University of Bristol Spelæological Society

HUT RENOVATIONS
 

Wanda Owen and Linda Wilson working in the Hut in summer 2018

Elaine and Cat repainting, January 2018

By January 2018, the next generation of Hut Engineers had taken over and Cat now takes up the tale ....

Married quarters sorted!

After some enthusiastic rodding, the dismantling of the chimney led to a total clearing and the wood burner there is now tried and tested and back in action, so the place gets quite toasty! All of the old manky mattresses have been removed - regrettably it was not possible to dispose of the foam rodent nest-ridden health hazards in an environmentally friendly way so they were incinerated with much gusto on a bonfire of rotten drying room shelves, and brand-new plasticised mattresses have been installed. The handy extra sleeping space will be much-needed for the upcoming ram-packed annual dinner hut party!


 Mattress disposal, UBSS-style

Progress on wood burner/drying room: preparations have been commenced for the much-discussed and procrastinated upon wood burner! All of the equipment bar the wood burner itself has arrived and is awaiting installation at the hut, and the drying room has been stripped and insulated and had an excessive amount of free radiators hung. Some very beautiful copper piping has been expertly installed by Haydon, although not quite all of them are connected to the system yet. A 140L hot water tank is installed ready to be fed by the backburner and soon provide ACTUAL HOT RUNNING WATER! Further progress on the UBSS sauna/very stinky steam room project is ongoing under the the enthusiastic guidance of Haydon Saunders...


 New mattresses in the Married Quarters.

Repainting of the sleeping area is complete, and only a small amount of the dining area remains to be repainted.  All in all, it was very successful weekend and lots of stuff got done! Make way for the UBSS palace!

NEW YEAR'S EVE DINNER

Linda Wilson reports on the club's longest-standing tradition, New Year's Eve at the Hut....
 

 
The rituals were duly performed to ensure that the sun would rise again the following morning, starting with Hish, Hash, Hosh, otherwise known as ‘sneezing’. The origins of this are obscure, to say the least. This is believed to be a medics’ ritual in origin and there are references to this in a university Nonesuch publication from the early 1920s. The names of absent friends are called out from the four points of the compass, followed by a chorus of ‘hish, hash, hosh, bacon’. If anyone knows more about this part of the rituals and its origins, please let me know! This is followed by a UBSS choir rendition of The Old Crows. Again, none of us know why this song became acquainted with the society, and if anyone knows, please tell me! When Oliver Lloyd died in 1985, we briefly lost a line from the song, but following an appeal in the newsletter, Nigel Wallace and others came forward with the words. I’m intending a longer piece on this for later in the year, but again, more information would be welcomed. The rituals end with Auld Lang Syne, which always ends with an enthusiastic scrum.

We must have performed the rituals correctly, as the sun duly rose the following morning. If you missed this year’s dinner, you’ll have another chance to come along at the end of the year!

CONGRATULATIONS!

In other news from the Christmas period, congratulations are due to Stu and Cayley Alldred on the birth of Rupert, the latest addition to the UBSS extended family, on 19^th December 2018.
 

Rupert, wearing a very fetching caving helmet!

SRT TRAINING/PRACTICE
 

                                         Dr Andy Flack

The University of Bristol Speleological Society (UBSS) will celebrate its 100^th anniversary in 2019.  
 
The UBSS is the oldest society in the UK whose primary objective is the study of caves and their contents; in addition, it is the oldest student caving society in the world and the oldest University of Bristol University society with a continuous existence. As such its members are ‘archives’ in their own right. While log books, field reports and other related ‘official’ records contain certain kinds of information, the majority of stories and experiences of life underground never find their way into these kinds of historical sources. These personal histories of the society, and of caving more broadly, risk being lost if they are not captured.  

This is why the UBSS, in collaboration with University of Bristol environmental historian Dr Andy Flack, will this summer run a project that coincides with the UBSS centenary year, in order to capture informal histories of the society through a series of oral history interviews with many of the longest-standing members. The recording of these memories will create a vital resource, not only for the society and its members in years to come, but also for researchers more widely. Indeed, the research will represent a substantial contribution to historical understanding of the development of 20th century caving. 

As part of the project, two undergraduate historians will work with Dr Flack to complete a series of about 20 oral histories will be conducted, mainly across the middle months of the society’s centenary year (roughly 1^st May-31^st July 2019). In addition to this, members of the society more broadly will have the chance to contribute to the project via email questionnaires and informal interviews.

MEMORY - LITTLE NEATH RESCUE 1970

To start us off, our president Bob Churcher has a story to tell about an ill-fated trip to Little Neath River Cave some years ago ....


Little Neath River Cave, photo courtesy of Peter Glanvill.

Little Neath, 1970, a Saturday in February ....... and a "rescue story." It was a cold, grey winter's day, and the Little Neath river was running quite well, but we thought (after some discussion) that there wasn't too much going down the entrance.

There were five of us from the club, continuing the exploration and survey of the high-level series which we hoped might provide a way over the sumps into New World. We were up in the higher passages for some hours, but everything seemed to be choked with deep old sand deposits. Eventually it became time to end the trip, but on our return to the river it was obvious that something was very wrong - the noise from the river was deafening! We were all in (home-made) wet suits, and we attempted to get out, but at the start to the entrance series it became clear there was no point, as we weren't going to be able to get out. One problem was simply the force of water crashing down the passage, another was that the entrance, being below river level, if off to the side, was going to be sumped. Accordingly we returned to the high level series, and made a sort of nest in the sand, where we tried, somewhat ineffectually, to get some sleep. Wet wetsuits in around eight centigrade are not really conducive to sleep! In many ways our main concern was the call-out time, which we were going to be well over! 
 
Every now and again one of us went out of the chamber to inspect the river in the main passage below us, but although the water levels were steady, in that they weren't any longer rising, our hope for exit was forestalled by the arrival of two members of SWCC. (South Wales Caving Club/rescue). We went out with them, into a rather chilly dawn, to meet both the rescue, who had been trying to build a coffer dam with sandbags, the police, two fire engines bogged in Mr Lewis's field, two ambulances somewhat less firmly stuck, flood lights, generators, two fire pumps trying to lower a river in flood, and "uncle Tom Cobley and all" - not too mention many of the older members of SWCC.

They had all had a long night, and although possibly pleased to see us, were somewhat less than complimentary.  These days I am sure we would have been wrapped up and carted off to hospital, but on that occasion we were simply told to do our penance by emptying and returning the sandbags, (as they all attempted to pack up and push off) to fill in the ruts in Lewis's field, and not to do it again. Which we didn't ...

Yes, you've guessed it, we're going to make a shameless attempt to part you from some of your hard-earned cash! Well, we'd be missing a trick if we didn't. Oliver Lloyd Fund Trustee Linda Wilson is going to take some of you on a trip down memory lane  back to 1985, and the sudden death of UBSS treasurer, Oliver Lloyd ...


Oversuits, helmets and lights purchased with funds received from the Oliver Lloyd Memorial Fund and the University of Bristol's Alumni Foundation.

I'd be very surprised if Oliver - or Lloyd, as he was almost universally known to members of the club - doesn't feature in quite a few memories this year. I've certainly got a few stories to tell, and if we're lucky, we can get Marco Paganuzzi to relate his experiences with Lloyd's haunted typewriter! For those who didn't know him, it's probably fair to say that Lloyd was one of the club's greatest characters and his death left a huge hole in the club, one that we had to fill with several people stepping up to take on his various jobs.

Our then president, Professor Bob Savage, mindful of how university grants were gradually being whittled away, was concerned about the long-term viability of our annual Proceedings, and he proposed setting up a trust fund in Oliver's name, with the intention of providing in-house funding for Proceedings as and when needed. A trust was duly set up, with the UBSS as its sole beneficiary. I was one of the original trustees, along with Bob, Desmond Donovan and Trevor Shaw. Bob led the campaign, which raised in the region of £15,000.

As Bob predicted, the university grant that used to go towards publications disappeared but, surprisingly, new technology meant that the cost of printing went down, and so the OCL Fund, as we usually term it, was largely spent on things to enhance the production values, such as colour photographs and technical drawings. As time went on, the aims of the fund were broadened by a deed of variation, to enable the trustees to benefit the UBSS more broadly, and the student experience in particular. A telephone campaign led by Andrew Atkinson and Helen Hodge led to the fund almost doubling in value, and in the good old days, it even used to attract a decent rate of interest and so was easily able to keep pace with spending. Both the original fundraising campaign and the telephone campaign led to various valuable annual pledges from members, ranging from one for £10 a year, to another at £200 per year that comes with the proviso that it can (for can read should!) be spent on alcohol for students to have a good time!

The fund stands aside from the UBSS main account, which is visible to the university and the students' union, and can only be used to benefit the UBSS and its members. The current trustees are myself, Clive Owen, Andrew Atkinson and Cat Henry (who recently replaced Bob Churcher as Bob will shortly be standing down as president). The fund has recently been the recipient of an extremely generous donation from Pete Standing, who was one of the club's student secretaries 50 years ago!

Our aim for the centenary year (and I'll be the first to admit it's an ambitious one, and might take us more than a year to achieve), is to raise 100 pledges to the OCL Fund in the form of standing orders to the fund. We already have several ongoing pledges to start us off, and huge kudos to Dickon Morris for being the first of the 100 pledges in our centenary year!

The aim of the fundraising is to future proof the life of the UBSS for the future. The club now receives no ongoing grants at all from either the university or the students' union. Occasional grants have been received from the University's Alumni Foundation, but recent changes to this mean there is likely to be less money available for our sort of activities going forward, and so the club now relies totally on members' subscriptions and the OCL Fund for all its tackle and equipment, as well as other such items. Recent purchases have ranged from oversuits, helmets, lights and other gear for use by students just starting caving to electronic surveying kit for use on the student re-surveying projects in Co Clare as part of the preparations for the next Irish guidebook.

The fund still supports Proceedings, as Bob Savage originally intended, and has contributed towards the cost of radiocarbon dating, as well as the drawings of the Picken's Hole flints that appeared in the last issue.
 

The UBSS relies heavily on the generosity of members and friends of the society to add value over and above membership subscriptions, and it provides a very direct way way for our older members to support the activities of the new generations of the student club , taking forward the fun and sense of adventure that we've all gained from our connection with UBSS, so I hope you'll all forgive the shameless plug for the fund, and won't mind too much if I go round rattling the metaphorical collecting tin during the year! For my generation, Lloyd did a huge amount to help student caving and the wider society, and his name lives on in the fund set up in his memory! If anyone would like more information or would like to  set up an annual pledge, make a one-off donation or remember the OCL Fund in your will, please contact Linda Wilson for further details.

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