“I Know The Beggar”

BY J. H. Hooper

“… the scree was so rough that I rose clean up in the air like an india-rubber ball …”

“… no paper in your next issue will be so keenly scanned and criticised as this…”

“… I would rather not have my name mentioned in the matter.”

“… scrambling in the British Isles is not a form of mountaineering…”

Just four quotations from a batch of some two hundred varied items which are now in the YRC library (since deposited the North Yorkshire County Record Office), many of them trivial most of them in isolation from connecting material but some of them gems from a past age, the earliest written in 1887.  When the articles were passed to me in several large folders it was thought that they were letters from famous early mountaineers, in fact, many of the letters had no connection with the YRC and most of the remainder were from YRC members, officials and associates but some stood out from the rest.

Certainly well known names from the past are there; William Cecil Slingsby, J. W. Robinson, W. P. Haskett Smith, Owen Glynn Jones and W. A. B. Coolidge, as are Edward Whymper and Christian Almer.  Some of these are mention once or twice illuminating the pages and then flitting off. Others have left complete letters, their hand-writing giving some indication of their diverse characters.  There are hints of mystery, controversy and prejudice but most indicate that YRC men one hundred years ago were very similar to YRC men now.  These insights to the lives of ordinary people indicate that they struggled with business worries, ill health and family ties, whilst trying to find time for meets; they began tasks that they feared they would never complete, and used the mountains and potholes as a means of recreation.

“… went seedy disconsolate and thoroughly out of sorts to Coniston … came back rejoicing in restored vigour and spirits.” ‑ William C. Slingsby in April 1903.

Correspondence was necessarily by letter or post card and took on a formal air, appearing at times to be quarrelsome. Sometimes the subject became tedious. A series of letters began on 11 November 1898 with Thomas Gray writing to J. A. Green regarding a dispute with Professor Hughes as to who entered Clapham Cave first, and went on, at the least, until 3 May 1902, involving numerous people and an article in the Journal.  In the letter of the 3 May 1902 regarding Clapham Cave, J. A. Green also writes that he can do no more such exploration,

“… this year or next or perhaps ever again… I am seriously told that I shall never be the same man again, can never do the feats of endurance and hardship that were once my joy… all this year will be spent in careful endeavour to regain strength to face the winter.  This is strictly between ourselves, I do not want it talked about.”

He had caught a severe chill in the previous December and developed rheumatism.  Thankfully, in August 1904 he writes of returning from a climbing holiday in Norway.

All the correspondence, save that from William Augustus Brevoort Coolidge, was hand written, but he was using a typewriter in 1896, when he decided to go to live in Switzerland for several years, to recover from a severe influenza attack one year previously.  This correspondence with Thomas Gray between 1896 and 1915 shows him to have been interested in many subjects and to have had great confidence in his own opinions, unafraid to condemn anyone whom he thought had broken his own code or infringed his territory.

He resigned from the Alpine Club after thirty years membership following a dispute.  In his letter of 20 December 1900 he writes that he is in very bad odour with the Alpine Club because in his Life of Almer he had said that Christian Almer had told him that he had never made the kind of leap depicted by Whymper in Scrambles amongst the Alps showing Almer doing a desperate leap over a chasm during the descent of the western arête of the Pointe des Ecrins in 1864; thirty-six years earlier.  As it was drawn from memory by Whymper, to illustrate his book, Almer probably spoke the truth. In his letter of 22 May 1900, W. C. Slingsby is taking Whymper’s side in the dispute. This is not surprising as Slingsby and Coolidge had many differing opinions.  Slingsby was the pioneer of Norway, loved the Lake District and Scotland, considered caving a YRC speciality and wrote with extravagant penmanship.

Coolidge, who used a typewriter :

November 1904: “… no interest in Norway…”

April 1898: “… scrambling in the British Isles is not a form of mountaineering…”

January 1898: “… cannot see the connection between caving and mountaineering…”

Both men were authors of mountaineering books. Later Coolidge resigned from the Swiss Alpine Club according to his letter 20 October 1905, after they published the Unteralpen Fuhrer

“… which was sheer robbery from my book.”

Coolidge made comments on many topical subjects:

22nd January, 1898: “The Jungfrau railway work is halted – the resident Engineers have resigned.”

One can picture him rubbing his hands with glee at the prospect of those impertinent entrepreneurs being stopped from infringing his mountain kingdom.

30th April, 1898: “… very little probability that the Jungfrau railway will get beyond Eiger Glacier.”

4th April, 1901: “On 2nd March 1901 the Jungfrau railway people opened the Grindelwald Gallery in the face of the Eiger.”

Gradually he is realising that the Engineers will succeed.

10th October, 1904: “ The Jungfrau Railway is not yet through the Eiger.”

Maybe there is hope again!

26th July, 1907, he writes that there is now an hotel at the Eismeer station on the South Wall of the Eiger.

Now work has progressed far enough to spoil his world, even if the railway is not completed.

After the death of Owen Glynne Jones on the Dent Blanche on 28th August 1898 he comments harshly, to Thomas Gray on 15th November 1898,

“I hope someone will have the courage to speak out about O. G. Jones’s folly and madness. It was proverbial out here among the guides and the end was foreseen long ago. “

After the seriousness of the Clapham Cave dispute and Coolidge’s letters it is good to read of an apparently nonchalant approach to pot-holing. Jack Green writes 13 July 1905 of a fact not mentioned in the account of the descent of Gaping Gill on July 1905 given in Vol. 2 of the YRC Journal.   Walter Parsons the Leeds headmaster, nearing the bottom of Gaping Gill found the ladder caught up in the rope used to lower the bottom end. As he was only 20 feet from the bottom he took hold of his safety line and stepped off!  Anyone who has climbed ladders of this length will realise his predicament; he had no choice.  It was not possible to signal to the surface, he would know that he could not climb back to the surface almost certainly wet through and most likely carrying equipment and if he tried it would have to be without the support of a safety line.  Hence the heroic stepping off.

During the same year Walter Parsons was invited to attend a diner-party at the home of the President, Alfred Barran, given in the honour of Edward Martel, the man who in 1895 had made the first descent of Gaping Gill.  It must have impressed him greatly, because it was many years later when he wrote:

“…I have quite vivid recollections of Martel and his visit to the YRC in 1905. Our late President, Alfred Barran, gave a dinner in Martel’s honour at his house in Moor Road, Headingley, and invited members of the YRC committee to meet him at this dinner.  I myself was present and had a considerable amount of conversation with Martel himself. I found him to be modest and unassuming with nothing of the voluble loquacity which one sometimes associates with the French.  He spoke English with ease but with a pleasing French accent… . In appearance he was characteristically French, about 5′ 9’ or 5′ 10’ in height and carrying no superfluous flesh. He looked like a wiry athlete, as he had proved himself to be.  To me it was a great pleasure and stimulus to meet and hear this intrepid Frenchman who had done so much pioneer work in our YRC sport…”

Tragedy struck in 1903 and is illustrated in a dramatic letter, but, first in February 1902 R. W. Broadrick wrote to Thomas Gray saying he had not time to write a report for the Journal of his round of the Lakeland 3000 footers.  He relented in March.  The dramatic letter written by Harry Williamson on 1 October 1903 tells how on 21 September 1903 he found R. W. Broadrick and three others at the foot of Scafell Pinnacle at 5-40 p.m., only one still alive.  The letter tells of going for assistance to Wastdale arriving back with a doctor at 8‑30 p.m..  A hurdle arrived at 10 p.m. and Ridsdale the sole survivor was eventually carried down but died before arriving at the hotel at 3-30 a.m.  Why did the writer of the letter who had been with the party earlier not want his name mentioned in the matter? Why was Slingsby so adamant to Thomas Gray that: “… care must be taken in the matter of composition of a report in the Journal?.” (19 March 1904).  Why, years later did Slingsby write to Gray, “Thanks for your views about the Scafell papers… .I quite agree with you. I am burning your letter”. Written on 26 December 1912.  (Note by JHH: Contrary to the time when I wrote this, I later came to believe that the first Slingsby letter refers to the Deep Ghyll accident.  Two accidents so close together in time and place caused great concern).

Mistakes can be made even by experienced mountaineers on their home ground. J. W. Robinson features in one or two letters and in one dated 22 June 1897 after giving George Lowe his opinion of the correct name for Broad Stand tells in his flowing individualistic writing of this accident:

“It happened the week after Easter on the snow at the foot of the Ennerdale Crags on Great Gable just in the same way as the accident to the gentleman on Great End on Easter Saturday.  His was on soft snow and mine was hard like ice.  I was wrong to attempt a glissade as I had no axe and in any case it was dangerous as the snow was like ice the sun could not get to it.  I shot down a 100 feet with terrific force and the scree was so rough that I rose clean up into the air like an india-rubber ball and went head first, down onto my left arm and shoulder. Fortunately the arm was bent across my chest.  I bounded over and over several times and how my head escaped I don’t know, if it had got the blow which dislocated my ankle I should have been killed.   I was astonished at the distance I had bounded down the scree after leaving the snow 25 yards at least.  It took me 4 hours to get down behind Fleetwith where Nelson’s trap met me”.

The articles are as interesting for general information as for mountaineering content.  Newly invented Thermos flasks cost 21/- or 31/6 (£1.05 or £1.58) in 1907; instructions on how to print pictures from negatives so dense that nothing could be seen; how much more serious illness was then; that banks were open in Leeds on Saturday evenings; where to buy boots and nails.

Printing, photocopying, high quality laser printing and colour reproduction are now available to anyone.  Two of the great difficulties at the time of these letters were the illustrations of books and obtaining copies of lectures.  Anyone who allowed an article of his to be printed insisted that 25 copies should be run off for his personal use.  Slingsby had great difficulty illustrating his books and bullied Thomas Gray for three years, as he drew for him, either from flimsy sketches or photographs. On one occasion pressures overcome Slingsby and he writes of the illustrations

“… put in clouds, showers of rain, snow, thunderstorms, mowing machines, goats, cattle, barrel organs, ploughs, men, women, children or what you like.”

It was too expensive to print photographs.

After reading through this material the 1890s seem very close to our own time. Only a glimpse can be given here of what is in the Library, but all is there to be examined.  Envelopes with stamps of the period, the types of ink and paper used, different hand writing. What interest!

My favourite quotation is from J. A. Green to Thomas Gray about their friend Edward Calvert:

“I despair of getting anything from Calvert he has never taken any care in the preservation of such things.  He had the Climbers book five years and never finished his work and not all the Club’s officials could get it from him until I forced him to give it up! I know the beggar.”

It takes real YRC friendship to write about someone like that!