Contents
Old Age Dept.
This is the beginning of Volume Fifteen of the B.B. It makes you realise how time flies when we
pause to consider that, with the end of this volume, we shall have edited the
B.B. for a third of its total life! This
is a long time, and if any readers begin to notice a touch of senility creeping
in, we should be obliged if they will tell us.
Caving Reports.
No, youre wrong! This is not yet another apology for the fact that everything is getting
years out of date. Bryan Ellis, now
that Her Majesty has finished with his services, has agreed to produce these in
future, and to straighten out the sad state of affairs into which they have
fallen. Youll soon be able to get them
S.M.C.C. Occasional Papers.
This reminds us that two very good reports have been
recently published by the Shepton Mallet Caving Club One on their caving in
make excellent additions to the cavers library. If any of our more far flung readers have
difficulty in getting then, write in and I will pass over the letters to the
S.M.C.C.
January Committee Meeting.
No new members were elected in January. The committee dealt with arrangements for the
now building, more bunks for the Belfry,
badges and ties, the water levy, the purchasing of telegraph poles, drainage
of our land and assorted other Business.
The
East Indies
…….Continued from the Christmas Edition of the B. B.
The transformation from west to east was amazing. In
tugs etc. Here, there were caravans
slowly plodding their way along the banks, and sand Dows sedately sailing up
and down. There is a road down the side
of the canal from
sand, palm trees and still more sand. It
was still March and at home they had snow but we, once we were acclimatised,
soon shifted into shorts and sandals. By
now we were working tropical routine, sailing through the
Sea
party, the whole ship had a make and mend every afternoon – and we needed
it. I have never had the misfortune to
be in the
bad enough. Eventually we arrived at
had six hours leave while the ship refuelled. It was my first encounter, on shore, with the exotic East – filth and
dirt everywhere, foul smells and dilapidated houses. The bazaars are full of imported goods –
mainly Japanese but occasionally one gets a glimpse of the true East. Women in purdah, oxen pulling ploughs in the
fields, wooden Dows in the harbour, beautifully tooled leatherwork and perfumes
that would turn the head of any man. Leaving
were soon in the flat calm of the
Aden
surface, with here and there the occasional shark. So we passed the gates of hell, into the
Arriving at
we dropped our hook about three miles off shore – its very shallow – only to
find that, as usual, the disturbance had dissolved at the news of our approach.
“Llew”
Pritchard.
Caving Logs
20th
November. Rod’s Pot. Roger and Daphne Stenner. Daphnes first trip for many moons.
27th November. Hollowfield Swallet. Pat Ron
and Jim Giles. First B.E.C. trip to this
cave for many moons. Hollowfield, for those who don’t got around much these days, is on the other side
of Priddy, up the second road going due north on the right, and in a field two
fields away from, the road, through the first gate on the right. It consists of a short pitch at about 45°
leading into a small chamber. Going down
from this chamber is a vertical drop of about thirty foot, leading to a chamber
of about the same size as the Gents bedroom at the Belfry. On the right hand
side of this chamber is a short passage, about fifteen feet long which gets
progressively narrower. On the left are
two passages which join up after a few yards and go down in three short stages
for about forty foot at about 30° to the horizontal. This route also gets very narrow, and is very
damp due to the drip from the chamber roof collecting and forming a minute
stream. In the Main Chamber we found two
bats and several bones which were probably part of some animals
scaffolding. Quite an interesting trip
and a pleasant change from the usual Swildons. Watch out for further B.E.C. activity in this cave!
27th November. Goatchurch. R. Stenner and
party of six Lockleaze boys. Also Pat
with same party. The drop was laddered
and four of the party went down.
3rd December. Roger Stenner. Garth and Trevor swallet spotting after a
fine downpour. Very interesting. Much water going down Vee and large lake of
unknown depth in the Devils Punchbowl.
3rd December. G.B. Nigel, Pat, Jim
Borchard, Jim. Giles. A short
photographic trip going down the Gorge to the Bridge and up the White
Passage. We found that the size of the
Gorge made photography very difficult (Did you use the dreaded side lighting?
Ed.) We did get a couple of shots of the
torrent. We also proved that bats are
either (a) blind or (b) deep sleepers by taking a close up flash
photograph. The mystery of the ‘Lamp
Pox is also solved. Dont fill up with
muddy water.
3rd December. G.B. Alan, Ian plus 2, Peter
and Lady C. Devil’s Elbow
impassable. Down via
and Ox-Bow and out straight up the Gorge.
4th December. Wookey Hole. Conducted
tour. Jim Borchard, Jim Giles, Garth,
Bushy, Pat, Tiny, Dick Langdon and Fred Green. How not to spend £1-8-0 on a Sunday afternoon, although some photographs were taken,
8th December.
and brother, George Mossman, Steve Tuck, Roger Stenner plus 2, Garth, Nigel,
Pete Scott and Dave Causer. A total of
fifteen bods in all. Down at about 8
p.m. and everyone down to the bottom of the ladder bar Roger. Nigel peeled off on the Muddy Traverse but
didn’t get wet. Alan, Roy and Steve went
up a subsidiary passage.
time holding up a pile of stones. P.S. Alan needs to be taught how
to tie a bowline. P.P.S. Garth needs to be taught how to climb a
ladder.
10th December. Swildons. Jim Giles, Jim
Borchard, Tiny Tierney and Ron
Towns. Introduction to caving for Tiny
and Ron. In via the Long Dry and out via
the Short Dry. Tiny was stuck three
times and didn’t go much on the noble art of crawling through little oles in
the ground. On the other hand, Ron
thoroughly enjoyed the trip. The water
rift showed signs of having taken rather a large quantity of water during the
week.
11th December. Dallimores Cave. Jim, Jim,
Ron and Tiny. The 20 rope advised by
idea, but how does the last man get down when there aren’t any decent belay
points? In fact, the rope wasn’t
required. The trip was very enjoyable
and quite rewarding. (Ron found a 1948
2/- piece). We went right down to the
mud choke at the bottom of the rift without getting too wet. One photo taken and four bats found.
17th December. Goatchurch and Sidcot. Jim Hill, Christine Corrick and Pat. Very enjoyable trip. Christine’s first ventures in this field of
activity, and despite us getting lost most of the time, she seemed to think it
was something to be continued.
17th December. Swildons – Trouble Series. Dave Causer, Bob Pike and Jim Giles. A six hour trip to the end of Trouble Series, including a spell of
gardening at Shatter Pot. Some very
beautiful formations to be seen for the price of two mud sumps. The first has about 4 clearance and the
second about 2″. Before going into
Trouble we stopped for a brew of tea at the Blue Pencil Cafe – made in an empty
tin can – and a few biscuits. At the top
of the Forty we met a solo caver – from that export’s club –
who we bade farewell in no uncertain manner. Avery good trip
16th December. Longwood. Two nits who wore
steaming when they came out – Llew and Jim Giles – did a very wet trip below
the main chamber.
25th December. Swan Hotel, Wells. Spike,
Pam, Nigel, Frank, Graham, Jim Giles, Alan Thomas and Garth. A very enjoyable trip to the Dining
Room. Spike got stuck in the entrance
squeeze. The M.R.O. were not called out.
27th December. Swildons. Richard, J. Wolff,
Nick, J. Trip down to sump and back via
normal tourist attractions, reached Forty on the way back to find our ladder
about fifteen feet from the deck, caught on the drainpipe at the top After a hazardous climb it was retrieved and
the party got out.
28th December.
about this cave from B.E.C. members,
and Britain Underground, a trip was made to see if any further work could be
done. The cave itself seemed pretty
hopeless, but further south along the quarry face, a further hole was
examined. This hole is about nine inches
high and two foot wide and seems to be full of small rocks which could be moved
fairly easily. It seems possible that
another cave could exist here. Permission to dig must be sought from the Waldegrave Estate Office.
29th December. Swildons. Bob Pike and Jim
Giles. A laddering trip.
29th December. Priddy Green. As above. Trip to get an idea of the work going on in
this hole.
30th December. Swildons – Trouble Series. Jim Giles, Bob Pike, Bob Lauder, Richard
Roberts. First of the Trouble sumps
found to be impassable. After three
hours baling and siphoning, headroom of one inch made. Decided not to take risk and returned to
surface.
30th December. Goatchurch and Sidcot. R.
Stenner + 3 boys.
Personal
Congratulations to Chris and Vivienne Falshaw on the birth
of their son, Simon Meriadoc. Born on
the Twenty eighth day of November, too!
Congratulations also to Bob and Mary Price on the birth of
their daughter.
Congratulations to Sid Hobbs and Sylvia, who have announced
their engagement. We fancy that we might
have another engagement to announce in the near future. Rumour hath it that Parsons the jewellers are
doing rather well at the moment.
Letters
To the Editor of the B.B.
Cock,
I was sitting at the old Cain and Abel, taking a butchers at
the Christmas B.B. while I was aving a cuppa rosie and a spit and a drag larst
night. As I was finking of going up the
apples to me uncle Nod, I claps me mince pies on this piece abaht the
L.S.M.S. and its good work. Cor! Wot eroism and bravery those boys must ‘ave! If I’d ‘ad any boos in the sky of me whistle and flute, I’d ‘ave sent it
on to you to ‘elp ’em run their jam jar dahn to where all them ‘cathons and savages live. An old china of mine went dahn there once and
come back as fast as is platesd let ‘im. Said they all talked so queer they couldn’t be uman. Still, I must pack this lark in and scarper
up them apples as the birdlime’s getting on.
C.V. Lized-Mann.
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To the Editor, Belfry Bulletin.
Dear Sir,
It is some time since I last wrote to this magazine and it
was not until I read the article in the Christmas B.B. by a Mr. Entrails, or
some such name, that I realized how short of articles you must be.
If there is any form of education in the jungles of Mill
Hill Mr Entrails may have learned that, over the centuries, civilisation has
generally spread west. For example –
once had the largest collection of wattle houses in the country (after
Entrails should realise that
big place for weegees to visit, like
he must retain of the hovels of
flaming under the torches of Boudicca’s army and the recollection of his flight
from his rude bed, clad only in a state of barbarity. They say that Boudicca’s tribes revolted
against
an understandable feeling which is still felt by most people in these more
placid, times. It seems fairly clear
that this rubbish about
disguise for the true purpose of those Eastern wogs who are still searching for
their familiar old homes – the Mendip caves serving as a weekend substitute.
If Mr Entrails wishes to discuss the whereabouts of the true
centre of the universe in a logical instead of an emotional manner, I would
like to ask why he found it necessary to define the wog and civilised parts of
you will find it unanimously stated that the centre of the universe lies six
inches in front of the Belfry stove.
Finally, I note that, according to the article, the
L.S.M.S. was formed by a group of very charitable people of Civilisation. I find this and the whole article frankly
incredible, but if Mr Entrails wishes to prove its truth, he and his fellow
wogs will no doubt be only too willing, to feed me on Drambuie and plain
chocolate as a demonstration of their charitable intentions!
Yours Faithfully,
Jill Rollason.
P. S. Note to readers; any typing errors which appear in
this article are caused by the strong emotions of our (wog) Editor.
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We should like to thank all contributors for the amount of
articles sent in, which enabled us to
produce such a big Christmas number, and still have something in reserve to tide us over the
first few B.B.’ s of this year. Although
your article may not appear in next month’s B.B., all contributions are still
very welcome, so don’t stop writing! ED.
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Editor, S.J.
Collins, 33,
Terrace,
Secretary. R. J. Bagshaw,
4.
Postal Department.