The Hut following work by our wonderful president, Elaine Oliver to paint the outside and clear the patio in May/June 2020.
The club social scene has continued to provide a weekly alternative to in-person pub meets, with a weekly quiz, followed by virtual pub, which has the advantage that members from all over the country can join in, so if you'd like to come along for either the quiz or the pub or both and don't get to see the announcements and links on Facebook, let us know and we'll make sure you get sent the link for the calls. We made use of Zoom for a successful committee meeting recently, and are trying to get our collective heads around the account for quiz and pub, so bear with us for the traditional faff!
Please keep your articles coming, and don't forget our creative writing challenge! Megan and Linda got great reactions to their fanfic, so will be inflicting more literary genius on an unsuspecting public in this issue, so don't be shy! We're open to all forms of writing, prose, poetry, whatever takes your fancy!
Particular thanks are due to Dick Willis, who got pounced on by Linda on Facebook when he posted a photo of an old oversuit he wore on a rescue in the Pierre Saint-Martin in France. Ever the opportunist, she asked him for a few words to go with it for the newsletter and Dick completely excelled himself with a huge feature article for us!
Back issues of this newsletter can be found here.
We're very sorry to inform everyone that long-standing UBSS member Isabel Buckingham has recently died. Isabel joined the society in her second year of a Geography degree at Bristol in 1966. She was closely involved with the discovery and exploration of Little Neath River Cave in 1967. Isabel was interviewed as part of our oral history project, Travels Beneath the Earth, an extract from which is reproduced here, in which Isabel talks about Neath and an incident involving green dye...
I got involved because the Society had found the Little Neath River Cave. Chris Gilmore was a lucky man, who dived the sump in Bridge Cave and broke into a streamway. And then upstream we found what’s called the ‘Flood Entrance’, which is a little way in, and we were surveying that. Now in those days, there was no laser surveying. You did it the hard way with a compass, a clinometer and a tape. We were also trying to do water tracing on the Little Neath River Cave. South Wales Caving Club said that it went into the Hepste Valley, which was down the dip of the rock, so it was unlikely, but possible. We simply could not replicate their results.
I was driving friends over. And we were putting down bags of activated charcoal at every spring, seepage and rising that we could find. Going back two weeks later, collecting the bags back, looking at them under a UV light on a lamp, and there was nothing. Activated charcoal would have absorbed the tiny amounts of fluorescein we were putting down. So that we’d have known where it came out.
There’s a river down this bloody cave, so there’s a lot of water. We really wanted to get this sorted, there was a whole lot of us graduating that summer. We did our finals, and then we had a wait to see if we were going to be called for a viva. There was about seventeen or eighteen of us. We all went across, and we camped very near to Little Neath River Cave. And I remember as I fell asleep hearing somebody say he’d put two blocks of fluorescein down the sink. Well the next morning, somebody turned up and said, ‘What the hell have you done? The river is fluorescing down at Glyn Neath.’ And it didn’t go into the Hepste valley, it came further down the Neath valley. But we still didn’t know where it came up. My friend Eve Gilmore (Eve Wheeler then), she and I got changed, scrubbed up, put a skirt and dress on. We went and picked bluebells. Completely innocent.
We wandered up the valley. And we met two guys from the Water Board. Now this was Whit weekend. It was a bank holiday, anyway. And South Wales Caving Club had published that the water went into the Hepste valley. And this was before the reorganisation of the Welsh counties. So basically, we were in a Welsh county that was a different county to the sink. And there was a brewery and a photographic lab that had picked up this contamination. And literally the whole river fluoresced.
So we said, ‘It’s a funny colour, what has been going on?’ Absolutely innocent. two lassies picking flowers.
They said, 'Bloody cavers, they've done this.'
We said, 'That’s really interesting, why has it?'
We chatted away. Actually Eve Gilmore was very good at chatting people up. And we wandered off and went back and said, 'We’ve found the river. It’s down the valley. And that’s the pressure rising'.
After that we knew where it was. When you’re surveying what you try and do is try and close your survey, or else you exaggerate the effect. And Pete Standing had managed to get some radio equipment. And we thought that the main chamber was related to a fault on the surface. And we were trying to use this radio location, but it wasn’t that successful, and everybody got rather cross. But in fact, we had found the pressure rising. Yeah, it was good fun. Best way to finish your degree in finding something out.
Yep, four months into lockdown and we all want to go caving. We really, really want to go caving. So our resident genius Jacob Podesta has found a way of getting all of us underground from the safety of our (hopefully) Covid-free armchairs. So grab a beer or your tipple of choice and settle down to play Go Straight On: An UBSS Text Adventure.
To play, follow THIS LINK and then make sure you read and follow all the instructions on the graphic on your screen, including making sure that you type all your commands in UPPER CASE.
YAY CAVING! And many thanks to Jacob for all his hard work on this!
To help you while away the long, miserable non-caving hours, Imogen Clement and Sam Bowers have nobly subjected themselves to some of the best - and worst - films that feature caves and have written these up as enticements - and warnings - for the rest of us!
I feel like these reviews need a bit of an introduction. Basically I’m very bored in quarantine (and missing caving) so I thought I’d give some of the cave films out there a watch and review. A quick google informed me, though, that there are basically three actual cave films (non-documentary, anyway). And all of these are horror films. Then I remembered that caves feature in other films, so I thought I’d add them to my list. Some of them are more ‘cave-y’ than others, but we’ll take what we can get. Sam and I are reviewing half each from our list, and a couple of the ‘cave’ films we hadn’t seen are shared. Our rating for this, uh, ‘serious project’ is as follows. They get a score out of 10 for ‘caviness’ and then a score out of 10 for how good the film is. Here’s the first five reviews of the project.
The Mines of Moria, The Fellowship of the Ring
These are the reviews on the behalf of a newbie who had not seen the films before. Proceed with caution. Also, spoilers.
There are a surprising number of caves in Middle Earth, which is pretty cool except for the fact that all the hobbits seem to just wander about in them with no shoes. The cave (okay, it’s a mine) in The Fellowship of the Ring is actually pretty difficult to get into: they have to say some things in Dwarfish, putting our own drama about cave keys to shame. It’s pretty sad too, since all the dwarves inside are dead for some reason. Anyway, it’s mostly perilous, there’s Gollum hanging out in there, some orcs and a cave troll too (insert joke about whoever you like). The cave troll thing kills Gandalf but it’s actually for the best because it means he gets to come back to life with a blond makeover in the next film! Another positive is the cave decoration in the form of some pretty sick dwarf rock engraving. But it’s still mostly harrowing due to the whole Dwarf genocide and orc murder situation, so the film gets a 3/10 caving score. As a LoTR newbie, the film felt very silly at first since it was basically just lots of men in wigs speaking very dramatically about dwarves and stuff but I did start to enjoy it by the end. 6/10
Helm's Deep, The Two Towers
In The Two Towers, Helm’s Deep is sort of built into a cave system I think, but they don’t really focus on it, probably because they’re a bit busy fighting Sauron’s armies. This is fair enough, since I suppose recreational cave exploration does take a backseat when you’ve got orcs to kill. (I have since googled this… apparently in the book it’s a proper cave system! Based on Cheddar Gorge??? Offended by the lack of this in the film!) But this film was really very fun, I liked the talking trees a lot and the battle was pretty spectacular. Once you get used to Middle Earth logic and the weird names (why are most people called things like Eroyan but one of the hobbits is called Sam?), Lord of the Rings is actually pretty good: 8/10. 2/10 for caving – they could have definitely done more… it basically looks like a castle on the side of a mountain, when it could have looked like *this*!
Gough's Cave, Cheddar Gorge
In The Return of the King, we get back into Middle earth's cave systems.
Frodo doesn't appear to be enjoying his first trip down Goatchurch.
The goth guy and the blond elf go caving together and some ghost people show up but they end up being good guys because the goth is a king now. (This is the actual plot as I understand it) Next up we’ve got these sort of cave tunnels in Mordor that the hobbits have fights in for most of the film. This caving experience is definitely less than ideal; mostly due to the presence of Gollum who basically sabotages the whole expedition by stealing their bread. This is a bad caving food anyway, since I’m certain it would all crumble. Also there’s a big fuck off spider at one point and they almost get eaten.
But they make it to Mount Doom, which I’m not sure counts as a cave, but if it does, British Cave Rescue should really be using this Eagle tactic for getting cavers and hobbits out of sticky situations. The caving in this film gets an 8/10 as it conveys an incredibly important caving message: never go down a cave without enough snacks. Overall, this movie concluded the trilogy in a satisfying way and is actually a really cool fantasy film. As a LoTR newbie: I’m converted. I’ve decided I’m moving to New Zealand. 9/10
The Hobbit is a part of LoTR to which I am not a newbie, having read the book. But the (three!) films barely hold a candle to the (one!) book and the rest of the Middle Earth cinematic universe. But since a cave features, we must add this to our list. The only cave, like literally every cave in Middle Earth, it would seem, is inside a mountain. This time we’re in the Lonely Mountain, which is pretty good due to the vast quantities of gold. Except there’s a dragon, which is an obvious threat. So 4/10. The films get a 1/10, they’re weirdly paced and are redeemed only by the presence of some great actors and also that one really good deep song. Might start a campaign to get some Dwarf songs into the cave song book.
The Incredibles (reviewed by Imogen)
Dash, our hero.
The Incredibles is Pixar at its best, hitting that sweet spot between a children’s film and being genuinely entertaining for an adult audience; weaving in commentary about family dynamics and suburban life amongst comic book antics, delightfully camp villains and kid-friendly gags.
The animation is slightly clunky at times, but doesn’t feel like something made in 2004, so it’s particularly impressive for the time; worthy of its two Oscar wins and the memorable score which scooped a Grammy. While the film features two separate caves, it’s not exactly a cave film. The caves are used for hiding from the villains on the secret island, but nobody really ventures outside of the first few metres of them and Edna Mode’s lycra creations aren’t exactly the oversuits of our dreams.
The Underminer, the baddie.
I’ll give credit where credit is due though; Pixar did pretty well with making some convincing volcanic caves and there’s a moment where a stal is used to hide behind. Also, our own Henry Morgan gets a surprising homage and the villain at the end is a dead ringer for any member of UBSS exiting a cave. All in all, due to some pretty poor cave conservation in the form of a cave getting exploded by a rocket, I’m giving it a 3/10 on that front, but a good 9/10 for an on the whole, dare I say it, incredible animated classic.
Harry Potter (reviewed by Sam)
When looking at caves within the Harry Potter universe there are three that immediately spring to mind: The Chamber of Secrets, Gringotts Bank and the Crystal Cave, where Dumbledore and Harry travelled to in the Half-Blood Prince in search of Slytherin’s locket.
The Chamber of Secrets.
Starting with The Chamber of Secrets, it is an example of beautiful interior decorating with an ornate and serpentine theme throughout but has a complicated parseltongue entrance system that could be hard to operate when deathly hungover as most of us usually are. Plus, the Chamber is home to a fuck off massive killer snake that could also prove to be an obstacle to any possible exploration. Overall, its unique design gains it a 6/10.
Gringotts Bank.
Our next contestant, Gringotts Bank, is by far the largest cave in the wizarding world and is equipped with a rather precarious cart system for navigating between vaults who I for one, as a lover of rollercoaster, feel only adds to the cave. However, much like The Chamber of Secrets, Gringott's is inhabited by yet more fuck off massive reptiles, this time dragons. Also, there are various anti intruder traps in place so leaving this certain cave alive could prove difficult. Its added theme park style cart and the fact it contains lots of gold mean Gringotts is rewarded a 7/10.
The Crystal Cave.
The final cave of note, Crystal Cave, is a sea cave off the coast of Devon. Apparently unapproachable by boat this cave would require some definite cave diving ability and I know the danger would not deter some of the more mental members of UBSS. Once inside, it is quite nondescript, but I am sure if you looked you could find some marvellous crystal structures, as the name implies. Following the perilous theme of these caves this one is inhabited by the water born living dead, i.e. water zombies, that could possibly interrupt your stalactite studying session. Due to its less exciting interior, in comparison to the others, and seeming inaccessibility the Crystal Cave only scores 5/10. To conclude it would take too long for me to individually review each Harry Potter film but to sum them up they are a collection of action packed, nostalgia filled masterpieces and they all get 10/10.
The Croods (reviewed by Sam)
From the off it is easy to see how Dreamworks’ 2013 film The Croods is an Oscar nominated picture. This family friendly festival of fun follows an adventurous cavegirl and her cave family as they try to navigate the difficult problems that come with living on a prehistoric earth whether that be out running an extinction level disaster that threatens life as you know it or deciding if the sexy caveboy you just met has a crush on you.
Being cavepeople, they of course reside … in a cave but compared to the wonders of Mendip it is nothing special. Dark and cramped it is more a place of shelter from life endangering foe than a cave for exploration, but it serves its purpose all the same. Although the cave aspect of the film is poor the flick is redeemed by the fact that Nicholas Cage voices one of the major characters meaning that unsurprisingly hilarity ensues. Overall, the cave leaves much to be desired for, making it a 2/10, but as a whole the movie makes for a reasonably enjoyable 90 minutes, achieving a 6/10, and takes up time I would have otherwise spent quarantine napping.
The Descent (reviewed by Sam & Imogen)
Freshers' trip down Rod's Pot.
As a newbie to the world of caving film both we are both pleased to conclude that The Descent was an excellent first exposure. It begins with an introduction of the main character Sarah, her husband and their daughter, both of whom are swiftly killed off in truly brutal fashion.
As all normal people do, Sarah decided the best way to deal with the terrible grief of losing her family was to go on a girls' holiday… ‘spelunking’ (America has a lot to answer for!). Surprisingly this fails to improve her mood. We have decided to put this down to the fact that each girl had their own separate bed, so no alpine bunk fun was allowed occur.
Moving on to the actual caving aspect of the film we were pleased to see that, despite deciding to go caving in… vests and leggings (?) all the attendees were deathly hungover before they set out for the cave the following day. Apart from Juno, though we’ll get onto why she fucking sucks later. Once the group had made it into the cave it quickly became apparent they were utterly lost, mainly due to the fact that Juno had decided to take them to previously unexplored cave as a part of her plan for personal glory.
Gollum doing a bit of moonlighting in a lower budget production.
In an incredibly baffling sequence somebody gets stuck, and somehow this causes the cave to collapse. Yes, rock that has not collapsed under the pressure of thousands of years breaks apart because a pretty normal looking woman pushes against it. Yet another reason to call Juno a big twat. After scrambling around for hours, looking for an exit, the group run into a horde of flesh-eating cave zombies who take it upon themselves to try and eat the cavers' flesh (as their name implies). This is where the movie really takes off. A series of scenes filled mostly with screaming, blood and guts ensue and Juno proves her twatdom on multiple occasions. We would not invite her on any post-pandemic caving trips.
We’ve agreed that the cave set in The Descent is the best either of us have ever seen in a film although the formations in places do look like they were made from play dough, probably because they were. Also this is a film so it’s not as dark as it probably would be, and we’re treated to some very pretty red and green lights underground throughout. However, due to the realistic nature of the cave-based set and the fact the whole film is pretty much set in a cave it is awarded a stellar 9/10 for cave. The overall film is very entertaining as a whole and mainly comes down to the characters falling victim to wrong place, wrong time so it achieves a 7/10. Let’s all hope that flesh eating monsters haven’t taken up residence underground in our absence.
MEMORIES OF WETNESS
After being pounced on in Facebook, Dick Willis, one of the club's most experienced expedition cavers, kindly agree to relive some memories from a rather damp trip down a classic French system. Dick takes up the tale...
In 1975, 20 British cavers set off for the highlands of Papua New Guinea. Among the group were two UBSS members, me and Phil Chapman. Phil had earned his place having taken part in an expedition to Venezuela where he excelled himself as a caver and a competent bio-speleologist. By a cunning combination of bribery and flattery, I had managed to persuade Phil to put in a good word for me with the New Guinea team and tagged along with a crowd of mostly ULSA members, all good vertical cavers and as hard as nails. But that’s a whole set of other stories…
Despite leaving PNG early (I was due to come back and earn enough cash to go on a UBMC trip to Kulu in Himachal Pradesh. Unfortunately, no one wrote to me to tell me that there was a recession and no jobs, so I missed that trip) I managed to not be written off as a complete arse and was invited to take part in an ULSA expedition to push the bottom of the Gouffre Pierre de la St Martin (PSM), in the commune of Sainte-Engrâce in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques.
The PSM was renowned for two features. It had the largest known underground chamber, La Salle Verna which has a diameter of 250 metres, a height of 194 metres, a surface area of 5 hectares with a volume of 3.6 million cubic metres. A river, which takes water from the main system higher up the mountain, cascades into the chamber from halfway up the east wall and sinks in boulders on the chamber floor. The more interesting feature was that at -1342m it was the world’s deepest cave. This was the drop measured from the then top entrance (The Tete Sauvage entrance) although the system has been extended upwards by finding higher entrances. [If you read French, there’s an excellent account of a traverse of most of the system at Traversée de la Pierre Saint Martin le 05 août 2014 - GCPM]
This expedition was a follow-up to an ULSA trip in 1971 during which they descended the final pitches to establish PSM position’s as the deepest. These final pitches took a stream but the way on at the bottom was apparently too tight [Sid Perou made a film of the ’71 expedition which is well worth watching, if only to gloat at how easy it all is now with better clothing, SRT, decent lights etc.] and the aim of the ’77 trip was to try to push beyond this point.
On arrival we set up our main camp at in the village of Licq, a little way down the valley from the track to the cave. The ground was very wet from recent heavy rain and we wandered down take photos of the spectacular waterfall over the top of the local hydro-scheme. With the benefit of hindsight that should have told us something…
After a day of fettling gear and sampling pastis in the village bar we loaded sacs and set off up to the entrance. There are several ways into the system, the most famous being the Lepineaux Shaft in which Marcel Loubens had died in 1952. But our interest was in the bottom of the cave and we took a short cut into the Verna. This route had been helpfully constructed by EDF in the late ‘50s when they attempted to drive a tunnel into the chamber to capture the river for hydro power. Unfortunately for them, they got the levels wrong and the tunnel comes into the chamber halfway up one side, a long way above the river. But they did cavers a favour because it’s a damn handy way in and out. It also enabled the Verna the be developed into a spectacular show cave.
EDF Tunnel entrance..
The workmen had built a hut immediately outside the tunnel entrance and that was our advance base. Over the next couple of days, we shipped supplies up the mountain and then moved there to begin exploration. The tunnel entrance was protected by two heavy steel doors which had to be opened and closed quickly, before the colder air in the cave started blowing out. If that happened, it might take three or four people to close them. 70m further on, the other end of the tunnel opened out onto a ledge on the side of the Verna or, as it appeared at the time, onto a hillside on a moonless night.
It’s hard to imagine what it was like to enter that space lit only by ‘stinky’ carbide lamps. In that huge volume, the light they cast was almost nothing, even with the jet turned up fully. We did have a number of ex-mining Oldham lamps amongst us but even those lights couldn’t reach the opposite wall with any force. Having been in New Guinea, I was used to some big caves but this was an altogether different experience. Our first trip in was just to take photos and mine showed small pools of light in blackness and were hopeless. But I only found that out after having the films developed back in the UK and had chance for a second attempt. This much more modern photo below is looking towards the cascade where it enters the chamber, the tunnel comes into the obvious ledge left of the picture and the pool of light on the right is the entrance to the Aranzadi passage which was reached by an 80m climb using a tatty fixed rope for self-belay.
Over the next couple of days, teams of cavers took it in turns to take rope through the tunnel and up the climb to the Aranzadi Passage. This huge gallery leads deeper into the mountain and our way turned off it into the Meander Martine. In contrast to the Aranzadi, this is a long, energy-sapping and painful experience traversing a narrow, often bottomless rift which finally ends in a small chamber, the Montpelier. Here the nature of the cave changes yet again as a stream enters and then drops into the first of the pitches that lead down the Parment series to the lowest point.
Compared with today's equipment, ours was pretty rudimentary and the water in the Parment series was cold. about 30 Celsius and, of course, a strong wind wich made it colder. My gear consisted of a thin, home-made wetsuit and hood over Damart Thermolactyl vest and long-johns. Over the top I had an orange Ladysmith Busywear boilersuit, waterproof, highly flexible, and one of the best bits of caving kit I have ever owned.
Unfortunately, the fabric outer coating was prone to chafe and you had to be careful not to damage it. This outfit was finished off with a pair of orange Marigold washing up gloves. For lighting we all had stinky carbides (I don’t remember anyone having an expedition model) a scattering of Oldhams and for back up, we each had a Pile Wonder, a 4.5v bike light that we hung round our necks on string.
Techniques had moved on from 1971 and ladders had given way to SRT although, if my memory serves me well (which is increasingly rare) we might still have been using yachting rope as specialist stuff for caving was only just coming on the market. For descending, I used a 7-bar titanium rack, which had been made by one of my colleagues on the New Guinea team, or a figure of 8, and a frog-rig for ascent with Jumars. In those days, battery powered electrical drills were science fiction and we placed bolts manually by fitting the sleeve to a metal bolting tool, holding the end against the rock and whacking it with a lump hammer whilst turning it back and forth. We generally carried a thin plastic tube to put in the hole from time to time in order to blow out dust. When it was deep enough, a spreader was inserted into a new sleeve which was pushed into the hole and smacked home; hopefully it would be sound…
Among the ULSA membership were a few engineers and one of them, knowing that parts of the Parment series were relatively narrow, had manufactured an extendible bar bolting tool. A bolt could be fitted onto one end and the device braced across the passage. By turning a ratchet handle the assembly could be used to drive the bolt hole much faster than the conventional percussive approach. It was great and worked a treat in appropriate settings, but it was spoilt slightly because the end hadn’t been machined perfectly with the result that the hole was always fractionally oversized… Over a period of a few days, teams of cavers took it in turns to rig the pitches. The cave was very wet, very, very cold and progress was slow. Placing a single bolt might require the efforts of a couple of people, taking it in turns.
On 6th August, Andy Eavis, Paul Everett and I went down to take over. The cave had been rigged to the bottom of the 3rd pitch in the series where there was a ledge and we reached that easily. Andy laid a rope down from the last bolt to an old 1971 peg and from there to a large boss at the start of the next 25m drop. Here he put on a tape belay and descended, shouting at me to replace the tape with a wire belay. I didn’t have any wires, so I put a rope protector under the tape. I remember the belay clearly because it was up out of the stream and dry.
At the bottom of this pitch was a dry spot and Andy placed another bolt so that we could abseil down the next obstacle, a steep set of cascades which ended at the head of the penultimate pitch (c30m). Here there is a connection to a ledge at the head of a blind pitch where an earlier Bulgarian team had left a large pile of rope. Andy placed a bolt for the next descent and I distinctly remember trying it and pointing out that it was loose. He countered by commenting that it was in at an angle and providing we kept it weighted, it wasn’t going to come out. I couldn’t fault the logic, but it did prompt him to drill another which was sound. Having done that, off he went, and we followed. At the head of the final pitch we repeated the process and then descended to the bottom, placing a lot of rope protectors on the way, as I recall - re-belays and diversions were almost unheard of in those days, especially if you were in a hurry!
The bottom of the PSM is not a place I would recommend; it was very cold and unpleasant with a strong wind and spray. A tight, dry rift led off into which Andy scrabbled before reappearing and confirming it wasn’t the way on. That left the only option as a narrow vertical slot under a large boulder, too small for any of us. So, while they continued to proddle about, I started back up the rope. Andy soon followed me up, confirmed that there was no passable way on and told me Paul was following. There was no point waiting for him, so I started up the penultimate pitch at the top of which Andy joined me again, confirmed that Paul was following OK and that I should get going.
The amount of water on the cascades seemed very high but I hadn’t really paid much attention to it on the way down and blundered on, focusing on what I was doing. I later found out that when I was halfway up the cascade, a wall of water came over me but I didn’t notice, I was already so wet and concentrating on my footing. I reached the bolt at the top of the cascades and moved onto the next rope. This was very, very wet, far more so than I remembered on the way down, and I had a lot of trouble with the rope not running through my jammers. The changeover at the top, which had been more or less dry while I had fixed the rope protector below the tape on the way down, was very hard. In effect I had to do the changeover with my hands and gear underwater the stream had risen so much. I finally managed it and moved up the traverse to the ledge from which I called down to the others to tell them that the rope was free. I heard no reply and moved on to make myself safe on the bolt at the bottom of the 3rd pitch and shouted again and again.
Dick Willis in the PSM.
There was no response of sign of lights coming up the cascade and I was soon very cold. My carbide had gone out long ago and I was worried about my Oldham going flat. The noise of the stream appeared overwhelming, but I still couldn’t make the rational decision that I was in the middle of a flood and should get out. Part of me said that I was just panicking, and everyone would take the piss out of me if I left ahead of the others. This internal debate may have taken minutes, but it felt like hours. Eventually good sense won and I clipped onto the next rope and started up.
The next few sections were desperately wet and I began to worry that I wouldn’t make it. The top pitch, which had been dry on our way in, was now carrying heavy water where it had previously been dry, and I noticed the noise of trundling boulders. I made it to the Montpelier, where we had a small supply dump and was able to have a snack. I kept listening for noise from below but could hear nothing other than the flood. By now I was firmly convinced that I was in the middle of a major flood so I fettled my stinky with fresh carbide and when I was confident it would stay alight, I dumped my Oldham, jumars, harness and oversuit in case they’d be useful in a rescue. I scribbled a note to say that I’d gone out and got going.
In complete contrast to the way in, the Meander Martine was very wet with streams pouring out of the roof and I kept having to stop to relight my lamp. At the top of the Aranzadi climb I found that it was carrying a stream which, worryingly, had loosened the boulders at the top. The noise in the Verna was overwhelming, it was filled with steam and when I reached the base of the climb I found that the chamber was now a lake, so much so that I had to boulder hop across to reach the other side. Although I found the path up to the tunnel, I got lost part way up the slope and had to hunt around to find its entrance. Having survived the flood, I nearly broke my neck on the way out by catching my carbide reflector on the roof as I was running. I exited at about 0845, after about 17 hours caving, having come out more or less non-stop from the bottom and I was so pumped that I was able to close both tunnel doors without assistance.
In the hut all was calm. I shouted people to wake up and told them what was going on below and a rescue was swiftly organised while I had a brew, some food and tried to sleep. It transpired that during the night there had been a huge electrical storm (everyone had been out photographing the lightning) and it had been raining in torrents onto an already sodden mountain. Some cavers were dispatched down the valley to get more ladders, rope, radios. They were also told to bring back our stock of dye so that a visual message could be put into the water to tell and Andy and Paul that colleagues were above them. Dave Brook and two others took brewing kit to the Montpelier, while others took in rigging gear to make safe some of the more difficult parts of the route. By 1800 that day, all the gear had been brought up to the hut, and a first group had come out with no news of Andy and Paul but confirming that that water levels in the cave were beginning to go down.
At 2030, Neil Dean, Martin Lafferty and Martin Hicks set off into the cave carrying sleeping bags with the intention that two of them would attempt to descend some of the pitches. At 04 45 Neil Dean reappeared with news that Andy was okay. They had met him below the Montpelier and he was following them out under his own steam. But the news of Paul was less good, he was on the ledge at the bottom of the 3rd pitch, where I had had the debate with myself, his lights were out and they had found him attempting to change onto the next rope, in the dark and beginning to suffer from exposure. They had taken a sleeping bag down to him with hot drink and food. At the time, DB had been working in the textiles department at Leeds University and had been given a sample fibre pile pit to try out. The team put Paul in this, even though he was standing in water and fed him hot drinks, that bag probably saved his life. I learned later that Andy had prussiked out with a knife in his teeth, anticipating that he would find my body hanging on a rope. He expected me to have been killed by large stones carried down on flood waters and someone later told me that two French cavers had been killed in this way in a nearby system during the same storm.
Andy and Paul had been very lucky. Paul had reached the head of the pitch before the flood pulse hit and they were able to move out of the water where they were able to sit out the flood for 24 hours in a sort of next of rock and discarded Bulgarian rope. A second, larger flood pulse had followed the first, probably when I was attempting the submerged change-over at the head of the pitch. Later they saw the dye come through and knew that a rescue team was in the system but they didn’t know if the colour was just a simple message or had meaning ( red=stop, green=go!) When they decided to make a move, they agreed that they would be unable to help each other and had to go it alone. They each had a stinky although they were useless in the circumstances, and Andy had his Oldham. He left Paul with both their Pile Wonders and started up the cascade with Paul following. Having reached the Montpelier, Andy spent about three hours in a sleeping bag being fed and given brews before the others would let him start to go out.
Paul fought his way up to the ledge where I had stood and waited, trying to make up my mind whether to stay or go. His light had been flickering erratically, which made it very hard for him to assess what was going on. By the time the rescue team reached him his was already beginning to suffer from exposure. They attempted to haul him up the next pitch but were unable to do so. Instead, they lowered him back down, put him in a sleeping bag and fed him hot soup and drink brought down from the Montpelier. After a while, Paul recovered sufficiently to make it up the next pitches to the Montpelier under his own steam. He spent a few hours resting in sleeping bag and then came out with the others. The sleeping bag was one of the first fibre pile bags that had been made by Mountain Equipment. At the time, DB working in the textiles department at Leeds University and he’d been given a sample bag to take on the expedition. It proved its worth and almost certainly saved Paul’s life.
Out on the surface we had been joined by a group of French cavers who took over part of the hut. Watching them prepare to go caving was a revelation. Instead of the gear that we all had – tatty wetsuits, a mishmash of boiler suits, homemade harness etc the all had nice oversuits with matching Petzl harnesses and SRT rigs. No wonder we had a reputation for being scruffy bastards!
Actually, I think that I had looked vaguely respectable at the start of the trip in my clean, bright orange Ladysmith oversuit, although I’m sure that I would have looked like a rank amateur compared to them. Unfortunately, although the rest of my gear was recovered OK, the suit was trashed during the rescue. But that seemed a small price to pay for survival!
The spammers have been at it again spoofing emails. These always seem to come from Elaine's presidential address, but then when you look at the actual address, it's something else entirely, but recently, they have been quite convincing, and Elaine has received some phone calls and messages on Facebook asking if she's all right.
So, having nothing better to do during lockdown, a conversation on the club Facebook committee messaging group led to an unusual approach being decided on, and various people, including Imogen and Graham, decided to see how long they could string a conversation along for. This seemed to have frightened the spammers off fairly quickly! To give you some flavour of the conversations, one is reproduced below.
So if you end up getting an unexpected message from the Prezz, or anyone else, check the actual address the email has come from, and don't reply .... unless you're really bored and not worried about validating your email address for the spammers. And remember, never send money or gift cards, even if Elaine sounds really desperate for them!
Here's what happened when Graham started talking to 'Elaine'...
_____
Hello Graham,
Are you free at the moment?
Regards,
Elaine
______
Hi Elaine
The UTI isn’t still playing up, is it? You have been taking the
antibiotics have you? Hope none of the others caught it from you.
Graham
______
The UTI are still playing, Yes have been taking the antibiotics and no one caught me with it.
Sorry to stress you not gonna take much time, will be tired down. Can you get this done ASAP? We need some couple of gift cards. There are some list we are presenting the gift cards, as we have some charity donations to make soon. Don't worry you get a Reimbursements check back before or by next meeting. How quickly can you arrange these gift cards, I need to send them out soon? I would provide you with the type of gift cards and amount of each.
Regards,
Elaine
______
Sadly, things petered out at this point before we could have more fun! But Merryn reports that she's received replies
asking for Amazon cards for a corporate meeting and £400 of iTunes
cards for a family present! Some years ago, it was common to receive
requests from Bob for money to be sent as he was stuck in Istanbul! But
we're an unsympathetic bunch, so the scammers never got any dosh.
Many thanks to our wonder Prezz, Elaine, who spent some very socially distanced time by herself at the hut doing some interior decorating by cleaning and painting the kitchen floor with lovely grey masonry paint (photo left), and in the rest of the hut, she's cleaned and wood-stained the floor (photo right) and it all looks fantastic, along with the newly creosoted outside!
Elaine also did work at the back of the hut and cleared the paths and creosoted the shower, whilst at the front, Hut Warden Liz Green worked hard strimming and raking the grass, so many thanks to both for making sure the hut has been looked after during lockdown. We've also asked local caver and builder Alan 'Butch' Butcher to take a look at the chimney and carry out some necessary works to stabilise the brickwork.
Is this G.B.? If so, where? If not, does anyone know where this photo might have been taken?
The photo shown here was sent to me by Mary Wilde, the Librarian for the British Caving Library. It comes from an archive of work done by a photographer called JG Clarke and is captioned “the Kingdom of Lost Souls.” According to Adrian Clarke, a relative of his who is working with them on the archive, the envelope containing the negative has “Kingdom of Lost Souls GB” written on it. Likely dates for the picture are either around 1960 or 1946.
The helictites are in some ways reminiscent of G.B. but although I am familiar with most of the displays in the cave, I could not align this photo with my exact memories of any of them. I have never heard this particular name used to describe any part of the cave, or any formations within it, either.
However, there are people in the Society who knew the cave at around the time that this photo was taken, certainly for the later date, and whose detailed memories are probably much better than mine. So, any ideas, anyone?
There are no prizes for this one, save the satisfaction of knowing something that nobody else did.
PHOTO COMPETITION RESULT
This photo, taken in July 1974, was received from Dick Willis, and the competition was to name the people and, as a bonus, the place. Only one person knew the answer, and that was our wonderful treasurer, Graham Mullan, who also appears in the photo. The fun thing about this was that even Dick admitted on Facebook that he couldn't name everyone, so here we go with Graham's answers ....
From left to right: Brian Ottway, Trat, Julian Walford, Graham Mullan, Dave Nuttall, Ian Cassely, Cathy Sullivan, Steve Warr, Dick Baldock, Oliver Lloyd, Carol Walford (then Carol Thomas), Dick Willis, Alison Roberts, Charlie Self, Mick Roberts.
Where: outside Glenview, Lisdoonvarna. The derelict hotel that we stayed in during the 70s. Burke’s Garage is just to the left. The hotel was demolished years ago and only the outer wall remains.
A caving haiku, from the lovely Jacob Podesta!
Nay Caving
My legs are so sore;
without caves, pain is no fun.
This was a dull run.
We have several entries this week! The incredibly talented Megan Malpas is back by popular demand with the second chapter of Harry Potter and the Spelaeological Stone, continuing the adventures of The Boy Who Wasn’t Mauled to Death by a Honey Badger. Linda Wilson is underground again in Middle-earth, this time in the Mines of Moria. Over the next few months, she's aiming to do 100 words (known as a drabble in fanfiction circles) for each of the nine members of the fellowship of the ring as they undertake one of the most dangerous traverses in Tolkien's trilogy. And we welcome a new author this week, Elaine Oliver, with a creation that every caver is going to want to take underground (or to the Hunters') ...
Graphic by Graham Mullan.
In a distant and second-hand set of dimensions, in a bedding plane that was never meant to fly, the curling cave-mists waver and part...
See...
The Burrington Master Cave stretches out, water trickling gently through the Stygian gulf, calcite frost glittering on limestone walls, huge and ancient stream passage pocked with scalloping.
Through fossil phreas crusted with dried mud and the detritus of prehistoric floods, an evanescent draught sighs. In a chamber bigger than a cathedral, hollowed out with geological slowness, hitherto undescribed troglobitic species gather. Most of the biomass is of course accounted for by Albe, Gwyn, Geal and Bán, the four blind cave trout who swim these subterranean streamways, garlanded by a long waterfall at the cavern’s westernmost edge and domed by the ebon vault of Lower Carboniferous limestone.
Speleopsychology has been, as yet, unable to establish what they think about.
The Master Cave was a mere hypothesis until the day a small and secretive faction of the UBSS, the wooden floor of whose Hut conceals a pothole of dimensions that would make a Yorkshire caver quiver, built a gantry and pulley arrangement at the tip of the most precipitous bunk and lowered an observer over the Edge in a harness of questionable provenance to peer through the mist veils.
***
The Worm pointed towards the tortuous crawl. “You’ve been through that?” he asked.
The caver rubbed a red, raw hand across his eyes. “I was there when the dig started. See him? Back there?” He pointed back down the passage to where his companion was still approaching, having adopted a method of traversing that involved slipping down the vadose trench every few seconds.
“Well?” said Worm.
“He started it,” said Peter simply.
Gethin and Worm looked at the figure, now hopping across a slightly wider part of the passageway with one foot in his footloop.
“Geology student, is he?” said Gethin at last.
“No,” said Peter. “Not precisely. Let’s just say that if utterly miserable scrot holes were lightning, then he’d be the sort to cling to a via ferrata in a thunderstorm wearing wet SRT kit and shouting ‘All gods are bastards’. Got any food?”
“There’s a Tunnocks bar,” said Worm, “in exchange for a story.”
“What’s his name?” said Gethin, who tended to lag behind in conversations.
“Séamas.”
“Séamas?” said Gethin. “What a funny name.”
Worm looked past Séamas at the shape in the passageway behind him. It was closer now, and clearer in the pre-dawn light. It looked for all the world like a–
“A tackle sack on legs?” he said.
“I’ll tell you about it,” said Peter. “If there’s any Butcombe, that is.”
***
Several days before these events, a Megabus descended Cheddar Gorge and fetched up, among many other coaches, in the maze of extortionate parking spaces stretching out from Cheddar Rising. It carried a cargo of foreign tourists, students returning from university, an elderly couple who’d popped up to Bristol for the weekend, and a man.
It was this man who engaged the attention of Old Sheppy, one of the parking attendants on early duty opposite Jacob’s Ladder. He nudged Big Perry in the ribs and pointed wordlessly.
The stranger was standing on the pavement watching several straining Megabus employees carry a large blue-and-yellow tackle sack off the undercarriage of the coach. Another man, obviously the driver, was standing beside him. There was about the driver – every nerve in Old Sheppy’s body, which tended to vibrate in the presence of even a small amount of impure gold at fifty paces, screamed into his brain – the air of one anticipating imminent enrichment.
Sure enough, when the tackle sack had been deposited on the cobbles, the stranger reached into a pouch and there was the flash of a coin. Several coins. Gold. Old Sheppy, his body twanging like a hazel rod in the presence of water, whistled to himself. Then he nudged Perry again, and sent him scurrying off down a nearby alley into the heart of the village. When the driver climbed back into the bus, leaving the newcomer looking faintly bewildered in the car park, Old Sheppy snatched up his ticket book and made his way across the street with an ingratiating leer. At the sight of him the stranger started to fumble urgently with his money pouch.
“‘Ello, sir,” Old Sheppy began, and found himself looking up into a face with the reddest beard he had ever seen, and was it his imagination or was there a faint rainbow aura surrounding the little man?
He turned to run… “!” said the stranger, and grabbed his arm.
Sheppy was aware that the girls on their way to work in the tea rooms were laughing at him. At the same time his specialised senses detected an overpowering impression of money. He froze.
The stranger let go and quickly thumbed through a small black book he had taken from his belt. Then he said “Tábhairne.”
“Whassat?” said Sheppy.
The man looked blank. “Tábhairne?” he repeated, rather louder than necessary and so carefully that Sheppy could hear the vowels tinkling into place.
“Tábhairne yerself,” Sheppy riposted.
The stranger smiled widely, fumbled yet again in the pouch. This time his hand came out holding a large gold coin. It was in fact slightly larger than the £5,000 coin the Royal Mint had launched the previous November and the design on it was unfamiliar, but it spoke inside Sheppy’s mind in a language he understood perfectly. My current owner, it said, is in need of succour and assistance; why not give it to him, so you and me can go off somewhere and enjoy ourselves? Subtle changes in the parking attendant’s posture made the stranger feel more at ease.
Sheppy was aware that a small crowd of scrumpy merchants, cheese shop employees and freelance gawpers were watching them with interest. “Look,” he said, “I know a good pub, is that enough?” He shuddered to think of the gold coin escaping from his life. He’d keep that one, even if Roger confiscated all the rest. And the big tackle sack that comprised most of the newcomer’s luggage looked to be full of gold, Sheppy decided.
The red-haired man looked at his book. “Tábhair–”
“Yes, all right. Come on then,” said Sheppy hurriedly. He picked up one of the bundles and walked away quickly.
The stranger, after a moment’s hesitation, strolled after him.
A train of thought shunted its way through Sheppy’s mind. Getting the newcomer to the Hunter’s so easily was a stroke of luck, no doubt of it, and Roger would probably reward him. But for all his new acquaintance’s mildness there was something about him that made Sheppy uneasy, and for the life of him he couldn’t figure out what it was. Not the red hair and the rainbow, odd though they were. There was something else. He glanced back. The little man was ambling along in the middle of the street, looking around him with an expression of keen interest.
Something else Sheppy saw nearly made him gibber.
The massive tackle sack, which he had last seen resting solidly on the pavement, was following on its master’s heels with a gentle rocking gait. Slowly, in case a sudden movement on his part might break his fragile control over his own legs, Sheppy bent slightly so that he could see under the bag.
There were lots and lots of little legs. Very deliberately, Sheppy turned around and walked very carefully towards the bus that would convey them to the Hunter’s Lodge Inn.
It still being that hour when most of Mendip was just rising or about to go to bed, there were few people in the Hunter’s to watch Séamas enter the front bar. When the Tacklesack appeared behind him and started to lurch confidently along the flagstones, the customers at the rough wooden tables, as one man, looked suspiciously at their drinks. Roger was browbeating the small sproglodite who swept the bar when the trio walked past him.
“What in ‘ell is that?” he said.
“Just don’t talk about it,” hissed Sheppy.
Séamas was already thumbing through his book.
“What’s ‘ee doin’?” said Roger, arms akimbo.
“I think it’s a guidebook. Tells ‘ee what to say. I know, it’s gert ridic’lis,” muttered Sheppy.
“I would like the dish of the day and a glass of your finest local ale,” announced Séamas.
Roger looked at Sheppy.
The parking attendant shrugged. “Think ‘ee means an ‘am pasta and a pint of bitter,” he said.
“Tell him that's eight fifty, then. And that thing’ll have to go out the back.”
All eyes in the room were watching the stranger – except for a pair belonging to Peter the caver, who was sitting in the darkest corner nursing a mug of very small beer. He was watching the Tacklesack.
Watch Peter.
Look at him. Scrawny, like most cavers, and clad in a dark red t-shirt on which details of a CHECC forum long since past were inked in faded grey. Some might have taken him for a mere fresher’s week dabbler who had run away from his club out of defiance, boredom, fear and a lingering taste for cleanliness. Yet around his neck was a rusty SRT knife that marked him as an alumnus of at least one trip to Yorkshire, the high school of vertical caving whose pothole entrances are never precisely Here nor There. Graduates were usually destined for an expedition at least, but Peter – after an unfortunate event – had left knowing only a single knot, and now made a living of sorts up in Bristol by capitalising on an innate gift for writing complicated code. He avoided both work and caving as a rule, but he enjoyed the company down on Mendip, and had a quickness of wit that put his acquaintances in mind of a bright rodent. And he knew sapient cordura when he saw it. He was seeing it now, and didn’t quite believe it.
He stood up and made his way to the trio. “May I be of assistance?” he ventured.
“Shove off, Peter,” snarled Roger.
“I only thought it might be useful to offer this gentleman a caver’s perspective,” said the young man gently.
“‘Ee be doin’ all right on his own,” said the innkeeper, but took a few steps backward.
Peter smiled politely at the stranger and extolled the virtues of the local swallets and slockers. He prided himself on his knowledge of Mendip geology, but the stranger only looked bemused.
“Adit?” questioned Peter. “Pothole? Shakehole? Doline?” Each was met with polite incomprehension. Please don’t be a spelunker, he thought. In desperation he tried the Irish term uaimh, and the little man's face split into a delighted grin.
"At last!” he said. "Me fine fella-me-lad! This is remarkable! Someone who knows what I’m on about! My name is Séamas.” He extended his hand.
“Pleased to meet you,” said Peter. “I’m Peter. Look, this is a bit of a “local” place.”
“Good! Exactly what I wanted!”
“Eh?”
“What is this stuff in the mugs?”
“This? Butcombe. Thanks, Roger. Yes. Beer. You know. Beer.”
“Ah, the typical Mendip drink. Good. You say this is a local place. Frequented, you mean, by cavers and men of adventure?”
Peter considered this. “Yes?” he managed.
“Excellent. I would like to meet some.”
An explanation occurred to Peter. “Ah,” he said. “You’ve come to invite them to the SUICRO symposium?”
“Oh no. I just want to meet them. So that when I get home I can say that I did it.”
In the Hunter’s Lodge Inn, Peter listened open-mouthed as Séamas talked.
“So I decided to see for myself,” the little man was saying. “Eight years’ saving up, this has cost me. But worth every euro. I mean, here I am. On Mendip. Famed in song and story, I mean. By the fields that have known the tread of Jeremy Twospade. Steve the Surveyor, and Gethin the Welshman and the Worm... It’s all just like I imagined, you know.”
Peter’s face was a mask of fascinated horror.
“I just couldn’t stand it any more back in County Clare,” Séamas went on blithely, “crawling around in a wetsuit all day, just bedding plane after tight flooded bedding plane, fearing that a badger’s about to rush out and bite you on the arse, and nothing but a sump to look forward to at the end of it... where’s the romance in that? Séamas, I thought, it’s now or never. You don’t just have to listen to stories. You can go there. Now’s the time to stop hanging around the bars listening to cavers’ tales. So I borrowed a copy of Mendip Underground and bought a passage on the next ship to Holyhead.”
“All right,” said Peter desperately, “let’s eat somewhere else, though. There’s a dig meeting about to start.”
“A dig meeting? We must join them!”
“Well, you see, I – what?”
“I thought I made myself clear, Peter. I want to see genuine Mendip life – the pastures, the caving huts, the lead mines, the truculent farmers... and a genuine dig.” A faint note of suspicion entered Séamas’s voice. “You do have them, don’t you? You know, people swinging on crowbars, dragging buckets of spoil along the floor, the sort of thing Steve the Surveyor and the Worm are always getting involved in. You know – excitement.”
Peter sat down heavily on a bar stool. “You want to see a dig?” he said.
“Yes. What’s wrong with that?”
“For a start, people get muddy.”
“Oh, I wasn’t suggesting we get involved. I just want to see one, that’s all. And some of your famous cave surveyors. You do have some, don’t you? It’s not all bar room talk?” And now, to the young caver’s astonishment, Séamas was almost pleading.
“Oh, yeah. We have them all right,” said Peter hurriedly. He pictured them in his mind and recoiled from the thought.
All the digging teams on Mendip passed through the doors of the Hunter’s sooner or later. Most of them were from the clubs nearer to Priddy, which had a sort of export trade in digging teams. Almost all of them employed tatty buckets rigged up on crude hauling systems which ignored any effort to operate them in a smooth and efficient manner, but Peter didn’t object to them on that score. He knew himself to be a caving dropout, so it didn’t bother him that his biceps were up to about three bucketloads before he was ready to call it an evening and head out for a pint. No, what he didn’t like about diggers was that they were usually suicidally gloomy about the trending passageway in their dig when sober and homicidally insane when drunk. There were too many of them, too. Some of the most notable prospecting areas on Mendip were a veritable hubbub in the season. There was talk of organising a rota.
He rubbed his nose. The only diggers he had much time for were Gethin and the Worm, who were out of town at the moment, and Steve the Surveyor, who was practically an academic by digger standards in that he could calculate how many caps would be required to enlarge a passage without moving his lips. Steve was said to be roving somewhere near Elphin.
“Look,” he said at last. “Have you ever met a digger?”
Séamas shook his head.
“I was afraid of that,” said Peter.
Chapter 2 - Dudley's Birthday
“Up. Get up boy. Up!”
Harry groaned at the glaring light seeping through his eyelids, and clutched around for his glasses, bringing the room into focus. He lay under a thin blanket in a room made entirely from glass. Looking up from his position on the floor, he saw the wide expanse of the early June sky, punctuated by fluffy wisps of clouds.
Turning his head, he saw through the transparent walls into the garden that enclosed his bedroom. A few birds chirped and pecked futilely at the AstroTurf. The effect was rather like being in a fishbowl. From a young age, Harry had always shown a strange aversion to direct sunlight. Prolonged exposure brought on awful migraines, and even the weak winter glow was enough to induce a rash across his forehead. As soon as Vernon and Petunia Dursley has discovered this, they moved Harry from his cosy cupboard-under-the-stairs nest into the conservatory.
“Are you up yet?” barked Aunt Petunia, rapping on the door.
“Nearly.”
“Well, get up, and come help me in the kitchen. We’re making Dudder’s special birthday breakfast.”
Harry pulled himself to his feet and stretched, cursing himself for forgetting the worst day of the year. He wandered into the kitchen and eyed his fat cousin warily. Dudley was waddling after his mother and complaining in a loud wheedling voice.
“But I don’t want to go to the nature reserve. It’s boring and I hate animals and it’s my birthday and I want to go paintballing instead.”
Petunia wrung her hands anxiously. Paintballing meant filthy clothes and muddy faces, and Petunia had spent the best part of her married life making sure Dudley never had to experience the horrors of dirt.
“You can’t miss the school trip, Duddikins,” she protested. “I’ve already promised the PTA that I’ll chaperone.”
“I don’t care about your stupid PTA. I don’t want to go to any stupid nature reserve. I want to go paintballing!” Dudley stamped his foot against the kitchen floor, his bare feet leaving an imprint in the damp surface cleaner. His face began to turn an alarming shade of purple and, sensing a row, Harry ducked past them and into the dining room.
Aunt Petunia flung the pack of bacon she had been holding onto the kitchen counter and descended on Dudley, fussing over him and pinching his cheeks.
“Oh, my poor sweet Dudders!” she cried. “Of course you don’t want to go to that nasty, dirty farmland.” She said ‘farm’ bitterly, as if it were a swear word. Harry could see the lines in her forehead crinkle up, as she was torn between the horrors of upsetting her baby, and the horrors of upsetting the PTA.
“How about this, popkins?” she said. “If you come on the school trip today, this evening we’ll go to Pizza Hut, and you can order absolutely anything off the menu!”
Dudley sniffed, and wiped away an imaginary tear.
“A-a-anything?” he asked, feebly. “Even the ice cream machine?”
Aunt Petunia paled at the idea of that germ-infested monstrosity but managed to hold her smile.
“Even the ice cream machine,” she said, gritting her teeth.
Dudley thought for a moment. It clearly took a lot of effort. “Oh. OK then,” he said.
An hour later, Harry found himself standing outside the information centre of the local nature reserve with a bored Dudley, a fretting Petunia, and around 30 other uninterested kids. Their tour guide was a tall spotty man called Dave, who was currently explaining the different species of sparrow with excessive enthusiasm.
“Now kids, if you follow me into the information centre, we’ve got a real treat for you all,” Dave said, oblivious to his listless crowd. “We have actually built an indoor reserve to showcase some of the most diverse species we have here. Bet you weren’t expecting a mini zoo to make your school trip even more exciting!”
He grinned at the school kids, mistaking their moody silence for thrilled anticipation. Unlike his peers, Harry did feel a flutter of excitement. His aunt and uncle were staunch believers in the corrupting influence nature had on the youth, and he had seen very few animals up close.
The mini zoo turned out to be a few glass cages with some frogs, squirrels, and one sleepy grass snake. Harry shuffled around for a bit, staring at the bored, inactive animals, when he felt himself inexplicably drawn to a cage in the corner. The plaque on the wall read:
European Badger. Meles meles.
Conservation level: Least concern.
Carnivore. Nocturnal. Found underground in badger setts.
Harry peered into the cage, scanning for any sign of a living thing.
“Hey kid. Weren’t cha ever taught not to stare?”
Harry jumped back in shock. A badger had emerged from a hole in the dirt layer at the bottom of the glass cage. Perched over his eyes were a pair of dark aviators, and Harry could have sworn the voice had come from him.
“Humans!” the badger exclaimed. “They’re all the same. Gawking and gaping at you all day long. You never seen a badger in shades before?”
“I-I haven’t,” Harry stuttered. “I’m so sorry, I had no idea badgers could talk.”
The badger twisted his face, and Harry wondered how an animal could look like they were raising an eyebrow without actually owning eyebrows.
“Funny huh,” the badger said. “I’ve spoken to every single human that brought their ugly mugs to me, and you’re the first to speak back. Where did you learn to speak Badger?”
Before Harry could respond, he felt a force collide with him from behind and knock him to the floor. Dudley slammed his sweaty palms on the glass and shouted.
“This badger is wearing sunglasses!”
Harry felt anger sweep through his body and started to jump up when Dudley beat his palms against the glass and the front panel shattered on impact. Dudley shrieked, and fell face forward into the cage. His face slammed onto the dirt, and his head disappeared down into the hole the badger had emerged from. Arms and legs flailing around, Dudley squirmed and wriggled, his screams muffled by the earth. Aunt Petunia screeched and ran over, desperately trying to pull her son out of the ground and back onto his feet.
“Oh my darling,” she cried. “My Dudders! My baby boy! My sweet sweet floppikins!”
Harry stepped around the broken glass and snuck out of the building in all the confusion, and out of the corner of his eye, saw a small body vanish into the bushes. A pair of sunglasses were left discarded on the path.
The path was wide and level, easy for two to walk abreast.
The light Gandalf conjured to aid their passage cast long shadows up the sheer black walls.
But despite that, the darkness wound tightly around Frodo’s chest and stole his breath.
Every footfall was magnified tenfold, each step a drum beat in his ears.
He clutched his cloak to him, the mithril shirt a comforting weight on his shoulders.
Beside him, Sam’s breathing was ragged but his footsteps never faltered.
When fear threatened to overwhelm him, Frodo held tightly to Sam’s hand and the weight lifted from his chest.
WHO READ TO THE END?
Naturally, we hope you all did, and if so, take a moment to click the link at the end and send us a quick message! A league table is building up and there will be prizes, so how's that for an incentive? So, without further ado.... drum roll.... here's last month's lovely I-read-to-the-enders...
- Me me me (Graham Mullan) (But as he presses the Big Red Button to send the newsletter out, he gets a separate prize!)
- Maybe this time? :) (Elaine Oliver) (Yep, the Prezz wins this round!!)
- Cave? (Merryn Matthews)
- I can’t wait to get underground 😊 (Kat Osie-Mensa)
- Thought you’d try and catch us out by sending it at the crack of dawn? Well I’ll have you know my curtains are very thin and I was well awake, so who’s laughing now? (Megan Malpas)
- Yay caving (Stu Walker)
- A dyslexic read to the den (Chris Howes)
- The extremely erudite FT Bear and I applaud Linda and Megan for their literary genius! (Megan Malpas)
- BIt late but I did! BIg fan of the harry potter story, the whole thing is great I wish I had more time to join these pub meets and stuff sounds like the society social scene is thriving despite lockdown! (Cat Henry)
Yes, I did, I read to the end!
THE END