
A good local club has the potential to completely transform your climbing career! When I first went to university, I had done some single pitch climbing on adventure holidays and was keen to do more. My mountain skills were non-existent and I knew nothing about lead climbing. The university club approach seemed to be that they would arrange the minibus to the campsite and that was the extent of their responsibility. I was welcome to tag along but if I wanted to learn I would have to find some nice young lad to teach me. As the local crags in question were Glen Shee and Glen Coe and I was experiencing my first Scottish winter, that didn’t seem like the best plan! The Sub-Aqua club were organised and I knew how to dive already, so I spent the next ten years diving the deepest wrecks and the fastest tidal flows that Scotland had to offer. One summer, I managed to get a job at Ridgway’s adventure school as an assistant instructor, before qualifications were mandatory, and finally learnt a bit of hill craft, taking groups scrambling and mountaineering in the wilds of Sutherland. I also learnt how to set up belays for single pitch climbs.
A few years later I thought I would give climbing another go. Me and a mate started going to the local wall and doing loads of scrambling, but it was on a course at Plas y Brenin that we finally learnt about gear placements and rope techniques. Armed with this knowledge we felt confident enough to go out climbing, possibly misguidedly, and started to get our arses kicked on routes. However, it was a chance invitation to the V.M.C. annual dinner that was the turning point in my vertical life: I realised that these were the people we had been shyly smiling at down the climbing wall. I joined, and straight away started climbing regularly outside, leading a fair bit and seconding all sorts, in short getting a good old-fashioned apprenticeship. The basic knowledge imparted on the PYB course had meant that I knew enough to be safe out with strangers, and that I could tell whether they were safe too, a real concern after watching diving clubs trying to kill their novices!
So for me, club membership gave me the friends and mentors required to make the transition from indoor wall geek to solid trad rock leader. Most clubs, ours included, do not have the resources to take on absolute beginners. However for the newbie who has learnt to tie in, belay and lead indoors, a supportive climbing club can provide the ideal environment to learn about gear and real rock. New friends can point you at the safe routes, the good crags, the routes you should be aspiring to (Left Wall, again, I know….) and of course they can sandbag you in order to test your mettle. Each club has their favourites; I have heard so many horror stories about Old Holborn and Barbarian that I want to be leading E3 before I go anywhere near them!
Contrary to popular belief, climbing clubs are not just composed of hearty men in tracksters. We have as many girls as boys climbing actively i.e. most weekends, and we climb with each other as well as with other halves. My best trip in the hills to date was a girlie ascent of the Chere Couloir followed by a dawn ski descent of the Vallee Blanche. We have a female member who has just repeated Nick Dixon’s Yuckan II (E7 6c), others regularly leading low E numbers and all are pretty solid ice climbers too. We must be the envy of other clubs: out of a cohort of 20 active members, a third of them are proper hard rock chicks! Joking aside, climbing clubs are safe havens for single girls aspiring to get out into the hills. You can get to know members at the crag and at the pub, and eventually go out climbing with people that you know are safe both in their rope work and their attitudes. I would feel uncomfortable meeting up with a stranger on my own to go out cragging, and have had some dodgy experiences alone at campsites but within the club I have a pool of people I would happily meet up with for the day, or the week, anywhere in the world, because I know who they are, where they live and what their background is. Romance does blossom; as quickly as we acquire single female members they also seem to acquire the man of their dreams!
Clubs trips are fun and incredibly cheap. We recently went to Fontainebleau, four in a car, camping, the five day getaway cost us about £70 each. Norway was ace too, car bulging, top box full of beer, cheap ferry. Or you can split the petrol to Scotland, rent cheap apartments in Le Grave, and share the cost of a luxury villa in Spain over winter. I know that you could do all this with groups of like-minded friends but as I hit my 30’s, folk are getting harder and harder to pin down. With club members, you know them, however vaguely, you have a point of reference and you can suss out how they climb and how seriously they take their holidays, all important issues as time off becomes more precious and every climbing day matters. We are planning a trip to Greenland: where else would I find committed people that I would trust enough to embark on two years of planning for a major expedition?
Clubs also have huts; although with these huts comes a certain amount of responsibility and most clubs will expect a commitment to look after the property for the benefit of current and future members. There is a wealth of beautiful property around Britain, owned by climbing clubs for the benefit of people like you, situated in the most idyllic mountain locations, empty most weekends while anti-club climbers paddle balefully around sodden campsites. Club membership may open up possibilities in other climbing areas through reciprocal hut rights or informal agreements. We have several members who are also in the CC, and so have places to stay in Scotland, Pembroke and Cornwall. The CIC hut, the Fell and Rock, various SMC huts, are all available to hire out for groups, and being a member of an established climbing club with a good reputation can act as a character reference, encouraging organisations to let you into the hut which is usually their pride and joy. We owe a huge vote of thanks to the Ceunant Club, our neighbours in Wales, who have offered us bed space while the roof has been off our cottage this year. Our (not so small anymore) cottage is a jewel, set in the heart of Snowdonia, five minutes walk away from the Llanberis Pass. We put a fair bit back into the local economy, mainly in beer tokens, but also by supporting local eateries and gear shops. For the currently ridiculous sum of £2.50 we have a roof (nearly), hot running water, electricity, a kitchen and a unique base from which to launch our not so epic endeavours. Some of the best and beastliest of British climbing have been past members of our club (Dickinson, Rouse, Molyneux), partied at the hut (Don Whillans apparently?), passed out on our sofas, and gone out climbing the next day. Wheelie bin races, firework wars, dawn ascents of Flying Buttress (with obligatory sofa), all have made our hut a home from home and a wonderful place from which to assault the surrounding hills. It is currently being refurbished, by us, for us and the first party in the new hut will be a momentous bash indeed.
One of the criticisms frequently levelled at clubs is their perceived elitist attitude and suspicion or dislike of prospective membership schemes. But you automatically vet every new person you meet in your lives, and only some will turn into friends. In our area there are two very different clubs, both of which operate prospective members’ schemes. One has about 200 members and encompasses diverse activities including climbing, skiing, and mountain biking. Requirements of PM’s allegedly include attendance at a certain number of meets, however many thousand feet of ascent, a certain number of climbs! A large club needs discipline to function and so can come across as quite bureaucratic. However, they run huge trips to excellent places with great success and have a vibrant membership with a healthy university connection. In contrast, we try to stick to climbing (mostly!), we have 60 members, of who only 20 climb regularly, and so we don’t need many rules and have no bureaucracy. Membership tends to be for life, resignation unheard of and never accepted. Club meets usually feature the same faces, the hut sitting room is crowded with 14 people in it and our bunk rooms are all very cosily communal. I don’t find it peculiar that we choose to get to know people before giving them the key to our hut, thereby allowing them to use it whenever they want to and also committing ourselves to spending a good proportion of the next ten or twenty years in that person’s company. Our admission criteria are minimal; we have to be able to put the name to the face after six months and be convinced of general enthusiasm. People tend to self select and in the five years since I joined, every PM has been voted in as a full member as a matter of course. The result is that when we get to the hut on Friday night it is always a nice surprise.
Clubs are a source of knowledge and inspiration! (Cheesey!) We train together, climb together, obsess together and the competition and enthusiasm is contagious and healthy. When I started out my climbing ambitions were limited to E1 on Welsh crags, maybe some sunny sports climbing. Since joining this club I have been to Norway, the Dolomites, the Alps, climbed both rock and ice. None of these objectives would have seemed possible without the hot house effect of a club full of keen people getting out and doing. Between us we have every guide, every book, every film and about 200 combined years of experience of climbing all over the world. We don’t really do formal teaching but we do get out and go climbing, with whoever happens to be around at the time, and we push or encourage each other on to improve, either to get stronger or just to be more adventurous in the hills. This is precisely the ingredient that I was lacking in the years I could have been climbing but was scuba diving instead!
Club membership may involve politics, but it can be minimal. We have two committee meetings a year, mainly to vote in new members and discuss the hut refurbishment programme. Meetings take all night, involve lots of beer, are tedious as well as fun and never change the world. That’s life.
There are financial advantages to being a member of a club. Reciprocal hut rights are a huge bonus: foreign hut associations may offer a discount to BMC members and the savings we made last year in the Dolomites cancelled our combined club subs in a one week trip. Cheap gear is another incentive; as a member of a local club you can negotiate substantial discounts. The saving that I made on new winter boots and crampons last year was twice my hut bill. Low cost life insurance, climbing insurance…save the pennies and you have more money to go climbing.
No matter how dissociated you think you are from climbing club politics, you benefit from work done by club worthies. BMC reps, volunteers mostly drawn from clubs, work hard on your behalf, negotiating access, liaising with climbing walls, and improving local crags: notable successes in our area include the radical pollarding of the trees at Pex Hill, which extended the life of both the trees and the classic problems by another hundred years and the delicate and often comical negotiations with the pensioners peregrine protection mafia around Helsby Hill.
The journals of British climbing clubs encapsulate the early history of climbing in this country. We all know the big names; theirs is the roll call of heroes and tigers throughout the years whose dancing steps we follow week after week. But other smaller clubs have also featured, including the VMC. We have connections to notable ascents in the Alps (Mo Antoine, Bryan Molyneux), an early ascent of the Bonatti Pillar (A.Green), the first solo ascent of The Bouldest (Al Rouse). Maybe clubs are a piece of history, left over from the days when folk needed lifts to Wales and shared tents and huts for economy, but as club members, that history is ours. The mix of older tales and recent stories act as a catalyst and most of all, make you realise that you don’t need to be a full-time professional climber to get out there and do something rock hard, you just need a good team, drive and enthusiasm.
So what do I get out of belonging to a climbing club? A second family, a (not quite) snug home from home, an eclectic mix of addicted enthusiasts to play and party with all over the world, on rock, snow, water and ice, friends with whom I have been through fun, frolics, stupid scrapes and some proper adventures. My life is much richer for the association. Every club isn’t for everyone, but some club somewhere might turn out to suit you. And once you have that all important team of people to train with, climb with, dream with and scheme with, the world will be your oyster too.
St Andrew’s University Sub Aqua Club went through a phase of great activity in the early 90’s. We had some great members and some good friends from Southport SAC with excellent kit, like boats that actually worked in rough weather. And we had some great adventures. We like to think that at that time we were at the cutting edge of adventurous sport diving. I’ve certainly never met anyone since who could better what we were doing at the time, and before the age of internet forums, word of mouth was the only certain means of communication. Some of the adventures were foolish, some ambitious, some would seen reckless to others, but my memory is that we were quite simply young, fearless and at the top of our game. I do remember hearing a complete stranger telling one of my stories to a mate in the pub, as if it had happened to him, which I guess is some measure of approbation. He did have the grace to look slightly sheepish when I had to tell him I didn’t remember him being there!
We were doing fast drift dives, deep dives, fast deep drift dives, and deep dives on underwater pinnacles that most will never have heard of. And we were doing them on air. We were all students, the kit for nitrox and trimix was quite simply beyond us at that point. Not so now, the boys have a mixing panel in their garage but I bowed out when the kit got too complicated and the emphasis changed to serious wreck diving. The West Coast of Scotland offered a wealth of opportunity for the intrepid dive team with a good RHIB and a willingness to burn gallons of petrol. PeteT’s Glen Uig Inn was the starting point for many a weekend’s frivolity. Muck and Eigg both have deep vertical walls guarding the entrance to their harbours, with a perfect current that takes you along the wall at your chosen depth and speed with no effort required, although it does make scalloping a bit more challenging. The mighty Bo Fascadale, a dramatic volcanic plug, 16-65m, rearing up from the seabed like a tower block covered in sea life, with a cave at 65m in one face that I never managed to find. Elizabeth Rock, the elusive companion, deeper, harder to find with an echo sounder and first generation GPS, before the descrambling, when the closest you got was a 50m margin of error. Glen Uig itself is an amazing community of musicians and poets, a tremendous pub where a ceilidh springs up whenever the wind turns. We took Dave, previously a champion piper, and nearly lost him there for ever. I can still hear the pipes swirling around the bay as we tinkered with the RHIB and Dave took himself off up the hill. To truly understand the magic of the Highland great-pipes, that is how they should be heard, unstinted, unfettered, full volume, echoing between sea and sky and precipice, calling the ancients to life, calling the tribes to war, calling the mountains themselves to song.
DaveA used to pop valium before dropping us in to the Grey Dog Race, Cuan Sound or Dorus Mhor, all roaring tidal races that we did faster and faster, racing along the sea bed, mostly alone, as the current took you and your buddy off in different directions, tumbling in the turbulence, swirling up as well down, the computer screeching alarms as the depth changed too quickly to calculate stops, watching your bubbles spinning around, up, down, the torch beam spinning in the murky green gloom, the adrenaline pumping until the sudden feeling of release when the current joined the open sea again and the run ended, and you had to work out which way up the light was, put up a marker buoy, start doing stops, flag or torch ready to be found by the boat, often over a mile from the start of the dive and still travelling at a few knots.
Dorus Mhor was the most serious, it just got deeper and deeper and the spit out at the end was from 40m into bottomless green murk, completely disorientated, swirling, panting, watching the air gauge going down with each uncontrolled gasping breath, watching the marker buoy go down and down before heading for the surface, and then doing the loneliest stops in the world, floating in mid water, counting the minutes, doing frantic useless sums, still drifting quickly further away from the boat, 20 minutes of stops, how will they find me if that buoy didn’t hit the surface, have I got enough air to do these stops or am I going to be fizzing on the surface waiting for the search team tomorrow? We did lose people occasionally!
One memorable occasion was the weekend Ken invited me to join the BSAC Advanced Instructors and Area Coaches on a fast drift diving weekend on Dave’s boat. Bearing in mind that this was our specialist subject at the time and went against everything BSAC taught! I was the only girl, was not an AI or an area coach!
Ken picked me up from a ball in St A’s at 4am and we drove across the country, me still in my dress and heels, planning to change on the pier to start the wind up in good style. Except when we got there Dave was sweating already and I snuck off around the corner, the gag just as likely to backfire. We inevitably lost one of the Advanced Instructors- he didn’t follow instructions, didn’t get his marker buoy up at the allotted time and so surfaced out of sight after doing all his stops. By that time he had gone a good mile or two, and it took us a couple of hours to find him. Dave didn’t swear often!
The SAUSAC favourite drift dive was the Falls of Lora, under the bridge where Loch Etive tumbles into the sea. Jam and I went there once to dive it on slack as a shore dive, only slack never happened, the Falls just turned around without stopping and we sat there for two or three hours waiting for the thing to slow down. Although it was still going full speed we got bored so we decided to jump in anyway-not the best run through I ever had but certainly the fastest! I used to love boat handling there, scooping the terrified St A’s novices out of the raging torrent after their first go at a proper drift dive!
Port Appin Pier on New Year’s Eve at midnight. Black as hell, vertical, bottomless. JM did 100m there one year after a fight with RA who officiously thought he was too drunk to get in the water. I did 72m, one night, the depth of the year I was born, taking care to lose my buddy at about 40m, carrying on down into the dark, fighting the narcs, keeping it together, true rapture of the deep, just like the Big Blue. Then the moment you always forget about, when you turn around from free fall position to fin for the surface and all the blood redistributes from your core to your legs and you go light headed and dizzy just at the moment when you most need to keep it together, inflate suit, start finning, regulate breathing, work hard but not too hard, beat gravity, beat free fall, beat momentum, beat nitrogen, swim and live.
An Chailleach, the pinnacle beneath the whirlpool in the Gulf of Corryvreckan, the most beautiful and notorious tidal race of them all. In Gaelic, Chailleach means the hag or witch, and this infamous patch of water certainly inspires immense terror. The “un-navigable” race runs between Scarba and Jura, the standing waves reach 10m high, the whirlpool can be seen from a perch on the hillside of either island and underwater there is a sharp pinnacle at 30m. At the time, the only known dive on the pinnacle had been a navy diver who got swept off the top and down into the depths before being spat back up again and living to tell the tale. His depth gauge apocryphally read 200m, possibly the deepest bounce dive recorded on sub aqua kit. We thought this must be pressure effects, you surely couldn’t survive that depth, but the seabed does drop off one side to that depth, so who knows?
So started months of meticulous planning. Neap tides, unusually for this group that normally chased the fastest tides, the best neap tides of the year, a team of 12, all capable, all self sufficient, all self reliant, not so easy when the BSAC buddy is drummed into any budding diver like a mantra, all with computers, pony rigs, buoy, flag, torch, well versed in doing open water stops, all used to deep diving, going down an endless shot-line into the gloom without losing the plot. I wish I had made a list of the team on that first day, it was the most perfect day, and it is only in retrospect that I have come to realise how truly special it was and how perfect. Me, Jam, JM, DA, KA, KS, GK, MK,PH,AC—2 missing or were we only 10 divers? Dave chewing pills like gum as he drove us into the sound, listening to the roar of the standing waves at the other end, feeling the whirlpool catching and snagging the hull, feeling the inboard that had taken us everywhere strain against the force of the spiral, hearing it splutter occasionally, as we sounded for the pinnacle. The first cast with the shot line missed, the current too fast, having to haul the 40m of line back into the boat, all tense, the timings crucial. Let it go again, watch it catch, over again with the echo, 34m but right on the edge of the drop off, meaning we can’t pull it on the way down or it will come off. Kitting up, waiting for the buoys to surface at slack, still with the roar in your ears, still the boat pitching and tossing, it seems inconceivable that the tide will turn and the whirlpool stop. Some days it doesn’t, it simply reverses, the surface water and the deep water turning in opposite directions until the inexorable tide wins again. I remember sitting on the edge of the boat, heavy with kit, light with fear, staring death in the face. Not a certain death, not even a likely death, just one of the possible permutations of one of the ways the day might end. I may have faced more objective dangers since, but I have never since chosen to actively embrace them in the same way. But hey, 30 looked old in those days!
The timing was perfect, the whirlpool did stop, 40minutes of slack predicted, buoys on the surface at 30minutes please, chap and chapesses, and please no more than 10 minutes of stops, all to be back on the boat at 40minutes. Running down the shot line, letting it slide between finger and thumb, chasing Jam, always the quickest to the bottom, like a rat down a hole, the familiar blue to green to murk, then to glow as you switch the torch on, all so familiar yet so alien that day, everything heightened by pure adrenaline. The top of the pinnacle was amazing, swept absolutely clean by the force of the maelstrom, nothing grows on it, yet in the crack teems the most abundant, colourful, varied life I have seen anywhere in Scottish waters, in over 1000 dives. Jam and I floated over the edge, resisting the pull of the depths, not going for free fall today, just poking around, counting colours, marvelling at fish and squidgies and at the tranquillity that can be hidden beneath the turmoil above.
As we did a time check and started finning lazily back towards the surface of the pinnacle, we found an amazing rock cavern. Like an open air theatre, the size of a small room, roughly round, with a flat bottom, and walls about 15feet high. We lay on our backs on the floor of the cavern, torches playing over the walls, which were plastered with jewel anemones and nudibranchs, in colour coded patches like a paint card. I remember Jam’s eyes smiling through his mask, the little bubbles that come with giggles of pure glee. I think we both looked down at the same time and realised the floor of the cavern was made up of perfectly round smooth flat boulders. We looked up at the light above and both computed that there was only one force that could have polished those boulders to that shine, and got out of there quick!
Finning over the summit of the pinnacle, the current was just starting to tug impatiently at our fins. Buoy up, push up, take your leave, reluctantly, slowly, barely ascending, torch panning over the rock until the visibility ran out and the gloom won again. Hitting the surface, the boat on top of us, huge kerfuffle, up the ladder, in the corner in a heap, bottle off and all in, the boat powering away just as the roaring started again. Looking back at the standing waves, rearing up to full height almost instantly, just where we had been moment before.
The perfect day, for many reasons. A close-knit team had a wild dream, and achieved something that hadn’t been done before by civilian recreational divers. So as far as we know we were the first team to do a planned dive on the pinnacle of the Gulf of Corryvreckan. It’s certainly not common place now! The flawless execution of the plan- the timings were spot on, the tide calculations worked, the dive itself was amazing. We did go back, the others have been back since looking at a wreck off on one of the sides of the pinnacle, but nothing ever matched up to the pure perfection of that first dive. There is of course, finally, the whole thing about places of power.
An Chailleach at full bore
There are only seven major whirlpools in the world. Were we really lying on the floor of the hole that had been formed by the vortex itself? I don’t know for sure, but it certainly could have been. Modern science has demystified so many things, as has the internet. On UK diving there is a perfect topo diagram of the underwater pinnacle and the boulder holes, but in my head the vivid fragmented impressions are more real and magical and still have a hold over me many years on. So now, I remember and cherish a little privileged minute in time when I rested in the centre of the maelstrom of An Chailleach and counted the colours.
There are parts of the Scottish coastline that I know better than the back of my hand, both above and below water. The myriad days at sea were the greatest privilege and the wildest gifts experienced during those crazy diving days. The North Sea and the Atlantic in all their moods, serene, frenzied, flattened by the peculiar horizontal Scottish rain, howling and swirling, every journey an adventure. I was a land lubber, a city girl, the sea a late discovery, a vivid shifting backdrop to my changing growing years. The boats that piloted me through those turbulent times are like the chapters of that life.
First, the Clockwork Orange, St Andrews University Sub Aqua Club’s fibreglass dory. So foolishly named by some vain intellectual with no thought for the poor coastguard or the hapless soul who would have to make the weekly call, announcing plans, spelling the name in phonetics, ad nauseum, the chuckle of disbelief never far from the surface despite the formality of radio speak, impatience crackling over the air waves on the VHF. We seemed to talk to the coastguard pretty regularly those days, at the beginning and the end of the day, and occasionally half way through! The university minibus could barely tow her, the tiny trailer winch was worn out and retrieval was always a comic epic. She had a hull full of waterlogged foam, the least reliable outboard in the civilised world, and gung-ho inexperienced students flogging her out to May Island or the Breda in all the weather. She took a dozen divers and her kit easily, for space was never a problem in the huge hollow expanse gaping between the high fibreglass gunwales. She wouldn’t go up on the plane with more than four though, so chugging was usually the order of the day. There was no spare power to get you out of trouble and someone had to bail constantly. The engine broke down regularly, at which point everyone would have to paddle like demented neoprene Eskimos. She was a pig to get back into; I always had to hand everything in before finning like mad to clamber over the side and then still often needed landing like a fish, gasping for breath and safety, often easier when the sea was rough for the waves would just throw you in. Trying to retrieve the petrified novices out of the Falls of Lora was always a two person job, doing 3 point turns in Crail harbour for the boat handling exam more like taking an HGV test. She did us proud for many years though- I have one lovely photo taken from the Creran Bridge of the Orange flying through the Narrows, planing proud, a squad of grinning youth blowing in the breeze.
Through the Southport connection via RA and JM and a few kisses along the way, we got access to Southport Diver 1 and 2. Proper Offshore rigid hulled inflatables, the dogs cajones, the power ratio in our favour, engines that roared at the flick of switch, (a novelty in those days in cars and boats alike) and pushed the streamlined hulls along on their tails and both were light enough to retrieval with only a small army. I haven’t yet calculated how much petrol we burned in those days, how many trees I would have to plant to redress the balance, but those two boats took us all over the West Coasts of Scotland and Ireland, in good style. Southport Diver 2 was my favourite, the little boat, she turned on a sixpence, perfect for four divers and full adventure rigs, you could tow her with a car, then once on the water she was the perfect lady, a fast planing boat that even I could crawl back into wearing all my kit and then drive across the world.
JM’s own Sorcha was another fine RHIB, bought once he started work, a few years before the rest of us medics and scientists- ever the pragmatist, JM chose law and now has the biggest debts of us all, and will be the richest one day. Sorcha came secondhand, but looked neat and fair, the high Delta nose kept off the worst of the weather although it made the waves a bit harder to read- I dropped her off the top of a wave so sharply once that I broke DM’s nose, anaemic with his Crohn’s he could barely afford to lose a single red cell and there we were swimming in the stuff. And then of course the yellow pram, GB’s spring loaded little Avon with the genius canvas hood stretched over the bows for his son and wife to hide from the weather. Some days we were a small Armada, the interwoven wakes slicing through the navy green waves, each boat appearing and disappearing in turn as we dipped in and out of the swell.
I used to love the RHIB days. Often the dive was incidental. The whole perfect process of dropping your boat into the water, loading up and setting off on a bearing into the great wide ocean, roaring out into the wild unknown. I could drop you on any particular part of the wreck of the Liberty ship Breda on transits, show you the congars out on Dunstaffnage, take you to play with the seals off May Island, drop you into the Falls of Lora on flood tide and know where to wait for you to surface, bug eyed and spluttering, an instant away from oblivion. The best runs, the wildest days, surfing the Atlantic swells, learning life and tide and moon and memory; the patterns are etched in my brainstem.
I cherish sharp cinematic memories of the day AJ and I collected the monster loan RHIB from Uist. We left the slip at 7pm on a midsummer Scottish evening and drove up the West Coast, poking in and out of the islands to Oban, AJ and I taking turns throwing the boat around and laughing manically, standing the boat on its tail for fun, chucking buoys “man overboard” to catch each other out, as the mercury sea changed from caerulean to navy to jet and the sky never quite got dark. Skimming over the waves in the semi light, the phosphorescence lighting up our wake, was pure magic. The other best run was in Sorcha, from an isolated slip on the edge of Skye, a slip that I could find by road although the name is forgotten, out into the Little Minch, looking for a rock that broke the surface at low tide. GPS really is remarkable technology; we drove for 12 miles, to find a foot high iron spike marking a rock the size of a dining table that dropped off to 40m on all sides. The seals were already in residence but very friendly really, nosey and nibbling fins as we all dropped in to join them, the squidgies were amazing and the scallops huge. I boat-handled for second wave at complete peace with the world, dozing on the tubes in the sun, listening to bubbles and seal song.
There were other boats we knew and loved, DA’s Porpoise, PT’s fishing boat, another stout workhorse, no fancy toys but a monster inboard that pulled like a tractor, Captain Jim’s variety of live-aboard sheds that would only escape the clutches of the Falls of Lora on the right tide, leaving you on the pier at Oban at midnight after the pub had closed with no sign of him, shivering and cursing and resigned to sleeping in the car. There was the selection of wooden fishing Dories at Ridgways, each fitted with a pair of oars and a Seagull engine, no planing or roaring or racing there but you could fix the thing with a penknife and an elastic band, and often had to. I can’t think back to the last time I drove a boat now, though surely you never forget. I like to think that one day in my dotage I will fetch up on the shore of Loch Erribol, in the low-slung gas-lit crofthouse that the last of the ancient bachelor brothers died in, (the three of them having left a million in the bank with no surviving relative to gift it to). I will have a wooden Dory on a running mooring with a Seagull engine to pull my creels and fish for mackerel and dive for those enormous dinner plate scallops that AC and I lived on once for a week, and I will potter in and out of the enormously complicated inlets and skerries until I can’t remember any names any more….
