Contents
Don Coase
It
is with extreme regret that we must announce the death of Don Coase which
occurred on Friday January 31st 1958 following an operation. To his wife Clare and his small son we offer
our deepest sympathy
The passing of Don Coase represents a great loss, not only
to his family and friends, but to the club as a whole and the entire caving
world.
Don joined the B.E.C. in 1946, after an active career with
the now disbanded Bridgwater Caving Club, and at once became one of our clubs
most active members. In June, 1947, he
became the first man to dive the sump in Stoke Lane Slocker, and thus
discovered the large system beyond.
An enthusiastic club member, he played a major part in the
erection of the original Belfry; becoming the first club member to sleep
there. He became its first Hut Warden
until his work took him to
In spite of the distance, his interest in caving remained as
great as ever. He organized, with John
Shorthose, a B.E.C. London Section which became very active and continued the
work in
the survey of which was largely carried out by Don. A draughtsman by profession, his surveying
work was always of a very high order. In
addition to his work with the London Section, he took every available
opportunity to visit caving areas, and many of us will remember Rasputin, his
motorcycle, on which he travelled a remarkable number of miles.
About this time, he became interested in the Cave Diving
Group and rapidly became one of its most skilled divers. In 1949, he discovered, with Bill Mack, the
Water Passage at the far end of Peak Cavern in Derbyshire. He was also well known for his diving work in
Wookey Hole, in connection with the Somerset Section of the Cave Diving
Group. Other cave discoveries included
that of
Although he preferred the practical side of caving, he could
always be relied on to help out with the organization of the club and thus in
1951 and 1952, he became Editor of the Belfry Bulletin, jointly with John
Shorthose. In 1953, married and back
again in
he became Caving Secretary.
It is difficult to think of any branch of caving in which he
did not actively participate. A keen
photographer, he was author of the chapter on cave photography in ‘British
Caving’, which was sponsored by the Cave Research Group, in which he also took
an interest. As Caving Secretary, he
helped to construct much new tackle, including the hand climbing line or
Knobbly Dog. He took an active part in
the Mendip rescue Organisation being a Warden and was elected a Registrar of
the Mendip Cave Registry.
In 1953, be began his last and greatest piece of cave
exploration in St. Cuthberts Swallet and devoted hundreds of hours leading its
exploration, surveying, photographing and erecting permanent tackle in the
cave. He collaborated in writing the
first report of this work, and has been working and writing on this cave ever
since. At the time of his death, he was
interested in the problems of water flow in the cave system.
While in no way minimising the teamwork which has gone on
into many of these projects, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the
club owes a great deal of its present position to the leadership, work and
enthusiasm of Don Coase. He will be
greatly missed.
Editorial
The news of the death of Don Coase arrived after this B.B.
had been, stencilled. We scrapped pages
one and two as a result. We are sure
that readers will forgive the appearance of the B.B. under the
circumstances. A few of the notices and
other items may be able to be squeezed in somewhere. There may be a lack of joining of this new
page 2 with the original page 3. Again
we apologise and will try to straighten out matters in our next issue.
Alfie
Water Temperatures
A further letter has been received on this subject:-
The testing of Thermistors involves the continuous and
accurate measurement of temperatures, so if anyone wants any thermometers
checked against certificated standards, we will be pleased to do it.
Secondly, I have a thermometer reading to 1OC, which I will
lend on indefinite loan to a responsible person.
Back in 1950, I wrote a report on a Hermiston combined
thermometer-hygrometer. This was
designed for normal atmospheric observations. With a little thought and redesign, it could probably be made to cover
the ranges 7.5 to 12.5 degrees C, and 95 to 100% relative humidity.
As you will realize, this will be a piece of electrical
equipment and will be rather delicate and will require a water proof
container. I can probably find a meter
and all the other gear, but what I need to know before I go ahead is, would
such a piece of equipment be useful, and would the ranges suggested above the
best? If not, can you tell me what you
want? To complete the picture, the meter
I have in mind has 50 divisions which would enable you to read temperatures of
air or water to 0.1OC and relative humidity to 0.1%. I hope this information can be of use.
Sett
Thanks for the offer and information, Sett. Dealing with the first two points, Mervyn
Hannam has calibrated and given
two thermometers, so we will keep your offer open until they have been broken.
The combined thermometer-hygrometer sounds a very useful bit
of apparatus and we will certainly take you up on this one, providing it can be
made reasonably robust. You know the
kind of treatment it would be liable to! As to scales, I would suggest a slightly wider range for humidity; say
from 90 to 100 percent.
The only snag is that the readings would not cover the range
of temperatures and humidities at or near the surface. These could be taken with ordinary
instruments. The advantage with this
combined instrument would be if the detector element was separated form the
meter. One of the disadvantages of a
sling physcometer is that, when you stop whirling it to take a reading, the wet
bulb temperature alters quite quickly and may give rise to a false
reading. The same thing applies to a
lesser extent when removing a thermometer from a stream to make a reading.
D.A. Coase
Library
Johnny Ifold, our Librarian, got up and complained, quite
rightly at the A.G.M., that we never seem to be able to get a list of new
publications in the club library. This
is the latest list received from Johnny: –
Speleon. Volume 7. Numbers 1, 2, 3 & 4.
Cave Science. Volume 4. Number 28.
British Caver. Volume 29.
Speleolog. Volume 4. Numbers 3 and 4.
The Speleologist.
N.S.S. News. Volume 15. Numbers 9, 10 and 11.
Mountaineering. Volume 3. Number 2.
Newsletters.
Wales
21. November 1957.
Cave and Crag
Club. Volume 6. No. 4. November 1957
Oread
Mountaineering Club. Vol. 5. No. 1. November 1957.
The Dinner
The Eighth Annual Dinner of the Bristol Exploration Club was
held at the Cliff hotel, Cheddar. This
year, being sober all the evening, I was actually able to observe the
proceedings – a thing which has not previously been possible, and I came to the
conclusion that, in the time-honoured manner, a good time was had by all.
After a preliminary canter round the hotel bars, we got down
to dinner itself. The food was adequate
and promptly served. The after dinner
speeches were enlivened by a very fair mannequin display, organised by Kangy
(Hartnell) King, in which Gaff Fowler came on in a boiler suit of incredible
whiteness, and other costumes for the coming season on Mendip were also
displayed. The company were most
impressed by the summer layabout outfit modelled by Russ, who seemed to have a
natural flair for the part. The Hunters
drinking suit we much admired, and looks like being in great demand. The gaunt figure who entered later demonstrated
the latest bathing wear. Dress conscious
cavers will note that only one caving boot is being worn with the swimming
costume this year.
The entire show was recorded for posterity by one Cecil B.
de Price helped by his assistant, J Arthur Rees who took a genuine H
certificate type film of the show. Mr.
Ellis, proposing the toast of Absent Friends’, read out a letter from Tony
Rich, explaining that he was now down to A moose or two, and this was
followed by a Spelaeode from Alfie, which I think was a new one. The company then made their way to the bar
next door.
Soon a skiffle school, two sing songs, and various groups of
blokes conversing arose. At one stage,
Dan Hasell called for hush and made a speech of thanks to Bob Bagshaw. We all drunk his health and gave him three
cheers.
A goodly selection of old timers were present. I can’t name them all, as I cant remember
some and don’t know others, but Postle and Dizzie were present, Jonah drove all
the way down from Newcastle, and of course Dan Hasell was there wearing his
chain and badge of office. I noticed
that no note was passed to Dan this year and that the Hasell waistcoat,
although startling, was eclipsed by that worn by Roger Stenner.
A good dinner on the whole, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
“Diner.”
(Name supplied)
Last month, we published an account of a trip to
another of the people who took part. We
thought it would be a good idea to print this one now, to see if their stories
tally!
Caving in
South Wales
While at the South Wales Caving Clubs dinner in
meet the secretary, Mr. David Jenkins. As a result, he gave permission at very short notice, for a party of
B.E.C. members, not exceeding 6, to stay at their headquarters and arranged to
find a leader to take us to see some of Ogof Ffynon Ddu.
Daphne and I thus arrived at the S.W.C.C. cottage on the
evening of Friday, 29th November after a pleasant ride from
been mysteriously knocked off the Velo, were brazed back on, Norman Petty
arrived with Russell Jenkins (complete with a bag of corned beef sandwiches)
and only 14 hours late. Had not the
driver been Norman (No-prang-since-1950) Petty, the appearance of the Velo may
have led the observer to believe that the machine had been laid down, perhaps
after cornering too fast on a bald front tyre.
After an evening at the Gwyn, during which Russell tried
with no success to give away some of his corned beef sandwiches, a rather
chilly night was spent in the S.W.C.C. visitors cottage.
Next day, Bill Little and a friend took Norman, Russell
(with his corned beef sandwiches) and myself into the cave. Bill gave us an extremely interesting running
commentary complete with any relevant history or anecdote, while we went
through the entrance series to the stream, up into the escape route, through
the Rawl Series, up the Waterfall series to the
was just packing up. After helping to
get the gear out of the series, we met another party that had just been doing
some work in the Boulder Chamber. A new
series now leads off bypassing the collapse under Starlight Chamber, and
several hundred feet of passage, with three sumps large enough for divers, have
been found so far. That day a new
extension had been found to go back to with an arms length of a point where Dai
Hunt and Peter Harvey had given up digging five years ago. The trip ended with a pleasant paddle back
down the stream passage.
After an autopsy by Bill Little with the help of the survey,
corned beef sandwiches) left for
Daphne and I went back to
after a very pleasant weekend.
Roger Stenner
A Technical Survey of Current Methods of Mining Tin in
Cornwall
by P.M. Blogg
I had to call it that because I thought it stood a better
chance of being printed, but a better title would be: –
Four Men in the Cart
Or possibly, Not
me
.I did the washing up yesterday.
On Friday, 2nd August 1957 four distinguished idiots with
the best of intentions and the least of money, set forth from
mines. On Saturday, 17th August 15
days, 1,000 miles, 40 gallons and innumerable pints later, they returned not
one scrap wiser.
Before leaving, knowing that we would be using (in the main)
ex-W.D. tinned food, I asked if anyone had thought of bringing a tin
opener. Yes, we were all right. Spike had one, Gaff had one and Sago (who
tells us that he has been caught before) had several.
We drove overnight to Penhale Sands near Newquay and arrived
about 2.30 to spend the night. We chose
a likely spot and were just thinking of getting out when two gentlemen in khaki
suits, wearing boots and carrying loaded sten guns, ran towards us
shouting. We left. It appears that the army runs a holiday camp
there.
Before passing on next day we visited the lost
remained to bring out the tin openers and get cracking. We had breakfast in a café.
That afternoon we drove to Coverack determined to relax for
a day or so before starting on the serious side of our trip. Suitable accommodation had to be found, and
it was to that end that we enquired at a garage. This garage was undoubtedly the most dirty,
broken down collection of wooden huts ever thrown up at any roadside by anyone
anywhere. The owner, a middle aged chap
of about ninety five, grudgingly gave us fuel and even more grudgingly, our
change. It was in such an attempt to see
what held the roof of this poverty stricken service station off the ground that
Gaff and Spike tripped over the two most immaculate and highly polished Rolls
Royces that they could ever wish to see. The owner told us that he only kept the big one to take his wife to
market. He said that Roils had offered
him £4,000 for her. We said that we felt
that this was a fair price for his wife.
We were recommended to a Mr. Mason. First on the right at the bottom of the
hill. The hill descends almost
vertically for about five hundred feet and ends in the sea. There were no turnings left or right. Mr. Mason was eventually found, and we
enquired after barns, stables, outhouses, sheds, haystacks, silos, pigsties
etc. Mr. Mason was pessimistic. He had nothing fit for human habitation. We explained that we were hardly human and
could thus dispense with this proviso and at length, and with profuse
apologies, he showed us his ‘Old Barn’.
We thought that we knew all about barns, but this one was
admittedly unusual. For a start it had a
telephone. It also had electric light
(with switch), a radio (working) an electric kettle (serviceable) and running
water (cold) (very!).
It was one evening there that we decided to go into a nearby
village for a drink. This village was
about two miles cross country and about nine by road. There was a well marked track on the map, and
we agreed to use this. The start of this
track gave us no trouble (except to courting couples who didnt see the joke)
and the first half mile of moor land was simple and the track easy to
follow. It was when the M.T. disappeared
into a clump of bushes, that we had our first clue that all was not well. Sago had the map and said it showed quite
clearly that we were going in such and such a direction with relation to a set
of radio masts which we could see to our front.
Very slow progress was made over rough ground when Spike
suddenly staggered us with one of those cool, clear headed, far seeing, all
embracing yet concise statements for which he will one day be famous. He reckoned that we were lost. I agreed with him. Gaff and Sago agreed to the extent that we
didn’t know where we were (which was something) but pinned their faith on those
radio masts, so clear for all to see. However, it seems that the Air Ministry, with a complete disregard for
our well-being, had erected an identical set of masts directly behind us. We admitted defeat and retraced our tracks
back to the road.
It was that evening that we were defeated at our own
game. It happened this way. Sago was buying the beer (surely this is a
mistake? – Editor) and noticed on the landlord’s shoulder what at first sight
appeared to be a grasshopper. About two
inches long; it was coloured dull green and seemed to move about. It was so lifelike that it was obviously a
rubber imitation. The temptation was too
great.
Excuse me, I hope
you don’t mind me asking but what’s that on your shoulder?”
The answer, in a patronizing tone, A grasshopper, sir,
caught us all on the wrong foot. Sago
quickly replied, Oh yes. I forgot it
was Tuesday (it wasnt) and the damage was done.
The weather was set so fine, and the forecast so sure that
we should have rainstorms, hail, sleet, thunder and perhaps snow on high
ground, that we decided to camp. I use
the royal ‘we’, actually they decided. We set the site near St. Just amongst the surface buildings of the
disused
sheltered spot, protected from the rough sea winds by nothing whatever.
On the door of the old engine house was a notice The
property of the Cornish Engines Preservation Society, and a note to the effect
that the key could be obtained at
ground and about a ton of boulders had been piled in to fill the gap.
seemed a long way off and so in no time at all we had an entrance three feet
wide, one foot high and extremely wet.
The beam engine was small by Cornish standards, though its
beam was about twenty feet long. It was
of traditional Cornish design, with the valve gear operated by the beam. The boiler was housed in a separate building
which is not now standing. The beam was
pivoted in the middle, one end being connected to the proverbial wheel (about
fifteen feet in diameter) which drives the winding gear and can be slowed adown
and perhaps stopped by large planks of wood which bear on the rim. This engine is in an excellent state of
preservation and well worth a visit.
One bright evening, after we’d had a few pints for supper,
we were returning to the camp when a car closed up behind the Rover, and
doubtless presuming we were locals and hence knew the road, drove on sidelights
about 3 inches away. As it happened, we
didnt know the road and after crossing two halt signs at high speed, turned a
nasty bend without slackening the pace. We never saw our companion again. This corner was later named Rhubarb Bend. It is a galloping bend which tightened up on
the way round and just where the average goon would run out of roads is a patch
of Rhubarb. Good solid local stuff about
eight feet high with enormous leaves.
It was at this stage that Sago took over the moral
leadership of the party. We had, in his
view, come over to see a tin mine and here we were camped next to one and doing
nothing. He was going to see about
getting us down. Usual method. Ask at the local garage. Yes, the tin mine was working. All the men were on holiday and we would have
no trouble getting down with the maintenance teams. All we would have to do would be to see the
Underground Manage who drinks at the North Inn and all would be well.
We find the pub, buy beer, and survey the situation. On the mantelpiece is a lump of rock. We examine it and Sir Mortimer Fowler tells
us that it is a common sample of the tetragonal prisms of Cossilerite, with the
terminal pyramids complete, in a schist of ferruginous silica.
A worried little man in the corner corrects him.
No, no zur. That be a lump of tin ore what we mine down
yer.
Oh, yes, say
sago. We know. Were going down the
mine tomorrow.
And here we must leave them for now. Will they get down the tin mine? Will they heck! We will continue this next month. Ed.
Personal.
To Beryl and Pat Ifold, a daughter at last! LORNA JANE. Weight 7lbs, 1½oz. Height
21. Born Saturday, 18th January.
CAVE EXPLORATION IN
IRELAND
Do Not Miss an illustrated talk by Oliver C. Lloyd U.B.S.S.
Thursday, 20th February 58 at 7.30PM
St Mary Redcliffe Church Hall
*****************************************
Editor: S.J. Collins,
Secretary: R.J. Bagshaw,
Ponsford Road
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Printers and Distributors: C. Rees,
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(new address will be published shortly)
R.J. Price:
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