Three-Quarters Of A Century
by The Presidents
The Yorkshire Ramblers’ Club achieved its 75th birthday on the 6th October, 1967. There is often an element of doubt about the actual day upon which an organisation such as our Club came to life, but just as Archbishop Ussher of Armagh in 1654 arrived at the unequivocal conclusion that the World had begun at 9 a.m. on the 26th of October, 4004 B.C., so did H. H. Bellhouse (Y.R.C.J., Vol. I, page 4) give the 6th of October, 1892 as the date on which George T. Lowe, who had been the leading spirit in a previous discussion about forming a Club, was elected to the Chair at a meeting held in the Skyrack Inn, Headingley. Lowe thus became our first President. The actual hour is not recorded but was probably between 7.30 and 8.30 p.m.
The story of the Y.R.C. from that day until its 70th anniversary has been admirably told by Geoffrey Brook in the 1962 Journal and the next instalment of that story, covering the 30 years following, will not become due until the Centenary Journal in 1992. The President therefore ordered the Hon. Editor to rack his brains and devise some other way of recording three quarters of a century in the 1968 Journal. Always ready to pass the burden elsewhere, the Editor remarked that as there were seven Past Presidents, all vigorously active Members, why should they not each make a contribution? This idea not only met with a ready and enthusiastic response from the seven venerable members, but even from the present holder of that office. Altogether these eight Ramblers have been directing the fortunes of our Club since 1952 and their membership goes back well into the 1920’s, so let them now tell about this in their own words.
Jack Hilton, President 1952 to 1954
Like Bentley Beetham, John Hazard and Frank Smythe, I went to Almscliffe with Claude Frankland, whom I knew; there I met William Villiers Brown, Ernest Roberts and other members and so I came under the spell of the Y.R.C. Previously I had been a lone walker in the Yorkshire Dales, Wales, Scotland and Switzerland.
Frankland taught me to climb, he was the most graceful and effortless climber I ever saw and with him I did a great number of the classic climbs in the Lake District, Scotland and Wales. Usually he would go up one climb and then come down another, this was not only useful experience but added to the number of climbs you could make in a day. I still manage to get in at least one climb a year for the joy of it.
Roberts of course was my mentor in potholing and I was fortunate in being in the exploration of Lost Johns’ and Gingling Hole. When the ladders were tied together for a pitch he would ask every member of the party to examine the ties and be satisfied they were all right, the same with belays. The proper use of the life-line was always to be practised and should be; too many accidents have occurred through the man paying the life-line out only through his hands. After taking his ladders home from a weekend’s potholing Roberts would send a postcard full of joy: “I got the ladders dry in the garden yesterday”. He acted on his maxim that a major pothole was to be treated as a mountain expedition; on the first call received by the Cave Rescue Organisation, which was to Rowten Pot, he took charge and re-rigged the pot with tackle that we took up.
To Roberts also I was indebted for my introduction to Alpine climbing; he had a happy way of finding the not so popular huts as in the Forno and Albigna areas where we had the huts to our two selves or with Beetham the three of us in the delightfully situated Coaz Hut and with Hazard and Smythe several days in the Schobiihl Hut waiting for the weather to take up; but we did have to sleep on the floor in the Marco e Rosa one night. The Lotschental was another happy introduction and Beetham said “I will show you the Fextal”; I hope they will not put up monstrous hotels in these last two for quiet beauty is I am afraid fast disappearing.
I do not think really the character of the Y.R.C. has changed much, to me when I joined there was perhaps still a Victorian atmosphere apparent; the Club was already of a certain age, stories were already being told of the early stalwarts, the Hopper Lane names were mentioned, Slingsby, Fred and Mattie Botterill and Tom Booth who was to me a good near neighbour. Other Past Presidents were not so intimately known to me, I suppose they seemed another generation but they were always very friendly and today we still have the same spirit among all our young active members.
There are no heavy sodden rope ladders now, it is all aluminium and wire; we have a Club Hut, Lowstern, for the pot-holers and one delightfully situated in Little Langdale, Low Hall Garth, complete with every facility, all electric, hot and cold showers, for the climbers and the hill-walkers. They travel far afield now, making new routes and first ascents of the season and moving with the times, although I believe one of our Honorary Members, turned 80 years of age, goes round corners in his sports car at sixty miles an hour on two wheels. One very welcome introduction has been the custom at Whitsuntide, or Spring Holiday as it is now called, of spending a week in camp in the Scottish Highlands where Factor and Head Gamekeeper, after we have secured the necessary permission to camp, have been most helpful to us. We have twice camped on the Island of Rhum Nature Reserve, where the Manx Shearwaters provide you with a night out in the mountains, I could have done with some of the spirit of the Island the night I was out.
I think of my many memories the one that I cherish most is when with Frankland, affectionately known to his friends as CD., we made the second ascent of George Bower’s ‘Esk Buttress’ to which Frankland then made a new direct route for the last pitch and as he looked at it he said “I don’t think I can get up this, Jack”, to which I replied “You will have to”. It was about 7 p.m. after a full day’s climbing. It was only later that we learnt there was an easy way off round the corner.
I think I set the fashion when I became President of attending most meets during my term of office; recently the Club has bestowed upon me the great honour of making me an Honorary Member and, as I said on that occasion, it is still a great pleasure to look forward to meeting all my friends at the Club Meets.
The Club has always been fortunate in its officers: Secretaries who, with now so many meets in a year, get through a lot of work, arrangements for accommodation, permission to camp on private estates and so on; a Treasurer who, with a Yorkshire responsibility, very efficiently runs our financial affairs; we are of course fortunate in our Librarian as we have always been with Editors of the Journals, the Club is very much indebted to them, the Journals are always a source of information and entertainment.
Harry Stembridge, President 1954 to 1956
When an active Club like the Y.R.C. has been on the go for 75 years it is inevitable that in its ranks there will be a few hoary old codgers like myself, whose only contribution to the Club is to reminisce. That’s not much of a contribution anyway, but the Editor wants me to reminisce so here goes.
When Frank and I joined the Club in 1933 a period of intense activity was beginning to slow down. The great men of that day, Roberts, Davidson, the Burrows and Villiers Brown, although still active, were past their peak. Brown was President, a great climber and potholer who thought nothing of walking eighty or more miles a day. A fair amount of climbing was being done, notably by a strong Billingham section and by Hilton and the Booths, but potholing was the main activity and a very serious business it was.
Here Roberts was the mainspring and Yates, Higgins and Nelstrop notable exponents. Youngsters like ourselves were very small beer and although everyone was extremely friendly we had to go through a long apprenticeship before we were considered capable of rigging a pitch. Looking back I think a bigger proportion of members climbed and potholed regularly than does today. We climbed on gritstone or went underground almost every week-end.
I still have vivid memories of my first potholing meet, Rowten with a lot of water going down. Coming up the long pitch I started up the wrong side of the ladder, twisted my tail line round it and had a terrific struggle under the overhang. Compared with that my descent of Mere Gill in 1936 was uneventful but it took us three full days to bottom it and get the heavy ladders out. Another three days’ job was Juniper Gulf, like Mere Gill I think a third descent, and I shall never forget coming out as dawn was breaking over Pen-y-Ghent and someone giving me a tot of rum.
Jumping the years there was the marvellous Irish Meet of 1948 when in a week we bottomed six good virgin potholes, all around two hundred feet, a first descent every day—will it ever happen again? Certainly not in the British Isles.
1954/56 were good years in the Club. Some of the meets were first class, notably the Seven Peaks Walk and the Whit Meet of 1955 when we hired a bus in Inverness and with it camped and climbed for a week in different parts of North-West Scotland. An exacting meet was Easter 1956, a cold snowy Easter when all the Himalayan men camped on top of Ben Nevis and some great climbs were done.
But my most vivid memory, without doubt, is the organising of the Club Himalayan Expedition when I was President in 1956. The Y.R.C. was, naturally, the first British Club to send out its own Himalayan expedition and although this involved a colossal amount of organising, including raising over £4,000, the enthusiasm was so great and the response so adequate that the task was not onerous. The tragic outcome can never erase from my mind the fine spirit that pervaded the Club in those days.
Thinking back over the years it is, without doubt, the great efforts that stick in one’s mind, the hard meets when we were fully stretched and, although we often came home jiggered, we felt we had achieved something. If the Club is to remain a great club, as it will and must, there should be plenty of meets of this kind and, though social meets of the Hill Inn type are pleasant and desirable, they should never be allowed to predominate.
Stanley Marsden, President 1956 to 1958
In attempting to set down one’s impressions of two years’ Presidency, it quickly becomes obvious that memories of events become distorted with the passage of time and just over ten years is enough to blur recollection. One thing remains indelibly clear; during his term of office the President is sustained and supported by all his friends in everything he tries to do. In any Club enterprise the officials and members respond to his lead so that individual effort produces really worthwhile results. A newly elected President hopes to be well supported but his natural apprehension is quickly dissipated by a wonderfully warm friendliness which makes the two years a memorable and richly rewarding experience.
At the same time, over the years, many things tend to be forgotten and innovations soon become commonplace. When Alum Pot was descended at the after-Dinner Meet in 1956 the last pitch before the “Sump” was laddered with the new electron wire caving ladders. This was quite new and the Committee eagerly awaited the report on the new ladders. This, inter alia, considered that whilst the cost involved would dismay the Treasurer, the President would certainly give the idea his blessing. It may not be out of place here to say it is not for the holder of both these offices at the same time to comment on the wisdom, or otherwise, of the President and the Treasurer being the same man, but the latter was often glad to be given advice from the former and the former frequently took advantage of the latter’s financial knowledge.
Without doubt the big thing in the Club in 1957 was the Himalayan Expedition, the seeds of which had been sown at the 1955 Dinner. When the organisation got under way it was realised that an immense job had to be done and the formidable task of raising sufficient funds would need a major effort. The party left for Katmandu on the 17th of March 1957 and was seen off from London Airport by a few members of the Club. The disaster, which came as a sudden and dreadful shock to everyone, was borne with great fortitude by the party, not only at the time but later when transporting injured members back to civilisation. The simple memorial service in Little Langdale Church was a fitting tribute to Crosby Fox.
At that time the Club was in great form and the interest in and the preparations for the Expedition undoubtedly carried members along at a high level of activity. The Welsh 3000’s were attacked by 27 men, perhaps with more enthusiasm than success, for it was reported that one pair, presumably thinking that they had found a hitherto unrecorded Welsh 3000, climbed Y Garn twice, from opposite directions. Another less ambitious walk was the first recorded Club crossing of Morecambe Bay—Silverdale to Grange and back. The main shaft of G.G. was laddered and descended under very wet conditions; poor weather also hampered the descents of Lost Johns’ and Juniper Gulf.
The long tradition of nearly half a century of Club Dinners at the Hotel Metropole, Leeds, was broken when in 1957 the Dinner was held for the first time in Harrogate. There was a record attendance at that Dinner and as the numbers have never since fallen below 145, the decision to move was a correct one.
Early in 1958 another big decision was made when the Club took over the tenancy of Lowstern Bungalow as a potholing base; most conveniently sited with a magnificent prospect. A tremendous amount of work was put into the preparation of the Hut by members during the fine summer which followed. It is no exaggeration to say this lifted the spirit of the Club to a fine pitch, a previously undiscovered ability to acquire things “at the right price” was a great help and much unsuspected talent as painters, carpenters, plumbers, builders, drain layers and just ordinary labourers was unearthed. It is quite impossible to dig a 10 ft. hole for a sanitary tank without getting to know the other diggers fairly intimately.
Towards the end of a most distinguished membership of the Club, Ernest Roberts declared the Hut open and this was one of the last things he did for the Club to be chronicled. Few, if any, members have done more for the Club but there is one thing, so far unrecorded, which without doubt was the finest of them all. It was the introduction, as a member, of that very remarkable Lancastrian, Ernest Clifford Downham, who did some of his best work in 1957 and 1958, and to whom the present healthy state of the Club is so largely due. Seen at close quarters in those years he worked prodigiously hard, frequently getting up before 6 a.m. to deal with correspondence which, of course, had “Cliff” written all over it. He imposed on the job of Secretary his own colourful and warm personality and his innovation of Meet Reports has been tremendously popular in enabling members to identify themselves in a personal way with the activities of the Club which they were unable to attend. Held in great regard and affection, his personality and enthusiasm have left an indelible mark on the affairs of the Club.
So much for the past. At present the Club is in good heart, due largely to the gradual and imperceptible change of image, brought about by the influence of the personalities of individual members and which has reflected the changing times in which we live. Over a period of years the change can be seen clearly and is quite evident, but the basic spirit in the Club of friendship and good fellowship is as firm as ever. Despite what has been said earlier concerning some of the exploits and achievements of the Club, the mainspring behind all this is surely the proud feeling of belonging to the Yorkshire Ramblers’ Club, a club with a history and tradition built by men of character, distinction and attainments; a club where lasting friendships are formed and are welded into a spirit of which any club may be proud.
It can modestly be claimed that in recent years this has, at least, been maintained. What is necessary for the future is the election of men of the same high quality. If this is done there is no doubt at all that, whatever changes evolve in the structure of the Club, the second 75 years will be no less illustrious than the first.
John Godley, President 1958 to 1960
To present members of the Y.R.C. it must seem unbelievable that in the 1930’s there was serious concern among members about the future of the Club owing to the low intake of young active men; it was even considered doubtful whether it could survive many more years for this reason. Happily this state of affairs has been completely reversed in recent years, partly owing to the increasing preference of younger people for outdoor activities of the kind in which the Club is interested, and also because of the many advantages that the Club has to offer. This is an excellent thing provided that the increase in membership is kept within bounds. The Y.R.C. has always been a club rather than an association, in it everyone has known everybody else and it is to be hoped that it will always retain its present character.
Ernest Roberts wrote that in the Yorkshire Ramblers’ Club he had found his spiritual home; this feeling must surely be shared by many members and it can honestly be said that being in the Club has had a profound influence on one’s life. Friendships formed when walking, climbing or potholing are close friendships and often continue outside the Club’s activities into other spheres of life.
Looking at the past, many of us have nostalgic memories of the Gaping Gill camps at Whitsuntide and the more recent Scottish and Irish meets as well as frequent week-ends in the Lakes, the Dales and elsewhere. Records of many Club expeditions appear in the Journal but if detailed records of all expeditions made by members at meets and at other times were available they would make fascinating reading.
To serve the Club as President is an unforgettable experience and one starts the term of office in the certain knowledge that it is impossible to give the Club as much as one gets from it. The experience also brings home the amount of work put in by the Officers of the Club; their help and co-operation makes the term of office a happy and pleasant one. With its memorable past and very active present, surely the Y.R.C. can only go from strength to strength.
Frank Stembridge, President 1960 to 1962
For many years my brother and I enjoyed walking in the Lake District. We found it difficult to understand the pleasure some people could derive from spending the day with noses glued to a rock face. Then we read a book by Geoffrey Winthrop Young and were fired with the ambition to climb. Almscliff was half a mile away. We bought a rope and went up one Sunday morning to start. The Bird’s Nest Crack looked the easiest of the face-climbs—it wasn’t and we learnt slowly.
We both felt that it would be better to join some recognised climbing club. The only local one we knew of was the Yorkshire Ramblers’ Club. We pictured them as a group of supermen who annually lowered themselves down Gaping Gill — we’d seen G.G. and the feat filled us with awe but with some diffidence we wrote to the Secretary whose name we got from an old climbing book. It turned out that he had been dead for a good many years, but we got a friendly letter back from Davis Burrow and an invitation to attend a probationary meet.
In the thirty odd years since then my membership has given me continuous pleasure. My introduction as a member might have had the opposite effect. The first meet I attended was at Rowten Pot—it was raining—it was when Ernest Roberts was in his heyday and my instructions from Ernest came in two words, spoken in capital letters — GET DOWN. I got down and I eventually got up. I had never met a rope ladder before. I found it difficult to believe that an inanimate object could be so malevolent.
Club meets leave many happy memories. The Tower Ridge at Easter in freezing sleet, so that we walked down Ben Nevis still roped up and prized the knots open with an ice-axe at Achintee, and the subsequent sensual pleasure of sitting in a hot bath at the Imperial Hotel holding a generous hot whisky. The second post-war meet in Ireland when we bottomed a new pot every day and I said with gratitude one morning that we had actually been allowed to lie in bed until dawn. The satisfaction of squeezing through to daylight after completing Flood Exit from the Main Chamber.
To my surprise I was invited to follow John Godley as President in 1960. I did not feel that I was the man for the job. For some years I’d had trouble with a disc which prevented me from climbing or potholing and after a succession of active and able Presidents it seemed wrong to lead the regiment from behind; but I was told to have a go and began two years of outstanding enjoyment with the Club.
Amongst the senior clubs the Y.R.C. has a reputation for toughness and its representatives are apt to suffer accordingly. The day after the S.M.C. dinner I stood on my third Munro and watched the moon rise to light up the hard-frozen snow and the way down. I was politely told by Hamish Mclnnes that they felt that to offer only two Munros was insufficient for the Y.R.C. On the after-dinner walk of the Fell and Rock I was inveigled into the Alf Gregory and Dick Cook party on a day when Alf had left his cameras behind to see if it helped him to go up hills more quickly — it did!
I find it difficult to explain but it was only when I became President that I realised the continuity of the Club. I was President in the 70th year. For 70 years the Club’s activities had provided encouragement and fulfilment of pleasure and enjoyment to hundreds of men. I knew without any doubt that seventy years on it would be doing the same. I am proud to have served for a short period of its history.
Bob Chadwick, President 1962 to 1964
The Editor asks what the Presidency of the Y.R.C. has meant to me and what I think of the future of the Club. To me the Y.R.C. means : —
Long days on the hills; sweat stinging the eyes; blisters; the day-long view of J.D.’s heels; hotel sandwiches too dry to eat; lungs burnished with panting; water down the neck; pulling on wet breeches; the wind on Ben Nevis; J.H. worming his way up Suilven by his waistcoat buttons; blue days in the Great End ice; winter stars over Scafell; mist on the Pinnacle Ridge; Blaven streaming water; F.S. bringing whisky to the bath; clattering down from the hut in the golden evening, ten feet tall, the climb done, every perception sharpened, at one with creation, fit to drink beer by the barrel; panic missing the hold; unspeakable relief finding it; the comfort of the top rope; the exhilaration of the lead; R. wringing out his socks; daylight at the end of the passage; the dank smell of moss; dawn on the glacier; sunset over the islands; rain drumming on the tent; stew; and the merging of self with others which comes from sharing these things.
And the Presidence? Why, all this but more so. And my ideas on the future of the Club? Only that it be long and be left to the younger members to mould, for the future is more theirs than mine.
Pat Stonehouse, President 1964 to 1966
The Y.R.C. attained its 75th year in 1967. The Editor has asked me as one of the Past Presidents to write a few words about the Club. I find this an extraordinary difficult thing to do. However, I have read a lot of articles in the early issues of the Journal and I believe that if the founder members could return and attend the next meet, they would find themselves completely at home, despite the new techniques and would congratulate themselves on having started the Club on the right lines from the very beginning. These early Members were men of great enthusiasm and also men of wide interests and this is surely true of our members today.
The first tented meet that I ever attended was the Whit Meet at Loch Scavaig in 1955 when Harry Stembridge was President and I remember being amazed at the interest which members took not only in the climbs of the Black Coolins but in all the things around them from the mergansers on the islets of Loch Coruisk and the sea trout in Loch Scavaig to the granites of the Red Coolins.
However, I believe that the spirit of the Club depends above all on a feeling of mutual respect and toleration between members of differing ages, occupations and climbing capacity. I think that the working meets at Lowstern under the leadership of Stanley Marsden and Cliff Downham in 1958 did more than anything else in the post-war years to keep this spirit alive even though we did appear to suffer from a surfeit of planners and the most incompetent though enthusiastic labour force in the British Isles.
All clubs have their ups and downs and I believe that the only thing that could seriously harm the Y.R.C. would be the growth of cliques and coteries. The Y.R.C. has nothing to fear as long as it continues to select its members not only for their competence as climbers and potholers but also for their suitability for membership in this wider sense.
Cliff Downham, President 1966 to 1968
Seventy-five years is a long time, whether in the life of a club or of an individual. To celebrate the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Yorkshire Ramblers’ Club, the idea germinated of putting on record in the Journal some thoughts from all the living Past Presidents. That remarkable member, Harold Garfit Watts, affectionately known as ‘Tim’, the indefatigable Editor of the Journal for almost twenty years, in spite of being domiciled in Switzerland, willingly undertook the onerous task of getting from these seven Past Presidents their outstanding reminiscences of Y.R.C. membership and Presidential term of office. The results are to be found in the preceding pages.
When one is first approached with the intending honour, the Presidency of a Club such as ours, the oldest in the country apart from the Alpine Club, seems an appalling responsibility and is not to be lightly undertaken. The immediate reaction is to shy away from all thoughts of acceptance. However, with friendly, albeit firm pressure applied by influential members and with the certain knowledge that fellow members will give all help possible, doubts about one’s ability to be in the forefront of the Club’s affairs seem less daunting. When the Presidency has become a reality for the ensuing two years there comes with it a strong realisation of just what the Y.R.C. has come to mean in one’s life. Memories are always with us of halcyon days spent on the hills and the crags, in the caves and potholes in the company of Y.R.C. men. I realise very strongly how much I owe to my many Y.R.C. friends and in particular to that doyen of potholers, the late Ernest Roberts; it was through him that I first became proud to call myself a Yorkshire Rambler and, through him too, I quickly came to be catapulted into Club officialdom.
A Lancastrian by birth and a Yorkshireman by adoption, simply by moving into the county for business reasons, I had, when a mere callow youth, already had the privilege of potholing with Roberts and of being placed on the straight and narrow path in the way of safety precautions. It was with him and Jack Hilton that I made the very early through route from Diccan to Alum Pot.
Many years ago I chanced to be week-ending in Clapham when Roberts was ensconced at the New Inn. He politely informed me — perhaps I should use the word ‘commanded’ — that I should become a member of the Y.R.C., a possibility that I had never even remotely considered. It is perhaps not so easy nowadays to realise the veneration and awe in which the Yorkshire Ramblers’ Club was held; to be invited to join the Club by no less a person than E. E. Roberts, one of the outstanding potholers and mountaineers of his generation, was, to say the least of it, rather overwhelming. However, there it was and it was not very long before Roberts told me that a Meets Secretary was needed and I had better take the job on. Business commitments at that time did not seem to permit such an undertaking but Roberts was not a man one could lightly refuse, so I rather reluctantly and with some trepidation accepted. It has been suggested that this was one of the many good things Roberts did for the Y.R.C., but the boot is really on the other foot; over the years I have come to realise how lucky I was to get inveigled into a secretarial capacity with such a great Club, the many years I spent as Secretary are counted as the happiest of my life.
Though tradition is slow to change in the Y.R.C. previous Presidents have had the courage, or the temerity, to make innovations which at first appeared startling but which have since not only been accepted but have become part of the way of life in the Club. John Godley decided we ought to return to dressing for the Annual Dinner as we had done in pre-war years, one of the very few clubs now to do so. Frank Stembridge inaugurated the ‘Ladies’ Evening’; the Y.R.C. is fortunately an all-male Club and long may it remain so; the idea of ladies being even remotely seen at any Y.R.C. function seemed sacrilege, but the Ladies’ Evening once a year is now well established, is thoroughly enjoyed and at least allows long-suffering wives to see for themselves the sort of men with whom their husbands associate on Club Meets and, who knows, perhaps as a result they let these same husbands attend more meets than would otherwise be the case.
The Y.R.C. Himalayan Expedition of 1957, though so tragic in its outcome with the death of Crosby Fox, was an outstanding example of the vision of Harry Stembridge and it was the first Himalayan Expedition to be organised by, and to consist solely of members of, one club and to be financed entirely by that club. It is difficult to appreciate the terrific amount of work put in by the President and the Treasurer who, at the time of the Expedition were one and the same person, Stanley Marsden, and the shattering disappointment that he and Harry Stembridge and indeed all of us felt at the loss of Crosby and the two Sherpas and the end of all our fondest dreams and hopes for the success of the Expedition.
Of happy memories is the acquisition of the Lowstern Hut at Clapham, again under Stanley’s presidency. Though superb in its setting, it was then a derelict and frighteningly dilapidated bungalow; Club Members showed fantastic energy and ingenuity in making the hut usable. Against all the professional advice caustically offered by the Club’s architects the scheme went ahead; week-end after week-end members toiled with the renovations until finally it was sufficiently presentable to be opened by Ernest Roberts at the After-Dinner Meet in 1958 when John Godley was President. Perhaps it was this one determined effort more than any other which so solidly knit the Club together. Even now under the enthusiastic leadership of the present Huts Secretary, Alan Linford and of the Hut Warden, Chris Renton, improvements and extensions are being made and when completed in the very near future will provide greater facilities and more comfort for the potholers. The hut is also a useful base for walking in our own Yorkshire Dales. With Lowstern and with Low Hall Garth, the cottage in Little Langdale with its admirable modern installations and the recently acquired solid oak furniture, the Yorkshire Ramblers’ Club is indeed fortunate in having two such huts which must surely rank as good as, if not better than, any Club Huts in the country.
The mind can wander and look back upon a host of happy memories of time spent at Club Meets or in the company of fellow members, but what of the future? I sometimes feel that the new generation of potholers and climbers and indeed many of the young clubs which have mushroomed in recent years are apt to regard the Ramblers as a very senior Club, one relying on its traditions, a venerable Club of ageing mountaineers. But how wrong they are! We have always, and I believe quite rightly, shunned publicity in all its forms and particularly in the national press, but our present coterie of efficient and enthusiastic potholers must surely be as active as any in the country. The contents of this Journal show how they have made their own expeditions abroad and continue to do so, whilst our climbers annually pilgrimage to the Alps and other climbing grounds all over the world. Long may it be so and long may the Yorkshire Ramblers’ Club remain a Club in its outlook and never become just an association of mountaineers where fellow members may be strangers, or a Club which has developed cliques within itself.
When the occasion or the necessity arises the Y.R.C. seems to have the happy knack of having the right man for the job and I am sure that this will always be so. To echo the words of Dr. Tom Patey, the Principal Guest at the 1967 Annual Dinner, in proposing the Toast to the Y.R.C. at the end of his memorable speech — “May we all be here in 25 years’ time to celebrate the centenary of this great Club”.