Hon. Sec: A.R. Thomas. Allens House, Townsend, Priddy,
Wells,

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

Bristol

Editorial

Masters Of Membership

From time to time, matters affecting the qualifications
required for membership of the club get discussed at meetings of the
committee.  A point which recently arose
on this subject was that a few small groups of individuals fail to make
effective contact with the remaining membership of the club.  The B.E.C. has, for most of its life, been
happily free from any forms of clique or faction and this is a characteristic
which has been, and should be, carefully preserved by committee action if need
be.  Applicants for membership are
traditionally expected to make themselves known to a reasonable cross section
of the club before applying, and this is a point which may well be regarded
more carefully by the committee in future. Existing members who make little or no attempt to integrate could, in
theory at any rate, fail to get their membership ratified on the grounds that
they are insufficiently known – a matter which new members may well like to
consider.

Addresses

November is the month when traditionally the B.B. prints a
list of member’s names and addresses.  If
yours is incorrect in any way, please get in touch with Alan and let us know
where you really lived!

Christmas B.B.

The usual attempt will be made to have a bigger that usual
B.B. for Christmas.  How big it is
depends on what gets sent in for publication. In addition to the more normal articles etc., humorous article are
welcomed at Christmas.  Any Offers?

“Alfie”

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

Some people don’t know the Hon. Secs. new address yet.  The full address plus postcode and telephone
number is: –

Alan Thomas,
Allen’s House,

Ninebarrows Lane,
Priddy,
Wells,

Somerset.
BA5 3BH

And the telephone number is PRIDDY 269

Tinkering Around in Perthshire

by Steve Grimes

Editor’s Note:

When he sent this in, Steve wrote
‘I know this is not the usual sort of thing for the B.B. to print, but it does
show how you can get away to the hills with a young family and no car.  We wonder just how many formerly keen cavers
of climbers have quietly faded away after marriage and the arrival of a family
because of the handicaps of a baby and the resulting tight financial
situation.  This article shows what can
be done, and we look forward to hearing from anyone else who can give similar
encouragement to those who are feeling that their active outdoor lives must
stop when they became parents.         The
summer holiday period was looming large on the horizon.  The baby was flat on its back showing no
inclination to move, or even attempt to move under its own steam and the car
was secreted away on a patch of waste ground sans road tax.  What to do and where to go under these
circumstances had become an evening talking point for weeks.  We didn’t want to spend the time with parents
and we couldn’t even afford a special discount Billy Butlin’s holiday sickness
session.

The germ of going camping gradually buzzed its way round my
head.  No car would mean travelling
light.  That would be a joke in itself,
considering the mountain of gear needed to keep a seven month old squalling
brat on the hill.  It had filled the car
on our Whit. weekend in Glen Coe!

Then there was the fact that we didn’t want to have the
bother of changing trains, so that point should be limited us to the east side
of

Scotland.  Out came the maps, and we at last decided to
use Pitlochry as the jumping off point, and then walk around lochs Tummelo and
Rannoch.  We eventually sorted out the
logistics by various subtle mods to the high pram.  I built a small rack to fit on the chassis
ands on this rack to fit the crockery, tea towels etc.  This was all covered by a polythene
sheet.  Aft of this was strapped a gallon
petrol container and the petrol stove, the whole lot being lashed down with big
bungies.  On the port side, lashings were
attached to take the tent (Blacks, mountain) and the starboard side was
similarly equipped to take the sleeping bags and the dog’s blanket.  Over this last were strapped the cooking
gear.  More, however, is to come!  In these large prams, there is a very
cunningly concealed double bottom.  I
have the impression that before the advent of plastic pants, this was designed
as a soak away for babies’ effluent.  On
this occasion, we used it to stow away the tins of Heinz baby foods required to
keep the thing stoked up to ten days. Our particular pram had a sort of folding mattress which could be locked
in position to keep the occupant in a sitting posture.  This we locked in place and used the cavity
thus exposed to stow the other tinned food required, dog meat, beans, fruit and
the rest.

Dorothy had my Whillans Alpinistic sac packed with
disposable nappies and hers and the baby’s spare clothes and I had a

Yukon pack stuffed with
my gear and the rest of the food.  Our evening
meals were invariable Vesta food packs preceded by packet soup and followed by
tinned fruit.  The luxuries consisted of
a transistor radio strapped to the pram handle and three books packed around
the baby.

Come the Saturday morning and we caught the first train to
Pitlochry.  We arrived there about noon
and, after two attempts, finally found the correct way to cross the railway
line.  We then had our lunch down by the
river just below the hydro dam.  Lunch
over; we set off down the road in the direction of

Tummel
Bridge.  We used the road on the south side of the
loch, as the motorised tourist tend to use the double track road on the north
side and they can then stop and visit Queen’s View, which looks straight down
both lochs.

On that first day, we walked about seven miles, passing a
very fine monument erected to the memory of the men who died while digging the
Tummel hydro tunnel.  We found a very
pleasant little place just off the road and went into what was soon to become a
familiar routine.  I erected the tent,
while Dorothy had the sleeping bags out and sorted the evening’s nosh; I leapt
into the countryside and collected wood. One cupful of petrol on the woodpile, followed swiftly by a match and
bang!  Instant fire or deluge of wood
depending on the amount of petrol used. The baby was fed first and then bedded down, after which I cooked the
evening meal and then we had time for a wee read before retiring.

The next day, we strolled down the loch side to

Trummel
Bridge where there is a caravan site.  It had rained during the walk and our spirits
were rather low as we went into the campsite. Humour soon brightened things up, though.  I went to the reception desk to book in and
pay our dues and the wee manny behind the desk got his ledger out and took my
name, rank and number and then got around to transport.

“Car?” he said. 

“Alwin, Mark I!”, I said. 

“Registration letters and
numbers?” 

“P.R.A.M.” 

Quizzical look, followed by the dawning of comprehension as
he saw the travelling circus, as by this time we had begun to call it, parked
outside.

The night was ruddy awful to say the least.  The petrol stove refused to run on stale
petrol, and the filling station down the road was closed.  The bairn refused to take cold food and
eventually grizzled herself to sleep. The ground was rock hard, as this was essentially as caravan site, so
that sleep did not come easily.

As we were leaving next morning en route for Kinloch
Rannoch, my dog savaged and put to flight a big, soft and poncy Alsatian.  The petrol pump attendant thought this was
fantastic and asked what breed my beast was and quite gullibly took down
‘Hebridean Fighting Dog’ while we went on our way chuckling to ourselves.

That evening, we found a really idyllic camp site on the
shores of Loch Rannoch.  There was plenty
of dead timber around for a campfire and a luxuriant covering of grass on the
ground.  The stayed there for two days
lounging in the sun, drinking tea and beer and swimming in the loch.

After a rather nerve-racking walk along the main road from
Trummel Bridge to Kinlock Rannoch (there was no footpath beside the road) we
decided to take the road which goes up the initial slopes of Schiehallion
(3,547’) as it would be quieter.  We
didn’t walk very far, as the sun was really scorching down and the road was
very steep.  At about 2 pm, we found a
beautiful little place about two hundred yards from the road by the side of a
wee burn.  It was a fine turfy patch which
nestled inside a meander with a few trees sheltering it from the worst of the
wind.  We took the opportunity to do our
washing here and soon the place looked like a real tinker’s hideout with
washing swinging from lines stretched between the trees and naked baby gurgling
around.

That evening, while we were sitting out looking up at the
hills, we decided to climb them on the following day.  I had made a wee seat for my pack frame on
which to sit the bairn, so all we had to hope for was good weather.  The day dawned clear and at about eleven am,
we shambled off to climb Schiehallion and headed for the

east ridge. This ridge was a lot further away than it looked.  During our ascent, the clag built up and
dropped down over the hilltop. Eventually we reached the summit – a huge boulder field which the dog
did not like very much.  After the usual
orgy of photography, we departed and landed back at the tent at about half past
five in the afternoon.  While we were at
the summit, we were surrounded by a horde of boy scouts who thought that they
had done very well until they saw Julia.

The next day saw our longest march – seventeen miles back to
the camp site of the first day.  We
didn’t really notice the distance until we stopped – then it hurt.  We made our way back to Pitlichry and waited
for the train by the riverside again – in glorious sunshine, getting home to
Inverkeithing at about nine in the evening. It was a fantastic holiday which cost us £5 each for the rail fare and
13/6 for a lovely coffee jug which Dorothy just couldn’t resist.

Just a Sec

Tim Large, of 16 Meade House, Wedgwood Road, Twerton, Bath
has taken over as caving Sec., and in future he will be the man responsible for
the issue of Charterhouse permits.  Fairy
Cave Quarry permits and the G.B. and August/Longwood keys.

The Annual Dinner again was a great success and, as usual,
there was the same battery of minor complaints. It just seems that you can’t please everybody on that scale.  The proprietors of the restaurant endeavoured
to remedy for this year, the complaints that we received last year.  Now is the time to hear of any shortcomings
which can be remedied while they are still in our minds.

Bob tells me that there are one or two people who still have
not paid for the dinner.  If we are
compelled to issue tickets next year, it may mean some extra delay in getting
your ticket sent to you on time and will almost certainly add to the cost of
the dinner.  Perhaps those who have not
paid will get in touch with Bob as soon as possible.

Members Addresses

PLEASE NOTE:  If you
know of any mistakes in any of the B.E.C. members addresses in this list,
PLEASE get in touch with the correct address and let Alan Thomas, or John
Ransom have it.

Book Review

The Great Storm and
Floods of July 1968 on Mendip.  J.D.
Hanwell & M.D. Newson. 

Wessex
Cave
Club.

One cannot be failed to be impressed by the professionalism
of the Wessex Series of Occasional Publications.  This one, number 2 in the series, has the
same glossy cover – but this time with colour added, and the same high standard
of litho text and illustrations.  It is,
perhaps, a pity that in format and binding it differs so much from No.1, and
one wonders whether some greater concession to uniformity of the series could
not have been achieved.    This criticism
apart, the subject matter has been treated with the high standard we are coming
to expect from this series.  Although the
authors have collected a truly impressive amount of relevant data they have
been careful to point out those areas in which firm data is lacking and have
refrained from conclusions or predictions based upon extrapolation of their
data.  The result is a booklet which
should prove a useful work or reference to specialists on the effects of heavy
storms on a Karst area, and on the dangers of flooding in caves is of
particular relevance.  At 12/-. a good
buy – even if it is not read in its entirety.

The Complete Caves of
Mendip.  Nicholas Barrington &
W. Stanton.  Barton
Productions.

It seems unlikely that any Mendip caver would quarrel with
the inclusion of the word ‘complete’ in the title.  Within its 131 pages will be found useful
references to ALL Mendip caves known to the authors at the time of printing
ranging from well known caves and caves and which have since been abandoned.  Even lost caves of Cheddar and Burrington get
a mention!  In spite of this great mass
of cave information, reference is very rapid and simple and the authors have
obviously taken much trouble over this aspect of the work.  With its greatly improved layout, important
in heavy type, easily found references both to the O.S. maps and to its own
sketch maps of the main cave bearing areas and a wealth of other information;
it is surely a must for every caver.  It
is strongly bound and fist the pocket easily and at 12/-; 75p or 6.5 pints of
cooking bitter; it must be regarded as a part of any Mendip cavers
equipment.  The authors are to be
congratulated on a thoroughly useful book which treats Mendip caves in a more
comprehensive fashion than the equivalent books do for other British caving
areas.

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

If YOU come across an interesting book on caving, climbing
or other allied subject, the B.B. would appreciate a review.  In addition to the books in the club library,
many cavers form libraries of their own, and might appreciate YOUR thoughts on
any new book.

Monthly Crossword – Number 6.          

Across:

1. Regularly mixed in G.B. (7)
5. 5 found in Sago’s Pot (3)
6. Found in many compasses (5)
8. Herbal mixing of  1 down (4)
11. Swallet in Horseshoes bat hanging (4)
12. Satanic joint (5)
14. This, though shortened will ignite with a bang (3)
15. Bass lie – (goes downstream at any rate) (7)

Down:

1. Underground route starts with
mountain route (7)
2. Egg or feature of G.B. (5)
3. ‘A man may have lust for the….of the mine’ (4)
4. Initially chairman of our A.G.M. (1,1,1)
7. Dull ham in Cuthbert’s (3,4)
9. 14 across does (5)
10. A Banwell cave (4)
13. Scientific workplace in the Slabhouse Inn (3)

Solution To Last Month’s Crossword

Stencils completed 3.12.70