Letters
Mountaineers, Company Directors and Bimbos
Dear Editor
I don’t know for certain if nry friend Dennis Armstrong’s report on the 1996 Ladies Weekend (Bulletin issue 6, page 51) was aimed at me but in view of the final paragraph, and bearing in mind the fact that I am to be the leader of the 1997 Ladies Weekend, I suspect that it was so directed, particularly in view of my well-known & strongly held opinions regarding the masculinity of the YRC!
I think that Dennis’ report was probably written with tongue fiimly in cheek, but calculated nevertheless to provoke some response. If so, then it has worked. No matter whether Dennis meant the tenor of his article to be flippant, serious or both, I intend to respond fairly seriously to what I believe to be a serious subject. If Dennis is able thereby to sit back and laugh at me for rising to his bait then so be it.
I have previously explained my views concerning the YRC remaining a men’s club, and how I feel that it does our lives and our relationships good to be able to follow our pursuits with our Club and temporarily away fiom our womenfolk, so I won’t repeat them; suffice it to say that they haven’t changed. So I will stick to the matter of the Ladies Weekend, so-called ‘political correctness’ & how it relates to the ethos of the YRC as I see it.
I’m not sure how much reliance I would personally place upon Ernest Robert’s alleged approval for Ladies Evenings; I beheve that he was a lifelong bachelor! I cannot however, see anything wrong in pennitting ourselves the luxury of entertaining our Ladies now and again without having to apologise for it. If my wife (Yes, she is my wife and I am her husband with all that this implies) invited me to a Men’s Evening at her Women’s Institute I would have no ethical problem with that. If she were a good mountaineer and wished to be in a Ladies’ Climbing Club (or a mixed one, if that were her inclination), I would have to accept that also.
As for political correctness, this is a phrase that recalls the views of the late unlamented Heir Doktor Goebbels, indicating as it does the concept that you can hold any view on any subject just so long as it is acceptable to the “party”. Eveiy tyranny relies on political correctness to maintain itself. That aside, I tlrink that Dennis shoots liimself in the foot here. On the one hand he suggests that the Club no longer “patronises” it’s “partners” whilst on the other hand stating that there are other meets at which we can test our “grasp, endurance & sinews”. We can’t have it both ways. Either we have a proper open weekend during which we organise a major caving trip, rock or ice chmbing, hard feUwalking or perhaps a high camp, or else we have a pleasant social weekend with activities to please our womenfolk who are, for the most part, wives who happen to have outdoorsmen as husbands. I’m sure that no sensible Women’s Club would be so silly as to hold a mixed event at which there were to be activities likely to underwhelm, or be beyond the competence of, most of the menfolk present.
So don’t hold your breath whilst waiting for any “reconstruction” or ‘new politics” in the 1997 Ladies Weekend. So far as I am concerned it will be another welcome opportunity to entertain our wives and ladyfriends in a way intended to please as many of them as possible irrespective of whether they are mountaineers or needleworkers, company directors or housewives, bimbos or grandmothers or any peimutations thereof.
By the way, a few bimbos would be especially welcome, even if they do have their hunky blokes to look after them.
W. C. I. Crowther
To the missing 1950s & 1960s Members
Dear Editor
I had the happy experience of being introduced to Jack Williamson at a Club lecture in Leeds. Jack had not been on meets for many years due to business commitments. He felt that he would not know anyone. However I persuaded him that it would not be a problem as even the newer members were the same sort of men as those in his active days.
He came along to a long walk and helped with the support making friends with Ralph Hobson and subsequently joined us on many meets. Two weeks before he died in 1979 he wrote to me to say how much those last ten years of association with the Club and his two years as Vice President, 1976-1978, had meant to him.
The 1960s and 1970s were, for me, wonderful years of activity. Now looking through the handbook I see a number who were, like me, young in those halcyon days. Sadly we don’t see them on meets these days: perhaps their reasoning is the same a s Jack’s.
I, along with others of the same vintage, would be dehghted to see them on meets again: they would certainly be most welcome. We would ensure that they would feel part of the meet and they could renew old friendships and make new ones. The Club is going through another great phase: why not be part of it?
David Smith
No ulterior motive…just a sense of humour
Dear Editor
It is always pleasing to have proof positive that someone has read your writings and indeed flattering when that someone believes he has discerned an ulterior motive behind the writing. Alas I have to inform Ian that in putting two and two together, he has made four and a half. I am afraid he did not enter my mind when I was writing the Meet Report.
I do confess, Mr Editor, that I did have a motive in the way I wrote the Meet Report. For after all, to report on the Ladies Weekend is hardly serious stuff. A Meet Report should be there to record what was done, and to be consulted by those who may come after. The chances that my meet report would be consulted because of ‘something new’ was frankly remote. One can write that we were in area ABC, that we walked around XYZ and we were all mankful to PQR for arranging it so well. Two lines and the facts are complete. I an reminded of the schoolboy who, in a history examination, was asked the question: ‘ ‘In the sixteenth century, the Spanish Monarch had a crown of gold upon feet of clay.” Do you agree?’ And he answered ‘Yes, I do.’ Full marks for brevity and succinctness; nought for logic and imagination.
What could I add when I had run out of facts? Then I recalled that I had heard at least two members say in years gone by that they could not possibly come to a Ladies Weekend because their wives thought the concept was an insult. And I sought to say, in a flippant way: Please Mrs Modern Woman, do not be put off by the title. Come along and join us, and you will have a very enjoyable time. And be tolerant of the YRC, it is not easy to think of another title. But alas in my attempts to gain marks for logic and imagination, and to inject some humour into a routine kind of Meet Report to make it readable, I gave Ian the impression that I was opening a discussion to change the format of the whole weekend. Sorry, Ian, but thank you for responding, and Joan and I look forward to coming to your Ladies Weekend in 1997.
Yours very truly
Dennis Armstrong