Swindon Mountaineering Club 50th Birthday. From Colin Beechey, President
Have a great time on the Club’s ‘’50th Birthday walk’’ and pub meal. The Club may even be 51 years old as some records say it may have been formed in 1972?
I am sorry I cannot be there but I am away on holiday that was booked a long time ago. I cannot remember how I became President many years ago, but am very pleased to be so! I have not been particularly good at my duties (whatever they are) apart from giving slide shows over the years and only rarely attending club meets. This is because I have always tried to climb during the week rather than at crowded weekends. Luckily when working my job had a generous leave allowance and now being retired there is even more time to climb midweek. I have however climbed with many club members and ex members over the years.
I have been a member for most of that time having joined in the early 1970s when I moved to Swindon. I thought that present members might appreciate some memories of those early days, as remembered by myself and long-time member Dave Thornley, both of us still just about climbing. Other long-term members are Andy Pentelow and Gill Marsh.
Dave Thornley was already an experienced climber when, aged around 28, he moved to the Swindon area. He had climbed in the Alps and had also climbed on the notorious Troll Wall in Norway. He joined the Club hoping to find experienced climbers to lead him up even harder routes but was disappointed to find that the emphasis was on walking and easier rock climbs. The club secretory in those days was Keith Pittman. Dave went back to climbing with his Stafford Mountain Club mates as in those days with empty roads and no speed cameras he could get to Derbyshire or North Wales in very fast times.
Both Dave and myself remember using a very primitive wooden climbing wall at the Croft Sports Centre, the first such wall in the area. Dave recalls “I nearly killed myself on this climbing wall that was basically a big peg board, with wooden holds fitting in the pegs in either horizontal or vertical orientation. I recall nipping up it with no trouble and then going round to do it again missing out as many holds as I could, by using the holds like underclings to make long reaches. I was reaching for the top from such an undercling and the hold came out and I shot downwards to land on my back on some vaguely padded surface.’’
By the 1980s the membership had changed to include some very good climbers and the Club met at the Spotted Cow Pub. Two notable members were Dave Viggers and Damion Carroll both of whom put up hundreds of new routes in Pembrokeshire, North Wales and Symonds Yat, many of them being well into the E grades. Dave Viggers went onto become a leading light in the Climbers Club and become Vice President.
Other talented climbers from those early days were Andy Vaudin, Chris Warner, Ian McNeil, Dave Pocock and Pete Debbage. Pete was instrumental in getting the first decent climbing wall opened at the Link Centre in Swindon with its famous tiltable slab. There was also a corridor here that was made into an excellent traversing wall which as well as being free to use did wonders for improving finger strength. Another free practise area was the walls of the old Swindon/Cricklade railway line. Chris Warner apparently one did 26 consecutive traverses without falling off and was soon leading E3 climbs on rock.
There were several talented women climbers including Moira Viggers and Hilary Lynch (married name Hilary Ridge, who sadly died last year). Hilary was meets secretary and she got the club into Scottish trips, raucous hut meets all over the place and the Alps in Summer.
Several members did some great classic climbs in the Alps, my own small claim to fame being the 10th Briton to climb all 52 four thousand metre mountains in the Alps since the first climber to do so in 1929. I did not use professional guides and often did harder routes on the peaks rather than their normal routes, many of these climbs being done with another club member John Daniels.
Scottish, Welsh and Lake District Winter climbs were also regularly done by club members including myself. I had some great Winter trips climbing Winter classics up to grade 5 with Colin Watts, Chris Schiller, Tim Perkins and other club members. One member Mike Franklin went for weekend trips to Scotland for several weeks every Winter. I once had a crazy 30 hour trip to Ben Nevis that I knew was in perfect Winter condition. We left Swindon at 5pm after work, got to Fort William in the early hours, slept in the car for a few hours then walked up to the North face and did ‘’Vanishing Gully’’ grade 5. We drove back that afternoon, arriving home at midnight ready for work the next day. Obviously, we were not in the Green party and net zero carbon was unheard of!
A very sad and shocking event occurred in 1989 when several club members died during a Winter climb on the Tour Ronde Mountain in Chamonix. They were Mick Seavers, Leslie Lawrence and Bill Ogburn and their deaths obviously shook the club to the very core. Their deaths drove home how dangerous our sport can be, especially in Winter.
The biggest changes since the Clubs early days have been in equipment. In the 1970s there were no bolted routes and all climbing was ‘Trad’. There were also no harnesses, the earliest one being a Whillans Harness developed by the well-known climber of the same name for use on the 1970 Annapurna South Face expedition. Previous to harnesses we used a waist belt consisted of thin rope wrapped several times around the waist to spread the load. We were very aware that falling and dangling on the rope using a waist belt could easily result in asphyxiation in a few minutes!
Dave Thornley Reminisces ‘I did not understand for a year that the buckle on my Whillans Harness had to be threaded back so all my climbing had been basically soloing’. In those days for protecting climbs, we had a few nuts and slings and not the huge range of wired nuts, large and small, available these days. ‘Friends’ only appeared in the 1980s. This lack of protection devices made those Trad routes pretty scary and obviously potentially dangerous but fantastically rewarding as long as you did not fall! Bolted routes are obviously very safe and many older trad climbers find that bolted routes have something missing.
Footwear also has improved considerably, the early rock shoes having a very hard rubber compound on the sole, unlike the modern ‘sticky rubber’ boots of today. Those shiny polished Limestone horror routes suddenly became easier. Another huge change was using chalk for sweaty hands. For many years climbers resisted its use (the ‘Clean Hand Gang’), regarding it as cheating. Gradually its use became common even on easy climbs.
Apologies to Club members not mentioned and any inaccuracies in the above.
Best wishes President Colin Beechey, with help from Dave Thornley. 2023