Belfry Bulletin Vol. 7 No.73
September 1953
This Caving by Oldtimer A few years ago, in the early thirties and before, the term ‘Caver’, ‘Potholer’, ‘Speleologist’ or ‘Spelunker’ meant little of nothing to the man in the street. Today the vast majority of the public are familiar with certain types of cave and have formed ideas about the persons who explore them. The picture that they mentally form is a composite one; a mixture of memories of visits to ‘show’ caves, and the photographs that from time to time appear in the popular press. Usually no existing cave remotely resembles their brain child, and the same probably applies to the type of people whom they imagine spend their life in ‘Cavernous’ exploration. The spate of accidents earlier in the year about which so much was written by journalists, complete with little sketches, has enabled the public to imagine either (a) parties of boys from youth organisations crawling through holes unfit for rabbits, or (b) highly organised parties of supermen equipped with every device known to science, descending tremendous gulfs down which waterfalls thunder and rocks fall. In both cases the efforts seemed to be ‘useless’ in so far that Mr. & Mrs, Public could derive no benefit from them, and that lives were being lost and people worried for no good reason whatsoever. This picture, although ‘attractive’ from the point of view of the sensationalist, is so far from the truth that cavers are often unable to recognise incidents in which they themselves had taken part when hearing or reading of the incident at a later date. Accidents do happen, as we all realise, even in an organisation that takes every precaution against them, but there are thousands of cavers, potholers, speleos, call them what you will, who have enjoyed their sport for many years in safety by using common sense whilst underground. Well, what IS it like then? It’s dark; wet; cold; often muddy; sometimes smelly; some chambers are large, some are small; there are sharp rocks that tear clothes and flesh; one dangles in space from ropes and ladders, gets burnt by carbide lamps and usually regains the surface feeling a wreck both physically and mentally and vowing never to go underground again, only to repeat the process the following weekend. It is just this unpleasant list plus a number of other factors that accounts for the enormous increase in popularity of the sport in recent years. It is ADVENTURE! That love of the unknown that today has so little outlet and which finds satisfaction in the depths of the earth. There is a comradeship amongst cavers that is rarely met elsewhere; to a great extent you ‘depend on your friends’ and they depend on you. There is sometimes the thrill of a new discovery – the opening of a new passage in which ‘the hand of man has never set foot’ – of knowing that your footprints are the first ever to be impressed on that mud bank and that your eyes were the first ever to see this particular passage! The physicall effort, too, gives satisfaction, and there is a great feeling of contentment, when, after a strenuous day underground, one is able to relax in a friendly pub or café. Oh, yes, there is danger; that of falling rocks in 1ong-opened caves is inconsiderable unless the place is obviously unsafe, and then of course the place should either be avoided or great care taken; the danger of a rope or ladder breaking can be minimised by testing each article before a descent; adequate lighting arrangements should be taken by all those who venture underground.