Hon. Sec: A.R. Thomas,
Westhaven
School, Uphill, Weston s Mare,

Somerset.
Hon. Editor: – S.J. Collins, Homeleigh, Bishop Sutton,

Bristol

Editorial

Lessons from
Leicester?

Occasions like the C.R.G. symposium on Cave Surveying at
Leicester often provided interesting opportunities for speculation about the
differences between the various caving regions of

Britain.  Cavers with different points of views find
themselves nattering over the odd cup of coffee between lecture sessions, and
it does no harm to whether there is a grain of truth in some of the ideas which
get thrown around.  What prompts this
particular line of thought was the remark made by one of the delegates that
Mendip had provided a much greater amount of speakers and exhibits per mile of
cave in the region than had any other the other caving areas.  On mentioning this to a semi-retired caver
who had been very active in nearly all the caving regions, he remarked that
this was no surprise to him.  Since there
was less caving to do on Mendip than in say Yorkshire of South Wales – no doubt
Mendip cavers had more time to think about caving.

He went on to suggest that perhaps the future of Mendip
caving could well be one by which we spend most of our time thinking up new
ideas, techniques etc., which we tried out on Mendip caves – using the results
to do our main discoveries on expeditions to foreign countries and, perhaps
other caving regions.  It is certainly an
interesting thought!

About the B.B.

Now it seems that I shall be editing the B.B. for a little
while yet, a great effort is being made to catch up rapidly with publication
dates, and it is hoped that the April B.B. will be at least sent out in April,
while the May B.B. will actually be ready on time.  One small innovation designed to reassure
those who suspect that their B.B. has been held up for ages by the postal
department is that the bottom of the last page of every B.B. will carry the
date on it.

Committee Meeting

The March Committee Meeting elected Miss J. Barker, Miss N.
Brown, C. Abbel. R. Bridehaed, W. Cooper and P. Hamm to membership of the
club.  The Hon. Treasurer reported that
he had now received the draft conveyance for the sale of the barn.  The question of insurance of the new Belfry
against the theft came up, but it seems that we should have to put in a great
many security arrangements that would cost more than we could at present
afford, so for the tine being at least, there will be no cover against
theft.  You have been warned!  Alfie agreed to put temporary wiring into the
new Belfry and ‘Prew’ agreed to look into the plumbing.  Pete Franklin produced a set of fittings for
the showers at no cost., but the committee agreed to give the donating club £2
towards their funds.

On the subject of new buildings, several points were raised
by the committee and all these will be looked into.  A number of other minor matters were also
raised at the meeting.

Living in Style

by R.S. (Kangy) King

Lightweight mountaineering is the art of making sure that as
much as possible is in the other man’s rucksack.

Alan Bonner and I must be experts, because during our last
holiday, try as we might, our bags remained about the same weight.  I made sure that he carried his quarter tube
of toothpaste – he made sure that I carried the matches.  The end result was of such rigorous weight
control was that the necessities of life for a week would tot up to something
like twenty seven pound a piece.

So Alan and I set off for the Pic d’Estats in the French
Pyrenees.  We were camping a La Cortinada
in

Andorra
and were separated from the eleven thousand (odd) foot of the peak by a range
or so.  From an Andorran summit, the Pic
d’Estats looks good.  We were rather a
long way from it even as the chough flies, but with the eye of the faith we
studied the combination of maps so essential at the borders of countries and
discerning a route.  It seemed that the
easiest way involved climbing to an eight thousand, five hundred foot pass and
then trotting along a ridge to descend later by four thousand feet along a
valley which linked the first realistic route up the Pic d’Esatas.

Mistakenly we allowed ourselves three days.

Second breakfast was taken by a pretty lake in the floor of
the subsidiary valley we were following to gain the ridge and the col
d’Aspinal.  My tum, which became pretty
talkative during the next three days, demanded attention and got half pint of
coffee.  Rumbling and grumbling, my tum,
Alan and I gained the wrong end of the ridge. Very sad.  Not exactly bad map
reading, we thought, so much as bad map. Anyway, we had no alternative but to commit ourselves to about a
kilometre of grib Goch like ridge to regain the head of our valley.  Interesting, but frustrating as the hours
went by on a slow ridge that should have spent in a fast valley.  We gained the col; corrected the map, and
shot down the long, long valley as clouds gathered.

The approaching storm made us stop early to look for a
bivouac site.  I was keen to convert a
semi-detached cave, and Alan doubtfully agreed and started to peg the polysheet
into a crack whilst tum and I got on with the din.  A tremendous crack of thunder announced the
next part of the show and, huddled behind the sheet, we supped hot soup while
the chicken curry simmered and the lightning flashed.  Quite a storm.  Lashing into the site, the rain poured down
the rock and streamed over the sheet. After an hour or so of this, a network of cracks was penetrated and we
philosophically used the resultant drips to wash up with.  At the first break in the storm, we hurried
transferred to a dark, earth, smelly cabin built by local shepherds (who knew
better than us) not far away.  We slept
of the sheet and ignored the mice.

The next day, day two, was to be “climb mountain and come
down again” day (the day after being “going home day”).  Hoping that our detour and early stop had not
left us with too much to do, we hurried off as dawn broke.  Unfortunately, we had another hour and a
half’s descent before we could start to climb. The valley floor broadened out into a flattish plain.  The stream we were following developed by way
of rocky gorges into a widish river.  To
the right was the valley wall, reaching up to a skyline ridge.  The left was buttressed and split by
gorges.  We had to find the right gorge,
the one that led up to a glaciated plateau and thence to the summit.  We were carrying as little as possible, with
food and ice axes; having cached our sacks at the cabin.

Alan solved the first problem, that of crossing the river,
by wading in shallows to a place where the river ran narrow and deep and was
bridged by two saplings laid side by side. We bounced across.  The map showed
a vague path high on the walls of the Riofret gorge.  The right side of the gorge looked as it
might, in fact, have a path up it.  In
any case, there was no other choice as the left hand wall was steep and rocky
and the bed of the stream descended between high rock walls in substantial
steps.  So we embarked on long, slippery
grass slopes, wetly interspersed with little rocky walls and slabs and found no
path.  We were forced higher and higher
and after one particularly difficult and exposed vegetatious slab, we paused to
reconsider, and this time reluctantly turned back.  There seemed to be an awful lot of mountain
left to climb, the clouds were gathering, and we were a long way from home.

The descent, though long, was interesting because of the
difficulty of route finding on a convex ground. The axes were a boon and added to our safety.  Wet steep grass is no joke.

At the bottom of the gorge, we turned and went hard for our
previous evening’s bivouac.  Bachelor’s
catering packs provided a slap-up dinner and then gathering up the essentials,
off we went again to get as high as we could before darkness.

Mist rather than darkness called the next halt and, being
unsure of the way to the Col de Rat, we built a wall across a gap between two
boulders and, fortified by pints of soup, farmhouse stew and coffee we slid,
one at a time, underneath the polysheet and lay snugly, waiting for sleep.  Through the clear plastic we watched the mist
clear and lie low in the valley while the lowering sun tinted cotton wool clouds
with pink.  Yum yum.

Red sky at night – mountaineer’s delight.  We breakfasted and packed in a clear, crisp
dawn.  The way to the Col de Rat was now
plain to see and we tacked upwards, following an ancient smuggler’s route
easily to the gap between the ridges.  At
7.30, we crossed into

Andorra
and sat straddling the ridge and the border. As breakfast two was digested, it became more and more obvious that the
way to complete an already memorable trip was to traverse the ridge to a point
above the camp site rather than tamely follow our valley.  That decided, off we went.  It was good – all day ahead of us; sun filled
in a blue sky and unknown ridge stretching for miles, with only us to share it.

Time and again, we thought we were going to be beaten but,
fascinatingly at the last moment, weakness appeared – stiff rock walls
transformed into staircases; towers into canyons and gendarnies into
corridors.  Perhaps not quite as easily
as that for, at least once, I left my bag behind and mad an exploratory sortie
before safe progress could be made.  But
progress continued, and the ridge flowed behind us at a very reasonable
rate.  It is a very satisfyingly ridge,
of an even, stiffish standard with no escape down the sides except at a very
few places where gullies intersect.  And
it goes on.  We thought about five
kilometres of it, most of it mot more than a metre wised with occasional
swellings into summits of quite substantial peaks.

Eventually, after a morning, a lunch and an afternoon of
traversing the rocky ridge smoothed into the gentler slopes of the terminal
peak of l’Ortell.

We glissaded on the fir cones of the forest surrounding the
peak and lost about four thousand feet in height – and our way – amongst the
dense trees.  Following the slope and the
odd path, we eventually emerged in approximately the right place, and, just in
time for tea, swung into our base camp at la Cortinada.

Equipment Note

Something to sleep on or under, something to sleep in were a
large percentage of the weight.  Cooking
and food come next, and the very few clothes which were not worn come last of
all.  The selection of climbing equipment
carried varied with the severity of the peak but the comfort of knowing that it
is available usually justified its existence.

Most of the know-how for our lightweight experiment came
from Alan’s experience on the

Pennine
Way, which he completed solo.  The ‘something to sleep under’ consisted of a
ten foot by eight foot lightweight polythene sheet.  It would have been easier if this had been a
little larger.  The sheet, trapped all
round with stones, can be very secure, as Alan can testify.  One soon becomes an expert at the selection
of a site.  It is necessary to forget all
about pitching tents, and to carry in the mind a mental picture of the sheet,
which one can place in positions likely and unlikely.  Water drainage should be borne in mind but
should not to be regarded as the most important parameter because in the limit
one can always float on the airbed. Water draining from above should be guarded against as far as possible
and all this means that building a wall is probably the surest method.  Don’t be put off by this.  A wall can be built in the time it takes to
pitch a tent.  Alternatively, peg the
sheet into a crack in a rock face or cover the entrance of a small cave or
hollow or, if the worst comes to the worst, wrap yourself in it and ignore the
condensation.

Living in a sheet like this is a most agreeable
sensation.  The open end means that
condensation is avoided.  The lowness of
the sheet keeps the rain out.  There is
no feeling of claustrophobia, because the sheet is like a window, and waking in
the morning is delightful – almost as good as going to sleep directly under the
stars.  Certain formalities, however,
have to be observed.  The space is
constricted and, if two are to share it, a little organisation is
necessary.  This becomes obvious the very
first time one uses the bivouac and it simply boils down to moving one at a
time when dressing; cooking or sometimes even breathing!

On the move, home constantly changes as the sheet is moved
from one doubtful site to another.  The
sheet is always changing, and therefore is no fear of becoming bored with its
appearance or a persevering drip or a tiresome slope or a painfully placed
stone.

Fortunately, somebody invented the airbed.  Since my early camping trips when I trained
myself to sleep on my back and stoically ignored the insidious seeping of cold
from below whilst keeping half awake, stupefied with the awfulness of it all, I
have never been without one.  A fortnight
with what seemed no sleep and a perpetually bruised hip drove me to buy
one.  Not a large one, because I’m mean
both about money and weight, but a three-quarter length one.  In fact, my last airbed suffered the ignominy
of having its pillow cut off.   I suppose
the best length would be the length from shoulder to mid-thigh.  I’ve never tried a foam bed on the hoof.  Sounds bulky.

The rest of the sleeping arrangements can be completed – to
my satisfaction at least – with a sleeping bag. Don’t scrimp on this item.  At
high altitude, lying in an inadequate bag as the cold soaks in during the long night,
it is possible to regret the extra pound or two or so of down which one could
have had for the outlay of a little more cash.

For cooking, everyone has their own pet heating method.  We used gaz, the two hundred gram size.  Alan now prefers it to paraffin, and so do
I.  It’s quick and light and so there is
every incentive to knock up a quick hot meal or drink.  It’s clean, so it can be stuffed straight
back into the rucksack afterwards, perhaps even into a saucepan.  The saucepan – one off and large – should be
bought from Woolworth’s for as near nothing as possible, so that it is very
light.   It will have a handle.  Good. Make sure you hold onto it while cooking.  If you don’t know why, and don’t, then one
day you are going to be absolutely furious, as you spill all your dehydrated
soup.

The theory then is that comfort makes all things
possible.  Nothing to carry; hot food at
the drop of a hat; long luxurious nights of deep sleep and not a care in the
world.  We don’t seem to have said much
about dehydrated food we carried.  It was
Bachelor’s mainly; the catering packs with the splendid instructions ‘Take
seven pints of water, then add the contents of the packet to make fifty
generous helpings.  We found them tasty,
and we noshed like lords.

Notices

Change of Hut Warden

Owing to his taking up work in
Leicester,
‘Jok’ Orr has had to resign at Hut Warden. The Committee have elected Peter Franklin as Hut warden and Tim Hodgson
has been co-opted on to the committee to asct as his deputy.

Pete’s address is;

93
Devonshire Road, Henleaze,

Bristol

Caving Meet at Easter

This is now to be held in
Yorkshire,
NOT Derbyshire as previously arranged. Contact Caving Secretary for further details.

Cuthbert’s Leaders

The committee have asked that Fred Davies should be thanked
for his work of renovating some of the fixed ladders in Cuthbert’s.

Working Nights

Every Wednesday is working night at the Belfry.  Please turn up as often as you can.  There is plenty to be done and there will be
always be somebody at the Belfry to show you what wants doing!

Monthly Notes Number 32

by ‘Wig’

Now that the hullabaloo has died down following the
discovery of Wookey XX, work is quietly moving to obtain permission to sink a
shaft into the new part of the cave. During January, divers transported an electromagnetic device into the
large chamber lying in the lower reaches on the new cave.  A fix was made at this point.  A second fix was also made, though I
understand not so clearly, near the point where the divers broke through.  With the information brought back by the
divers, Jim Hanwell plotted the cave onto an OS map and showed that the end of the new cave was to the north, and in
the region of a shallow valley with a small outcrop of limestone.  The estimated depth of cave at this point was
fifty to eighty feet.  Whilst the
transmitter was doing its stuff, the divers located another three hundred feet
of passage at the upper end.  Before
digging commences, either by cavers or contractors working for the cave
management, another attempt is to be made in the very near future to locate the
upper end of the cave with as much accuracy as possible.

Whilst all this was going on, the St. Cuthbert’s Dining Room
Digging Team – though this name should change to the Sump Digging Team –
pressed on with the final phase in the construction of the new dam in Sump
Passage and the repair of the pipe joints in Sump I.  Sump II was dived in February by John Parker
of the C.D.G. who found that the passage closed down after twenty feet but that
the floor dropped rapidly for some thirty feet. The bottom was a no-goer as the way on was through a very small hole
just large enough to get a boot through. Apparently below this point, the passage widened, but just by how much
is anybody’s guess.

Readers will by now be aware that the political rumblings of
four years ago have just reached the eruption stage.  In the mid 60’s, the Council of Northern
Caving clubs issued a circular letter urging the formation of a National
Council.  It hinted that, should the
clubs in other regions not move with them, then the C.N.C.C. would go ahead on
its own.  A brief summary of the events
that led to the formation of both the C.N.C.C. and the C.S.C.C. – followed
later by the Cambrian Caving Council appeared in the B.B. at that time.  The Council of Southern Caving Clubs was
formed with a dual purpose in mind. Firstly, to protect its members from external influences, and secondly
to be a toothless monster (the veto principle being adopted when any issue was
to be voted upon) not affecting the autonomy of its members.  Circumstances prevailing locally set the channels
of thought for each of the councils.  The
Northern had problems of access where landowners would not negotiate with
individual clubs.  On the other hand, the
Southern clubs had the opposite situation, having good relations with the
landowners or farmers, who were prepared to negotiate with the individual
clubs, so that the C.S.C.C., was not prepared to enter into access arrangements
in any form.  Negotiations between the
councils commenced and, after many hours of discussion, a draft set of clauses
was published (see the B.B. for October 1969). Unfortunately, the stumbling block that is not yet resolved is the
question of voting.  The south wanted to
maintain the unanimity principle, whereas the remainder of the regional
councils were pressing for a seventy five percent majority system.  Deadlock was reached and the representatives
of the various councils were then left to report back to their various
councils.  In January, the C.S.C.C. met
and discussed the problem, and found that they could not see any reason why
they should change their minds.  The real
worry of members of the southern clubs is that the arrangements that have been
made by them with various landowners could well be ruined, as one of the main functions
of the Northern Caving Association is the thorny question of access by a simple
straight majority vote.  Thus, other
regions could well leave the Southern clubs defenceless unless we could use the
veto or unanimity principle.  The outcome
of the meeting, after the unanimity principle had been vetoed by the Welsh
representatives, was that a majority of 90% would be required for all changes
to the constitution; new members and finance – whereas a 75% majority would be
acceptable for all other matters. Whether the other councils will accept this compromise is not yet known,
but it is hoped that reason will prevail and that the N.C.A. will be freed from
any form of access control, particularly when so many widely differing
arrangements are to be found in each region. It its far better that the local organisations deal with access problems
in their own way, rather than to allow the Hon. Sec. of the N.C.A. hundreds of
miles from the trouble spot, to deal with the matter.  Let us hope that our unfortunate politicians
can win the day at the next confrontation.

Nearing the end…

A final burst of enthusiasm has come over several members of
the B.E.C., the M.C.G. and N.H.A.S.A.(!) that by splitting into two teams, the
Cuthbert’s I survey – except for about five hundred feet – will be completed
during Easter week.  The remaining points
will be passages requiring maypoles and very thin members such as the inlet
passage known as the Drinking Fountain. By the end of April there will be a dyeline print of the plan available
for the Belfry, and the full survey will be published at this years’ Annual
Dinner together with Derek Ford’s geomorphology of the cave.  For members who are wondering what has
happened to other parts of the Cuthbert’s Report.  Don’t worry – they are on the way.  A tremendous amount of cross-referencing is
required between each part, and so delays are inevitable at the moment.  On the stocks, ready for printing, are the
sections dealing with the Rabbit Warren; Maypole Series; Rabbit Warren Extension.  In addition, the following parts are waiting
final bits and pieces: – Main Chambers; New and Old Routes; Rocky Boulder and
Coral series and the Long Chamber series.

One or two members have not yet received their copies of the
spelaeodes.  Will anyone NOT having
received the copy ordered please contact Dave Irwin.  Will all who have made sales PLEASE send the
money to Bob, so that part 2 can be got under way.

A simple Home – Made Cjharger for NiFe Cells

by B. Prewer

Following the article on the care and maintenance of Nife
cells which appeared in last month’s B.B., we are able to present members with
a practical circuit for building a charger for their cells.  This article is by the same author as the previous
article – Brian Prewer.  It has a great
advantage over more conventional forms of charger in that the current is set
automatically by a transistor, which takes the place of the variable resistor
normally found in chargers for regulation charging current.  Thus, with the circuit provided by ‘Prew’,
any number of batteries – depending on the transformer supply voltage – may be
charged in series without the need for adjustment. The charger will give any
current from 0 to 2 amps. It may thus be used

To charge other types of battery.  For the NC 113 C cell, as stated in the
previous article, the charging rate should be 1.75 amps.  Further details on this article, or the
previous article, may be had by contacting Brian Prewer.  –Ed.

The circuit is shown on the next page.  Details of the components follow: –

Mains Transformer.  (T1)

Primary…..240 volts. (tapped if
necessary)

Secondary…20 to 30 volts at 3
amps.  The higher the secondary voltage,
the more NIFE batteries may be charged at once. However, care must be taken not to exceed the rating of the diodes and
transistor.

Silicon Rectifiers.  (D1 to D5)

Type 1S420 or equivalent.  Forward current 10 amps.  Peak inverse voltage 100 volts.

Transistor (Tr 1)

Type ZN 3055.

Resistors.  (R1 and R2)

R1, 470 ohms, 2 watts.  R2, 2.5 ohms, 10 watts.

Variable resistor (Vr 1)

1,000 ohms.

Zener Diode (Z1)

Type Z2A56CF, but any 5.6 volt
zener diode will do as long as it is rated at about 0.5 watt.

Meter (M1)

To read 0 to 2 amps full
scale.  A 0 to 5 amp meter will do.

Electrolytic Capacitor (C1)

500 microfarad at 50 volts
working

General Notes:

The transistor must be mounted on a heat sink, otherwise it
will overheat and destroy itself.  The
heat sink should be finned and have an effective area of at least 150 square
inches.  It should be about an eighth of
an inch thick.

All the components, including the finned heat sinks, but
excluding the transformer; main switch and fuse, may be obtained from; A.
Marshall and Sons Ltd., 28 Cricklewood Broadway, London NW2

A suitable transformer may be obtained from; Samson’s
Electronics Ltd.,

9/10 Chapel
Street,
London NW1

*****************************************

Readers will have noted the poor quality of the reproduction
of the two photographs of inn signs which we printed in the January B.B.  The Stencil was one of the few which Mike
Luckwill had produced ready for his term as editor of the B.B., and the idea
was to print to show readers the improvements which he would have made to the
B.B., if he had lived.

Alas!  We expect that
Mike must have had access to a duplicator if much better quality than the one
which is used at present for the B.B. duplication!  Our good idea thus failed to come off.  Even so, quite a number of readers recognised
the signs, and had visited the pubs in question.  Maybe we should run a pub identification
series?

*****************************************

The B.B. is VERY short of articles; letters, or any useful
form of contribution from readers. Please, if you have done anything which you think others would be
interested in (within reason!) WRITE IT UP AND SEND IT TO S.J. COLLINS,
HOMELEIGH, BISHOP SUTTON,

BRISTOL

Impressions of the Symposium on Cave Surveying held at
Leicester
by the C.R.G.

The first impression obtained by the writer on arriving at

Vaughan
College was that is was a remarkable
achievement for the organisers to have packed out the hall which held two
hundred people to the extent that many additional cavers had to stand at the
back.  I estimated that about 230 were
present at each of the lectures through the day.  When one considers that the subject of Cave
Surveying is a specialist one not likely to prove very attractive to the
average caver, it was a remarkable attendance.

I will not go through the papers in detail, except to note
that Mendip speakers were well in evidence, although there were very few Mendip
cavers in the actual audience.  Some
interesting fact emerged from the papers as a whole.  The O.F.D. surveyors, for example, relied on
the fact that errors tend to cancel on very long traverses, and thus developed
a high speed method of surveying which, although not very accurate for a pair of given survey stations, nevertheless
produces a good enough result over the very long traverses they
encountered.  The accuracy of radio (or
more correctly, magnetic field) location methods was another eye opener.  Accuracies of a foot or two are being claimed
with some confidence, provided that the depth of the passage is not too
great.  Depth measurements are less
accurate.  The use of computers to
translate elevations, bearings and distances into Eastings, Northings and
depths was also impressive, although the writer had the feeling that some of
the computer boys got a little carried away with the possibilities of the
computer later in the afternoon.

The subject of survey presentation was represented by papers
by Mendip authors – ‘Wig’ and ‘Alfie’, and it begins to look as if Mendip has
the monopoly of work in this field at present.

Anyone interested in the subject of cave surveying will able
to purchase the complete set of proceedings of this symposium later in the year
when they are published.  The B.B. will
keep members informed of arrangements to get hold of copies.

*****************************************

The Belfry Bulletin for March, 1970.  Printed (stencils completed) by Wednesday,
March 25, 1970.