Red Rose Cave and Pothole Club - Newsletter Vol 2 No 4 - Winter 1964
THE
GOOD OLD DAYS.
By M, Booth.
My introduction into the sport of potholing was, to
say the least, unusual. Twas back in the winter
of 1955 that I
first came into contact with the Red Rose and the scene of this
meeting was the ‘awsome’ ( as
it seemed to me then ) gulf of Marble Steps Pot. I was out on
the moors with a friend of mine, who happened to be a member of the club at
that time and who was forever asking me. to join and partake in these peculiar
underground adventures.
However, it so happened that this day we found
ourselves at the entrance of this hole in the ground, and there,
surrounding it were people. At least they had human faces and
the usual protrubances such as hands and feet, but when looking. closer
the aforesaid elements were attached. to an assortment of bodies, the likes of
which I hadn't seen before. Some of them were white (off white sorry) and
woolly and others were clad in knee length vests and what are ‘long
johns’, still others were clad in a nightmarish concoction of pullovers, boiler
suits and other things which must have been pensioned off
from cleaning rags many years ago. They all wore long woolly
socks which were conspicuous by their
absence of wool. ‘Hello there Dave, are you coming down?’ one of these
objects said to my friend. ‘Well, I’ve got a mate here’,
replied Dave.
‘Does he want to come down?’, the object replied, with a look of disclaim at my
person clad in best style army and navy anorak and gleaming
white socks from the same establishment. A frantic No from
myself and my mate immediately grabbed a spare helmet and said see
you later, I seemed
to be plagued with this type of companion.
A few minutes later a thin lattice like object was
thrown down the aforesaid hole and one by one the aforesaid objects descended
down the same with much shouting of weird words, ‘Throw down that
undecipherable lifeline’ ‘It’s -X.?/-x-wet down here, anyone got
a ----- fag. ‘Hmmm says I’’
an uncouth, lot of gentlemen’. At last, the final lot of objects had heaved
itself over the edge of this pit and I was alone on the moor. After stamping
around for a while trying to get warm my curiosity got the better of me and
approaching the mouth of the gulf I caught hold of the thing that
had previously been thrown down it. It looked like a ladder, but,
thought I, if those idiots think it’ll stand all that weight coming back up it
they’re mistaken, and even more mistaken to think I’ll ever transmit my
delicate personage on to it.
About six hours later, during which time I wished that
I’d remained in bed, I heard a murmur of human voices from the hole and
then, one by one the
objects reappeared on the moor surface. This time their appearance was beyond
description looking nothing remotely like what they had been on their
disappearance earlier on. Then with a flurry of wet garments and much
shouting about the weather and temperature and various comments about
monkeys made out of metal, brass I think ( were these terms peculiar to this sport, I
wondered ) the objects were transformed to what now looked like real people. After eating
squashed sandwiches and finished drinking from a various assortment
of containers containing a varied assortment of liquids, the crowd jumped upon ramshackle looking motor
bicycles and still shouting at one another -‘see you round
there’, ‘Get ‘em in’ and such like,
they
‘OH FOOLISH YOUTH’ M. Booth.
Depending upon the number of requests written on blank cheques and sent to
me, I may consider writing part 2 (two) of this thrilling serial about youth
gone wrong.