UBSS Hut, watercolour by Mia JacobsEDITORIAL
Still in lockdown, still no caving, but that hasn't cramped a lively social scene that has grown up around weekly virtual pub nights on Tuesday, with the exceedingly popular pub quizzes run by Megan Malpas. If you'd like to join in, do keep an eye on the club's Facebook page. but of you're not on there and would like to join in, let us know and we'll get the links for the video calls sent over to you.
As you'll see from our header this month and our Cave Craft section later on, your editors have turned to arts and crafts in an attempt to stay sane. If you fancy trying your hand at painting, drawing or crafting with a cave theme, do let us know!
To enable us to keep providing you with club news at a social distanced time, please keep your articles and memories coming. We're particularly looking for photos of caving in the 1970s and 1980s, as recent work on the oral history project has thrown up some shortages in this area, so dig deep into your photo collections and let us have as many as you can find! These don't just have to be underground shots. Ones of people in caving kit on the surface and in club huts are also welcome!
In the meantime, we hope you enjoy our latest offering, and than you all for your lovely email messages of support!
Back issues of this newsletter can be found here.
Still in lockdown, still no caving, but that hasn't cramped a lively social scene that has grown up around weekly virtual pub nights on Tuesday, with the exceedingly popular pub quizzes run by Megan Malpas. If you'd like to join in, do keep an eye on the club's Facebook page. but of you're not on there and would like to join in, let us know and we'll get the links for the video calls sent over to you.
As you'll see from our header this month and our Cave Craft section later on, your editors have turned to arts and crafts in an attempt to stay sane. If you fancy trying your hand at painting, drawing or crafting with a cave theme, do let us know!
To enable us to keep providing you with club news at a social distanced time, please keep your articles and memories coming. We're particularly looking for photos of caving in the 1970s and 1980s, as recent work on the oral history project has thrown up some shortages in this area, so dig deep into your photo collections and let us have as many as you can find! These don't just have to be underground shots. Ones of people in caving kit on the surface and in club huts are also welcome!
In the meantime, we hope you enjoy our latest offering, and than you all for your lovely email messages of support!
Back issues of this newsletter can be found here.
Linda and Mia
VIRTUAL PUB TUESDAYS
A screengrab of a recent pub meet, featuring Si, Sam, Jacob, the extistential dread that looms over us all, Megan, Zac, Sioned, Merryn, Elaine, Haydon, Mia and Graham.
The highlight of the non-caving week is now the virtual pub evenings. Social Secretary Megan Malpas explains...
The past month of caving socials have been completely above ground and completely plugged into cyberspace – I might have had the easiest first few months as the social secretary ever! We’ve convened every Tuesday in our respective homes and peered at vague fuzzy images of members accidently talking over each other. I still don’t know the difference between zoom and jitsi and skype and at this point I’m scared to ask.
Some highlights of the socials so far have been the photo competition – everybody participating was split into two teams and raced to complete a list of mildly caving related photo challenges. Notable entries include Elaine’s impractical caving getup and Merryn setting her own head on fire. A shout out to all the pets involved in the photoshoots.
Everyone’s trivia muscles were also flexed and tested with the numerous pub quiz style questions on offer. A gap year friend of mine was messaged and pleaded with by yours truly to provide his London Tube quiz for our caving needs. It fits the theme as long as it’s underground, right? I personally scoured the internet (i.e. the top five results on Ecosia for ‘free pub quiz questions’) and selected only the finest rounds I could find, and accidently ended up making all the questions about geography. I also tried to write a round on caving and my research took me down the terrifying rabbit hole of troglobites. Look them up if you want to see some real-life aliens.
If you’re reading this and thinking ‘hey, how can I get in on all this great virtual fun?’ then just swing by the UBSS Facebook page on a Tuesday for my weekly post on what’s happening that night. All you need is an internet connection and some patience for lag. 
A screengrab of a recent pub meet, featuring Si, Sam, Jacob, the extistential dread that looms over us all, Megan, Zac, Sioned, Merryn, Elaine, Haydon, Mia and Graham.
The highlight of the non-caving week is now the virtual pub evenings. Social Secretary Megan Malpas explains...
The past month of caving socials have been completely above ground and completely plugged into cyberspace – I might have had the easiest first few months as the social secretary ever! We’ve convened every Tuesday in our respective homes and peered at vague fuzzy images of members accidently talking over each other. I still don’t know the difference between zoom and jitsi and skype and at this point I’m scared to ask.
Some highlights of the socials so far have been the photo competition – everybody participating was split into two teams and raced to complete a list of mildly caving related photo challenges. Notable entries include Elaine’s impractical caving getup and Merryn setting her own head on fire. A shout out to all the pets involved in the photoshoots.
Everyone’s trivia muscles were also flexed and tested with the numerous pub quiz style questions on offer. A gap year friend of mine was messaged and pleaded with by yours truly to provide his London Tube quiz for our caving needs. It fits the theme as long as it’s underground, right? I personally scoured the internet (i.e. the top five results on Ecosia for ‘free pub quiz questions’) and selected only the finest rounds I could find, and accidently ended up making all the questions about geography. I also tried to write a round on caving and my research took me down the terrifying rabbit hole of troglobites. Look them up if you want to see some real-life aliens.
If you’re reading this and thinking ‘hey, how can I get in on all this great virtual fun?’ then just swing by the UBSS Facebook page on a Tuesday for my weekly post on what’s happening that night. All you need is an internet connection and some patience for lag.
Megan Malpas
THAT'S THE WAY TO DO IT!
Elaine home-caving in her best impractical caving getup.
POETRY CORNER
During the fourth online pub, we wrote caving themed haikus. Enjoy!
I left my rope and
working limbs at sump 3,
solely whiskey brings hope.
by Mia
~~~~
I have gone too long
without drinking sump water
and I am feeling sad.
by Simon
~~~~
Go straight on they said,
this cave is dry they told me,
my balls are inside.
by Simon
~~~~
Balls to the south wales
caving club. Balls to south wales
caving club.
by Mia
ODE TO THE UNDERGOUND
Mia Jacobs
During the fourth online pub, we wrote caving themed haikus. Enjoy!
I left my rope and
working limbs at sump 3,
solely whiskey brings hope.
by Mia
~~~~
I have gone too long
without drinking sump water
and I am feeling sad.
by Simon
~~~~
Go straight on they said,
this cave is dry they told me,
my balls are inside.
by Simon
~~~~
Balls to the south wales
caving club. Balls to south wales
caving club.
by Mia
ODE TO THE UNDERGOUND
With the click of my chinstrap and a squelch of my welly,
I wonder why I ever left my spot by the telly.
The walk to the cave really is hard enough
since I’ve now stacked it five times and got the leaders in a huff.
With a moment of searching, we scout out the entrance and
glimpse back to the sky in pre-wriggle reverence.
Fuck shit and arse, I forgot crawls would feature.
I’ve had a bum in my face for a hundred metres.
I’ve bashed up my elbows and bruised my knees, too.
I’m asked what’s wrong; my simple reply is I need a poo.
But for now, the sump o’er ahead will do it for me:
at least it accommodates a surreptitious wee.
Stalactites, straws, sparkles galore!
With a sweet snack sugar spike, I’m invincible once more
until arse shit and fuck, my welly is stuck
and I’m cold, tired and sore.
I climb up a chimney to detect some fresh air
I’m exhausted and elated, quite exerted to be fair
I exit to the relief of the bats who’ve heard my rants
and now I’m dancing on the roof wearing only my pants.
I wonder why I ever left my spot by the telly.
The walk to the cave really is hard enough
since I’ve now stacked it five times and got the leaders in a huff.
With a moment of searching, we scout out the entrance and
glimpse back to the sky in pre-wriggle reverence.
Fuck shit and arse, I forgot crawls would feature.
I’ve had a bum in my face for a hundred metres.
I’ve bashed up my elbows and bruised my knees, too.
I’m asked what’s wrong; my simple reply is I need a poo.
But for now, the sump o’er ahead will do it for me:
at least it accommodates a surreptitious wee.
Stalactites, straws, sparkles galore!
With a sweet snack sugar spike, I’m invincible once more
until arse shit and fuck, my welly is stuck
and I’m cold, tired and sore.
I climb up a chimney to detect some fresh air
I’m exhausted and elated, quite exerted to be fair
I exit to the relief of the bats who’ve heard my rants
and now I’m dancing on the roof wearing only my pants.
Mia Jacobs
ALPHORNS AND CRAMPONS!
With caving off the agenda at the moment, Elaine takes a look back at her time in Switzerland.
Walks past “grottoes” in Blaise Castle Estate notwithstanding, new
caving opportunities for me have been thin on the ground of late, so for
this newsletter I thought I’d cast my mind back to when I tried to
infiltrate the world of Swiss caving.
As some of you may know, I used to work for a rather inadvisable Swiss company and for a time, I lived out in Eastern Switzerland. I was keen to continue the hobby I’d started with UBSS, so freshly furnished with my resident’s permit, I wasted little time in investigating the opportunities for Höhlenwanderung in Switzerland. It seems there are three main types of caving opportunity in Switzerland. You have your show caves, a few small local holes, and then you immediately jump to expeditions – I found very little in the way of (non-commercialised) sport caving like we have in the UK.
I decided to ease myself into things by checking out a show cave a few villages away by the name of Kristallhöhle. I bought my ticket and prepared to learn all about the crystals that gave the cave its name, and this being the Alps, there was also “Höhlengeist” (spirit of the cave) liqueur on sale, so of course I bought some and brought it along on the tour. I did my best to pump the guide for details of local caving clubs, but unfortunately, he was just a local teen and hadn’t a clue. Back to badgering UK contacts for details of their Swiss friends, then. On exiting the cave I heard strange music, so I followed my ears to discover two Alphorn players practising in a forest clearing. I’d like to table a motion to be serenaded upon exit from all caving trips in future…
I eventually did get in contact with a localish club (just over an hour away by train), and they sent me some information about a little cave in the hillside just above the town I’d moved to. With a (non-caver) friend from home visiting, I saw the perfect opportunity to perform an inspection, so armed with the vaguest of typewritten descriptions, off we set in search of “an opening above a spring just up the road from an inn”. There were four springs along this particular stretch of road, none of which appeared to sport openings just above them, but after a bit of undergrowth bashing we did eventually find a promising cleft. We ducked inside to find more spiders than I’ve ever seen in one place in my life (apart from maybe that one time at the Hut where I started to boil the kettle then turned around to find myself inside a cloud of baby spiders, but at least those were quite small… I digress.) My friend was a bit on edge at our new eight-legged companions, but I reassured him that as soon as we got a bit deeper in, they’d soon thin out. I was right. We rounded a tight corner… straight into a cloud of giant mosquitoes, and a pitch head (we had no rope). We decided at this point that we’d had enough for one day, and bravely ran away.
All this preparation stood me in good stead for my first “proper” Swiss caving trip. It transpired that the mountain range behind my office was a good approximation of Swiss cheese, and I was invited along to an expedition camp. I hadn’t any spare leave so could only attend for a weekend, but it took just a couple of hours to reach the camp by bus, cable car and hiking.
I learned that the Swiss like to rise early. On the Saturday morning, I was last out of bed at 5.50 am (“oh… there might be some bread left for you?”) - but despite all this they’re just as good at faffing as we are, so we didn’t actually set off until a good two hours later.
As
the “guest” of the expedition, I had not been made to carry tackle up
the hill on the Friday, despite offering. This lasted one day, whereupon
I was commissioned to stagger with 200m of rope, as well as all my own
kit in a rucksack, for an hour and a half across a limestone pavement in
the beating July sun. Our aim was to see if two particular caves linked
up. “OK, here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to go into this one,
and you abseil into that one. I’ll just have a cigarette when I’m down
there and if you can smell the smoke, we’ll know they link up and that
we should survey them.”
Six caves and my first experience of abseiling in crampons later, it was time to celebrate a successful day of potholing with an introduction to the Swiss caver party. This involved a dodgy barbecue and plenty of wine from the walkers’ hut we were staying at. Halfway through the evening, I was met with a plaintive cry: “Elaaaine! The manager won’t sell us any more wine, she says six bottles of wine between three is quite enough already. Can you pretend you haven’t been drinking and give it a go?” But we were rumbled. The owner had seen us conferring, and my slurred German wasn’t quite enough to convince her of my sobriety. Oh well… As is tradition after a caving party, we treated ourselves to a luxurious lie in the next day, and it wasn’t until 6.30 a.m. that we began to emerge and begin preparations to find yet more caverns measureless.
Elaine Oliver
HELP WANTED
Are you bored out of your mind during lockdown? Would you like something to fill those endless lonely hours? Then we have just the jobs for you!
Graham has some data entry tasks that, when done, will add to the usability of the website, when that is finally updated.
Firstly, we need to complete the index of our Newsletters.
Secondly, we need to convert the Irish Cave Database bibliographic lists to a searchable form.
If you are willing to help with these tasks and are happy using Excel spreadsheets then please contact our hard-working editor who can tell you more and give you the tools and information you will need.
Are you bored out of your mind during lockdown? Would you like something to fill those endless lonely hours? Then we have just the jobs for you!
Graham has some data entry tasks that, when done, will add to the usability of the website, when that is finally updated.
Firstly, we need to complete the index of our Newsletters.
Secondly, we need to convert the Irish Cave Database bibliographic lists to a searchable form.
If you are willing to help with these tasks and are happy using Excel spreadsheets then please contact our hard-working editor who can tell you more and give you the tools and information you will need.
100 MEMORIES - MY UBSS PAST
Smithy Grotto, Doolin Cave, Co. Clare, 1963
Brian Collingridge, one of our oral history interviewees, also put pen to paper about some of the highlights of his time with UBSS, emphasising once again the close historical links between the society and the Geography Department.
I was at Bristol University from Sept 1955 to June 1959 studying Geography then getting my teaching qualifications. At the Freshers' Day I saw the UBSS stall and thought I would 'have a go' as a friend of mine at school, in Bath, had enjoyed his caving. After my first visit to Burrington Combe and the Hut I spent most weekends exploring the Mendip caves, 'recovering' at the local Inn and resting at the Hut overnight before fresh experiences on the Sunday. The odd caving trip to Yorkshire or South Wales added to our fun. In Bristol, the location of the UBSS library rooms under the Geography Department made life very easy for me, and my Geography degree course with its surveying content was particularly useful in preparing me for much of the underground survey work and subsequent mapping of results.
Co. Clare, 1959. From left to right: Oliver Lloyd, Kit Eaton, Bernard Chapman, Barry Perratt, Brian Collinridge, Garry Witts in Goonsuits - Patrick Thomas in the background. Photo courtesy of Kit Eaton. [Editor's note: Don't ever complain about the current state of club clothing again!] [Editor's note no.2: At least this doesn't happen now when you fart in your oversuit!]
In the summers of 1956, 1957 and 1959 I was on the Professor Tratman-led trips to County Clare, to explore and survey the NW Co. Clare area, specifically, the two mountain areas of the Knockauns and Slieve Elva with the Doolin River catchment. In 1956 we started with cave searches in Co. Sligo then moved down to Co. Clare. Professor Tratman himself visited Co. Clare from 1951-1977. We visited more frequently than the book lists, not always staying at the Ballynackan Castle but certainly in 1962 when working on details for the book. Generally we travelled in Trat’s (Professor Tratman) people carrier which was filled with equipment and students, some of whom Trat subsidised if he needed them, but they could not afford the trip. I did once hitchhike across Ireland getting the memorable comment from a helpful driver somewhere in the country’s centre: “Now, if I was hitching to Lisdoonvarna I would not be starting from here!”
Several trips were made after I left university to check details for the book and it was on one of these in 1963 that my new wife joined me. She was not enamoured of life underground but our early relationship had survived me taking her up the Drainpipe and then, to her horror, back down so she came to visit the Emerald Isle for her first time, which is how she appears in the book’s list of members.
In 1963, we visited County Leitrim first to explore more caves, but my only memory is of this is of our party climbing into a high valley to explore a shaft in the valley floor, only to find a nun waiting for us near the cavity. “I am here to reassure the locals, who fear you might be about to upset those who they think live below,” she told us. Once we were at the bottom, it turned out to be just an 80 foot deep shaft with nothing leading from it that we could access So we left, giving the nun a lift back to her nunnery, saving her the 12 mile walk she had made earlier.
Ballynalackan Castle Hotel, 1959. Photo courtesy of Kit Eaton. Kit recalls that the tower was frequently decorated with items of clothing, including Oliver Lloyd's loincloths!
In Co. Clare we stayed at the Ballynalackan Castle Hotel, where the landlord assumed Guinness was the required breakfast drink and joined us in our after caving pranks, e.g. breaking down a bedroom door for us when one of our number was trying to escape. It was a surprise to return in 2001 to find a swish modern hotel with the only recognisable feature, the castle tower remains in the garden. However, because my wife and I were in the list of UBSS members, in the back of the original 'Caves of N W Clare', which the proprietor had under the desk, we got a 10% discount for our stay. He talked of possibly blasting an entrance to turn Pol an Ionain, down the valley, into a show cave. I hope he took my advice that even one blast would mean there would be no huge single stalactite left to see!
In our stays Trat generally had planned in detail what he wanted done and we explored, surveyed and generally worked until the job was completed, losing all sense of time underground. But I recall us finding a rusty pistol in the entrance to Poulnagollum, a relic of the “Troubles”. On another occasion we called on a farmer to let him know that we were about to go down one of the Cullauns on his land. He gave us a wee dram while his son “moved a bull from the field” and minutes later we crawled in over the hot rock floor where the still had so recently been. On our last trip we spent the last day trying to understand the drainage in an area to the south of our usual working. Flourescene tablets were put into several stream disappearing points but nothing emerged. The next day beginning our journey home to Rosslare we passed a bright green reservoir! We moved on rapidly.
Another of Professor Tratman’s enthusiasm was archaeology and he got most of us involved whether on Mendip, in Bristol or out on Brean Down. I recall once being led into the back of a show cave at Cheddar to excavate under a sheet of stalactite floor covering.
In the summer holidays, when not in Ireland I earned money working for a firm of builders in my home town, Bath. One summer the builders were excavating the foundations for a new Woolworths in the centre of the city. In my final week I was clearing out a trench several feet below road level on this site when I came across some Roman tiling similar to a Mendip site we had been on with Trat. I mentioned this to a local archaeologist a week later and unbeknown to me the site was closed for an archaeological investigation for several weeks. The following summer I was taken on again with the comment “We have got just the job for you” and I spent the next few weeks on Lansdown Hill slowly reducing the height of a bombed church tower by removing the Bath stone blocks and dropping them down the tower interior, always over 50 feet above the ground.
Having written and published in Proceedings the Poulnagollum/PolElva and Pol an Ionain accounts and worked extensively with Trat over the content of the book, he offered me joint editorship, but after much correspondence, and having spent weekends at his bungalow in Burrington working alongside him, I declined. My efforts bore no comparison to the sheer volume of consistent enthusiasm, skill and expertise that he had put into its creation.
Smithy Grotto, Doolin Cave, Co. Clare, 1963
Brian Collingridge, one of our oral history interviewees, also put pen to paper about some of the highlights of his time with UBSS, emphasising once again the close historical links between the society and the Geography Department.
I was at Bristol University from Sept 1955 to June 1959 studying Geography then getting my teaching qualifications. At the Freshers' Day I saw the UBSS stall and thought I would 'have a go' as a friend of mine at school, in Bath, had enjoyed his caving. After my first visit to Burrington Combe and the Hut I spent most weekends exploring the Mendip caves, 'recovering' at the local Inn and resting at the Hut overnight before fresh experiences on the Sunday. The odd caving trip to Yorkshire or South Wales added to our fun. In Bristol, the location of the UBSS library rooms under the Geography Department made life very easy for me, and my Geography degree course with its surveying content was particularly useful in preparing me for much of the underground survey work and subsequent mapping of results.
Co. Clare, 1959. From left to right: Oliver Lloyd, Kit Eaton, Bernard Chapman, Barry Perratt, Brian Collinridge, Garry Witts in Goonsuits - Patrick Thomas in the background. Photo courtesy of Kit Eaton. [Editor's note: Don't ever complain about the current state of club clothing again!] [Editor's note no.2: At least this doesn't happen now when you fart in your oversuit!]
In the summers of 1956, 1957 and 1959 I was on the Professor Tratman-led trips to County Clare, to explore and survey the NW Co. Clare area, specifically, the two mountain areas of the Knockauns and Slieve Elva with the Doolin River catchment. In 1956 we started with cave searches in Co. Sligo then moved down to Co. Clare. Professor Tratman himself visited Co. Clare from 1951-1977. We visited more frequently than the book lists, not always staying at the Ballynackan Castle but certainly in 1962 when working on details for the book. Generally we travelled in Trat’s (Professor Tratman) people carrier which was filled with equipment and students, some of whom Trat subsidised if he needed them, but they could not afford the trip. I did once hitchhike across Ireland getting the memorable comment from a helpful driver somewhere in the country’s centre: “Now, if I was hitching to Lisdoonvarna I would not be starting from here!”
Several trips were made after I left university to check details for the book and it was on one of these in 1963 that my new wife joined me. She was not enamoured of life underground but our early relationship had survived me taking her up the Drainpipe and then, to her horror, back down so she came to visit the Emerald Isle for her first time, which is how she appears in the book’s list of members.
In 1963, we visited County Leitrim first to explore more caves, but my only memory is of this is of our party climbing into a high valley to explore a shaft in the valley floor, only to find a nun waiting for us near the cavity. “I am here to reassure the locals, who fear you might be about to upset those who they think live below,” she told us. Once we were at the bottom, it turned out to be just an 80 foot deep shaft with nothing leading from it that we could access So we left, giving the nun a lift back to her nunnery, saving her the 12 mile walk she had made earlier.
Ballynalackan Castle Hotel, 1959. Photo courtesy of Kit Eaton. Kit recalls that the tower was frequently decorated with items of clothing, including Oliver Lloyd's loincloths!
In Co. Clare we stayed at the Ballynalackan Castle Hotel, where the landlord assumed Guinness was the required breakfast drink and joined us in our after caving pranks, e.g. breaking down a bedroom door for us when one of our number was trying to escape. It was a surprise to return in 2001 to find a swish modern hotel with the only recognisable feature, the castle tower remains in the garden. However, because my wife and I were in the list of UBSS members, in the back of the original 'Caves of N W Clare', which the proprietor had under the desk, we got a 10% discount for our stay. He talked of possibly blasting an entrance to turn Pol an Ionain, down the valley, into a show cave. I hope he took my advice that even one blast would mean there would be no huge single stalactite left to see!
In our stays Trat generally had planned in detail what he wanted done and we explored, surveyed and generally worked until the job was completed, losing all sense of time underground. But I recall us finding a rusty pistol in the entrance to Poulnagollum, a relic of the “Troubles”. On another occasion we called on a farmer to let him know that we were about to go down one of the Cullauns on his land. He gave us a wee dram while his son “moved a bull from the field” and minutes later we crawled in over the hot rock floor where the still had so recently been. On our last trip we spent the last day trying to understand the drainage in an area to the south of our usual working. Flourescene tablets were put into several stream disappearing points but nothing emerged. The next day beginning our journey home to Rosslare we passed a bright green reservoir! We moved on rapidly.
Another of Professor Tratman’s enthusiasm was archaeology and he got most of us involved whether on Mendip, in Bristol or out on Brean Down. I recall once being led into the back of a show cave at Cheddar to excavate under a sheet of stalactite floor covering.
In the summer holidays, when not in Ireland I earned money working for a firm of builders in my home town, Bath. One summer the builders were excavating the foundations for a new Woolworths in the centre of the city. In my final week I was clearing out a trench several feet below road level on this site when I came across some Roman tiling similar to a Mendip site we had been on with Trat. I mentioned this to a local archaeologist a week later and unbeknown to me the site was closed for an archaeological investigation for several weeks. The following summer I was taken on again with the comment “We have got just the job for you” and I spent the next few weeks on Lansdown Hill slowly reducing the height of a bombed church tower by removing the Bath stone blocks and dropping them down the tower interior, always over 50 feet above the ground.
Having written and published in Proceedings the Poulnagollum/PolElva and Pol an Ionain accounts and worked extensively with Trat over the content of the book, he offered me joint editorship, but after much correspondence, and having spent weekends at his bungalow in Burrington working alongside him, I declined. My efforts bore no comparison to the sheer volume of consistent enthusiasm, skill and expertise that he had put into its creation.
Brian Collingridge
GOON SUITS
Some of our younger members might be wondering quite what the balloon-like thing that some folks in that photo were wearing. The garment in question was an ex-RAF exposure suit, known by cavers as goon suits.
These were one-piece waterproof garments worn by RAF aircrew, designed to keep them dry if they had to ditch into water and, also, to be inflatable to keep them afloat. They were ‘entered’ either through the neck or through a hole in the abdomen which was then tied up tightly.
After the Second World War, large quantities of second-hand ones came on to the market and the idea of waterproof clothing was rather appealing. The main drawback was that they were made from quite thin, fragile material, not exactly ideal for sharp caves. So they were reserved for the wettest trips and were worn under your newest and least ripped boiler suit. If they were damaged, they filled with water which was unpleasant and potentially dangerous.
Obviously, nobody actually inflated them unless they needed some buoyancy in deep water, unlike Messrs Chapman and Witts in that photo. It was taken outside Poulnagollum and I’m pretty sure that they wouldn’t have fitted along the canals!
Some of our younger members might be wondering quite what the balloon-like thing that some folks in that photo were wearing. The garment in question was an ex-RAF exposure suit, known by cavers as goon suits.
These were one-piece waterproof garments worn by RAF aircrew, designed to keep them dry if they had to ditch into water and, also, to be inflatable to keep them afloat. They were ‘entered’ either through the neck or through a hole in the abdomen which was then tied up tightly.
After the Second World War, large quantities of second-hand ones came on to the market and the idea of waterproof clothing was rather appealing. The main drawback was that they were made from quite thin, fragile material, not exactly ideal for sharp caves. So they were reserved for the wettest trips and were worn under your newest and least ripped boiler suit. If they were damaged, they filled with water which was unpleasant and potentially dangerous.
Obviously, nobody actually inflated them unless they needed some buoyancy in deep water, unlike Messrs Chapman and Witts in that photo. It was taken outside Poulnagollum and I’m pretty sure that they wouldn’t have fitted along the canals!
Graham Mullan
TAKING PART IN HISTORY
Desmond Donovan as a young man. Photo courtesy of Dan Donovan.
Caver and history student Imogen Clement recently joined our oral history team and has kindly transcribed Desmond Donovan's interview last year with Lena Ferriday and Linda Wilson. Here, Imogen reflects on that experience in the context of her own studies and her more recent membership of UBSS.
When I started to transcribe Desmond Donovan’s oral history as part of Linda Wilson and Andy Flack’s project to record memories of the over 100 year history of the club, his first words informed me that at the time of recording he had been the oldest member of the club. So as one of the newer and therefore younger members of the club, it felt pretty fitting. He’s no longer with us now and so is somebody I actually never met, but as I spent a couple of days transcribing the almost two-hour conversation he had with Lena and Linda, I felt like I almost got to know him through his stories and memories. It felt almost calming in a way, especially during an incredibly weird lockdown where most of my days consist of inventing new ways to annoy various family members. As it turns out, being an extrovert during a pandemic means eagerly awaiting the next video call quiz and trying to stay productive by painting watercolours and fermenting various vegetables. Send addresses if you’d like some kombucha or sauerkraut. Transcribing therefore became a new way to occupy myself. I sat, too exhausted after few days of ‘coronavirus-like’ symptoms to do any of my ‘normal’ pandemic activities, and allowed the voices on the tape, interspersed with the sounds of tea being poured, to soothe me.
As a History student, of course I loved this window into the past. I think we often view history with a focus heavily on the narratives of Big Important People sat in rooms making Great Decisions. We’re moving away from this a lot now, and oral histories are one of the ways used across the discipline to fill in the gaps and shift away from the more traditional narratives to include the previously ignored and undocumented histories of groups and individuals: women, working class people, people of colour, immigrants, enslaved people – just to name a few. In terms of our society, small though it may seem in the larger scope of history, oral history has a part to play in preserving the memories and traditions of something which has joined people together for over 100 years now.
History often focuses on change over time: the ‘Big Shifts’ – Martin Luther’s Protestant Reformation; the French Revolution, the change from carbide to LED. And Desmond’s memories at first felt so different from my own experience of caving: I found it incredible that he would have ventured underground without a hard hat – only his father’s trilby with holes cut for the ears! And I’m sure that all of us are grateful that excavating a bombed out museum is hopefully something we will not have to come to grips with.
Desmond more recently. Photo courtesy of Dan Donovan.
But I’m often reminded by my lecturers to look at consistencies over a period, how what hasn’t changed can often be more illuminating in how we understand the past; I’m currently writing an essay about the prison system in America and how the systematic incarceration young black men can act as a continuation of slavery. In a less existential and a much more positive sense the UBSS oral histories show us how the caving we experience today is not so different to Desmond’s experience - his description of his first foray underground felt incredibly familiar, how natural and instinctive it felt to him. While we might have updated our gear, the ways we move about in caves hasn’t changed too much in the last hundred years, Desmond hitting the nail on the head with ‘a crawl is a crawl.’ The social side of UBSS hasn’t changed much either, though we are much less likely to drive ourselves back home without seatbelts after a few on a Tuesday pub night, the pub as an institution holds firm, as do surprisingly enough, the specific pubs he mentions: the White Harte still a regular student haunt and the Plume of Feathers continuing to be worthy of the walk from the hut. And he too experienced the intricacies of getting all the way to the hut without the use of a car; and while I’m sure that many of us still balance our gear in the saddle bags of a bicycle, I am almost certain that he is the sole member of UBSS to hitchhike all the way to Burrington in the Bishop of Bath and Wells’ car.
I suppose most of us don’t consider our own lives to be part of history, it would be pretty egotistical if we did. Although I think in recent years the political upheavals of Brexit and Trump have felt pretty historical and a global pandemic will probably be on a syllabus somewhere someday. Of course, UBSS might not fit into some wider historical narrative about something world changing but I don’t think that this makes these stories any less interesting or important. The everyday lives of ordinary people are certainly worth remembering and recording, especially when they are no longer with us to tell us all about it. Besides, it doesn’t look like I’ll be heading underground any time soon, so listening to somebody else’s memories is probably as close as I can get.
Desmond Donovan as a young man. Photo courtesy of Dan Donovan.
Caver and history student Imogen Clement recently joined our oral history team and has kindly transcribed Desmond Donovan's interview last year with Lena Ferriday and Linda Wilson. Here, Imogen reflects on that experience in the context of her own studies and her more recent membership of UBSS.
When I started to transcribe Desmond Donovan’s oral history as part of Linda Wilson and Andy Flack’s project to record memories of the over 100 year history of the club, his first words informed me that at the time of recording he had been the oldest member of the club. So as one of the newer and therefore younger members of the club, it felt pretty fitting. He’s no longer with us now and so is somebody I actually never met, but as I spent a couple of days transcribing the almost two-hour conversation he had with Lena and Linda, I felt like I almost got to know him through his stories and memories. It felt almost calming in a way, especially during an incredibly weird lockdown where most of my days consist of inventing new ways to annoy various family members. As it turns out, being an extrovert during a pandemic means eagerly awaiting the next video call quiz and trying to stay productive by painting watercolours and fermenting various vegetables. Send addresses if you’d like some kombucha or sauerkraut. Transcribing therefore became a new way to occupy myself. I sat, too exhausted after few days of ‘coronavirus-like’ symptoms to do any of my ‘normal’ pandemic activities, and allowed the voices on the tape, interspersed with the sounds of tea being poured, to soothe me.
As a History student, of course I loved this window into the past. I think we often view history with a focus heavily on the narratives of Big Important People sat in rooms making Great Decisions. We’re moving away from this a lot now, and oral histories are one of the ways used across the discipline to fill in the gaps and shift away from the more traditional narratives to include the previously ignored and undocumented histories of groups and individuals: women, working class people, people of colour, immigrants, enslaved people – just to name a few. In terms of our society, small though it may seem in the larger scope of history, oral history has a part to play in preserving the memories and traditions of something which has joined people together for over 100 years now.
History often focuses on change over time: the ‘Big Shifts’ – Martin Luther’s Protestant Reformation; the French Revolution, the change from carbide to LED. And Desmond’s memories at first felt so different from my own experience of caving: I found it incredible that he would have ventured underground without a hard hat – only his father’s trilby with holes cut for the ears! And I’m sure that all of us are grateful that excavating a bombed out museum is hopefully something we will not have to come to grips with.
Desmond more recently. Photo courtesy of Dan Donovan.
But I’m often reminded by my lecturers to look at consistencies over a period, how what hasn’t changed can often be more illuminating in how we understand the past; I’m currently writing an essay about the prison system in America and how the systematic incarceration young black men can act as a continuation of slavery. In a less existential and a much more positive sense the UBSS oral histories show us how the caving we experience today is not so different to Desmond’s experience - his description of his first foray underground felt incredibly familiar, how natural and instinctive it felt to him. While we might have updated our gear, the ways we move about in caves hasn’t changed too much in the last hundred years, Desmond hitting the nail on the head with ‘a crawl is a crawl.’ The social side of UBSS hasn’t changed much either, though we are much less likely to drive ourselves back home without seatbelts after a few on a Tuesday pub night, the pub as an institution holds firm, as do surprisingly enough, the specific pubs he mentions: the White Harte still a regular student haunt and the Plume of Feathers continuing to be worthy of the walk from the hut. And he too experienced the intricacies of getting all the way to the hut without the use of a car; and while I’m sure that many of us still balance our gear in the saddle bags of a bicycle, I am almost certain that he is the sole member of UBSS to hitchhike all the way to Burrington in the Bishop of Bath and Wells’ car.
I suppose most of us don’t consider our own lives to be part of history, it would be pretty egotistical if we did. Although I think in recent years the political upheavals of Brexit and Trump have felt pretty historical and a global pandemic will probably be on a syllabus somewhere someday. Of course, UBSS might not fit into some wider historical narrative about something world changing but I don’t think that this makes these stories any less interesting or important. The everyday lives of ordinary people are certainly worth remembering and recording, especially when they are no longer with us to tell us all about it. Besides, it doesn’t look like I’ll be heading underground any time soon, so listening to somebody else’s memories is probably as close as I can get.
Imogen Clement
100 MEMORIES - PETER STANDING
Peter in his garden. Photo by Linda Wilson taken as part of the oral history project.
Eve Gilmore has kindly shared some memories of Peter Standing, who died in November last year.
I was a friend of Peter for over 50 years and have many happy memories of this friendship. This began through our student membership of UBSS. It is some memories of Peter as a member of the society that I would like to share.
I first met Peter in 1965, when we were both young freshers at Bristol University. I remember creeping down some stairs to a room below the Geography Department on my second day at University, discovering the UBSS “Speleo Rooms”. Peter was sitting at a table and suggested I look at one of the books in their library. Thus began our friendship, and our time as members of the University of Bristol Speleological Society. I guess we had a lot in common, both long time enthusiasts about caving and geomorphology/rivers and limestone in particular.
Shortly after this first meeting Peter became librarian for UBSS and I was assistant librarian. As Peter pointed out on numerous occasions, he did most of the work in sorting out the library and I just half-heartedly assisted. He worked hard at this over time and it is largely to his credit that the UBSS library became better organised.
Peter caved regularly with many of the “hard” cavers whilst he was a student, mainly with Chris (Gilmore), Peter Kaye and Dave Savage. My husband Chris recalls how determined Peter was… a necessary attribute in caving. his determination could be competitive. Martyn Joyce recalls an occasion when he and Peter, on a trip to Yorkshire, had done an abortive and tiring descent and ascent of a Pot in Yorkshire, involving many feet of homemade flexible ladder. As they emerged fairly tired to the surface some watching (and laughing) Yorkshire cavers offered to pull up the ladder for them. Peter refused, not wishing to lose face. Martyn and he then had to do the exhausting task of hauling up the heavy ladder themselves.
Peter also took to cave surveying. I remember spending hours with him, holding lights, getting cold and wet, as he did a very careful, accurate survey of Little Neath River Cave. Little Neath River Cave is now an important and well known cave. It was discovered by Chris who dived through a cave sump to reach it. It was then explored and surveyed by various members of UBSS. Peter organised and encouraged many of us! LNRC is over two miles of often very impressive cave in South Wales in the Neath Valley. Many names are of significance and involved Peter. Bouncing Boulder Hall was so named after boulders rained down on Isabel from Peter who had climbed a maypole, held by her, which he had dragged into the cave to explore an Aven above her head which he thought might “go”. I gather the bruises lasted for ages! Peter later wrote up, the details of the cave in two papers which were published in the UBSS journal.
My last memory is one that Peter asked me to share. I gave him a lift north after the UBSS Centenary Symposium. He was determined to attend it and did so a week before he died. He told me to say at his “wake” that he had really enjoyed UBSS and the opportunity it gave him to indulge his interest in the Natural World. Thank you, Peter.
Peter in his garden. Photo by Linda Wilson taken as part of the oral history project.
Eve Gilmore has kindly shared some memories of Peter Standing, who died in November last year.
I was a friend of Peter for over 50 years and have many happy memories of this friendship. This began through our student membership of UBSS. It is some memories of Peter as a member of the society that I would like to share.
I first met Peter in 1965, when we were both young freshers at Bristol University. I remember creeping down some stairs to a room below the Geography Department on my second day at University, discovering the UBSS “Speleo Rooms”. Peter was sitting at a table and suggested I look at one of the books in their library. Thus began our friendship, and our time as members of the University of Bristol Speleological Society. I guess we had a lot in common, both long time enthusiasts about caving and geomorphology/rivers and limestone in particular.
Shortly after this first meeting Peter became librarian for UBSS and I was assistant librarian. As Peter pointed out on numerous occasions, he did most of the work in sorting out the library and I just half-heartedly assisted. He worked hard at this over time and it is largely to his credit that the UBSS library became better organised.
Peter caved regularly with many of the “hard” cavers whilst he was a student, mainly with Chris (Gilmore), Peter Kaye and Dave Savage. My husband Chris recalls how determined Peter was… a necessary attribute in caving. his determination could be competitive. Martyn Joyce recalls an occasion when he and Peter, on a trip to Yorkshire, had done an abortive and tiring descent and ascent of a Pot in Yorkshire, involving many feet of homemade flexible ladder. As they emerged fairly tired to the surface some watching (and laughing) Yorkshire cavers offered to pull up the ladder for them. Peter refused, not wishing to lose face. Martyn and he then had to do the exhausting task of hauling up the heavy ladder themselves.
Peter also took to cave surveying. I remember spending hours with him, holding lights, getting cold and wet, as he did a very careful, accurate survey of Little Neath River Cave. Little Neath River Cave is now an important and well known cave. It was discovered by Chris who dived through a cave sump to reach it. It was then explored and surveyed by various members of UBSS. Peter organised and encouraged many of us! LNRC is over two miles of often very impressive cave in South Wales in the Neath Valley. Many names are of significance and involved Peter. Bouncing Boulder Hall was so named after boulders rained down on Isabel from Peter who had climbed a maypole, held by her, which he had dragged into the cave to explore an Aven above her head which he thought might “go”. I gather the bruises lasted for ages! Peter later wrote up, the details of the cave in two papers which were published in the UBSS journal.
My last memory is one that Peter asked me to share. I gave him a lift north after the UBSS Centenary Symposium. He was determined to attend it and did so a week before he died. He told me to say at his “wake” that he had really enjoyed UBSS and the opportunity it gave him to indulge his interest in the Natural World. Thank you, Peter.
Eve Gilmore
A GOOSE ABOOT THE HOOSE!
It has long been said that there is an unbroken tradition of eating a turkey dinner at the Hut at New Year, a tradition unbroken even during the War when Bertie Crook ate there by himself.
However, recent research into the society's history by Graham Mullan has uncovered the surprising fact that in 1953, a party of nine, including Dr Bertie Crook, ate a goose.
The New Year crew might now have to change their culinary habits!
It has long been said that there is an unbroken tradition of eating a turkey dinner at the Hut at New Year, a tradition unbroken even during the War when Bertie Crook ate there by himself.
However, recent research into the society's history by Graham Mullan has uncovered the surprising fact that in 1953, a party of nine, including Dr Bertie Crook, ate a goose.
The New Year crew might now have to change their culinary habits!
PHOTO CORNER
Co. Clare, 1959. Left to right: Garry Witts, Kit Eaton, Barry Perratt - knackered after completing the final bit of the Cullaun Three survey. Photo courtesy of Kit Eaton.
Co. Clare, 1959. Left to right: Garry Witts, Kit Eaton, Barry Perratt - knackered after completing the final bit of the Cullaun Three survey. Photo courtesy of Kit Eaton.
JIGSAW COMPETITION
Can you guess the cave from this jigsaw? If you can, we might be persuaded to stump up a prize!
Can you guess the cave from this jigsaw? If you can, we might be persuaded to stump up a prize!
A WALK ALONG THE TRACK
The Hut
As most of us aren't able to get out to Mendip during lockdown, our Hut Warden, Liz Green, has sent in a few photos to remind us of what will be waiting for us when we can get out and about again.
Read's Cavern entrance
Bos Swallet entrance
The Hut
As most of us aren't able to get out to Mendip during lockdown, our Hut Warden, Liz Green, has sent in a few photos to remind us of what will be waiting for us when we can get out and about again.
Read's Cavern entrance
Bos Swallet entrance
CAVER CREATIVITY: PHOTO GALLERY
While the current lockdown has left caves deserted, the spirit of caving evidently lingers in the homes of UBSS members. Some of us have been getting creative, exploring very local cave formations – including edible ones!
Lucy Dufall's extremely impressive pothole pudding, complete with an SRT-ing Lego man!
To fill the void brought by pub closures, Imogen Clement-Jones and her family brought the local pisser home, even with homemade beer.
Imogen's homebrew setup. She has been working on an array of fermentable goods, not just beer!
Zac Woodford has discovered that caveless caving is easy when your house is raised.
Apparently myself and Nathan Cubitt have found that lockdown just isn't claustrophobic enough, so we set out to find some squeezes of not-so-astronomical proportions at home. Creds go to Zac and Merryn for initiating these snaps (and Lucy's cake) with their photo competition!
CAVE CRAFTING
As anyone with the misfortune to be friended with me on Facebook knows, I've been keeping myself occupied with some crafting. I've made a few pairs of these bat earrings in case anyone is interested. So if you fancy doing some lockdown shopping, let me know! Happy to do these for £5, postage inclusive. Let me know if you're interested.
While the current lockdown has left caves deserted, the spirit of caving evidently lingers in the homes of UBSS members. Some of us have been getting creative, exploring very local cave formations – including edible ones!
Lucy Dufall's extremely impressive pothole pudding, complete with an SRT-ing Lego man!
To fill the void brought by pub closures, Imogen Clement-Jones and her family brought the local pisser home, even with homemade beer.
Imogen's homebrew setup. She has been working on an array of fermentable goods, not just beer!
Zac Woodford has discovered that caveless caving is easy when your house is raised.
Apparently myself and Nathan Cubitt have found that lockdown just isn't claustrophobic enough, so we set out to find some squeezes of not-so-astronomical proportions at home. Creds go to Zac and Merryn for initiating these snaps (and Lucy's cake) with their photo competition!
Mia
CAVE CRAFTING
As anyone with the misfortune to be friended with me on Facebook knows, I've been keeping myself occupied with some crafting. I've made a few pairs of these bat earrings in case anyone is interested. So if you fancy doing some lockdown shopping, let me know! Happy to do these for £5, postage inclusive. Let me know if you're interested.
Linda
KEEPING FIT IN LOCKDOWN
For anyone who's fed up of constricting their own caves out of chairs, sheets and cardboard boxes, you might want to delve into the archives of the BCRA for some handy fitness tips.
Unfit Speleologists Start Here....
Thanks to Elaine Oliver for spotting this!
For anyone who's fed up of constricting their own caves out of chairs, sheets and cardboard boxes, you might want to delve into the archives of the BCRA for some handy fitness tips.
Unfit Speleologists Start Here....
Thanks to Elaine Oliver for spotting this!
WHO READ TO THE END?
We're sure lots of you did, but this is the league table from last month, with the warm, fuzzy glow of victory going to the wonderful Henry Morgan!
And the responses, in order, were:
- Me me me! (Henry Morgan)
- The universe is big and complicated and ridiculous so maybe - just maybe - this means I am first to have read to the end while I avoid planning online lessons for my students. Or maybe not? (Ian Wheeler)
- Like The Hobbit, I skipped the songs... (Jacob Podesta)
- If it’s me again ... it shouldn’t be! (Chris Howes)
- I don’t know what I clicked on…. I don’t know what this means... (Megan Malpas)
- I did attempt the photo comp last time - I guessed GB! :) (Elaine Oliver) (Editor: wrong guess!)
- A day late and a dollar short, but I made it! Thanks be to FT Bear! (Sharon Wheeler)
- In these times of bored isolation I bet I wasn’t first, but I certainly have a renewed thirst (ha) for getting underground after this edition of the newsletter, and I’m sure that must count for something. Thanks! (Kat Osie-Mensah)
Congratulations to all concerned!
THE END
Now who is going to be first this month?
We're sure lots of you did, but this is the league table from last month, with the warm, fuzzy glow of victory going to the wonderful Henry Morgan!
And the responses, in order, were:
- Me me me! (Henry Morgan)
- The universe is big and complicated and ridiculous so maybe - just maybe - this means I am first to have read to the end while I avoid planning online lessons for my students. Or maybe not? (Ian Wheeler)
- Like The Hobbit, I skipped the songs... (Jacob Podesta)
- If it’s me again ... it shouldn’t be! (Chris Howes)
- I don’t know what I clicked on…. I don’t know what this means... (Megan Malpas)
- I did attempt the photo comp last time - I guessed GB! :) (Elaine Oliver) (Editor: wrong guess!)
- A day late and a dollar short, but I made it! Thanks be to FT Bear! (Sharon Wheeler)
- In these times of bored isolation I bet I wasn’t first, but I certainly have a renewed thirst (ha) for getting underground after this edition of the newsletter, and I’m sure that must count for something. Thanks! (Kat Osie-Mensah)
Congratulations to all concerned!
THE END
Now who is going to be first this month?