FEATURE
Tavistock College
Tavistock & District Youth Forum
60 years of Ten Tors Mount Kelly
The first weekend in May will mark 60 years since the first public Ten Tors event took place in 1960, bringing together a throng of determined young teams, as well as a group of veterans who took part in the early days of Ten Tors. Another 2400 young people from the South West will gather at Okehampton Camp on 1st May to take on the strenuous undertaking of trekking between ten designated Dartmoor tors, within 34 hours. With 35-mile, 45-mile and 55-mile routes, Ten Tors is renowned as a challenging feat which tests strength, resilience, navigation skills and the cohesion of the group. The participants are between the ages of 14 and 19-years-old and have been training for several months, with the weekend marking the pinnacle of their efforts, as well as celebrating 60 years of Ten Tors. The origins of Ten Tors lie in a military exercise on Dartmoor called ‘Escape to Freedom’, which revolved around the flight of a fictional character, Druid Lama, from Llasa Tor. This was in 1959, shortly after the Dalai Lama escaped from Tibet into exile in India, and the exercise was created by Captain John Joyner for the Junior Leaders Regiment, Royal Signals at Denbury Camp near Newton Abbot. Partway through the exercise Captain Joyner took Lieutenant Colonel Lionel Gregory, the commander of the Junior Leaders Regiment, and Major Parker to see how it was 4
progressing – he later wrote: “… we quickly discovered that the exercise was proving to be a great success. Those taking part were thoroughly enjoying the challenges of navigation, bivouacking, and field cooking.” This prompted a discussion about holding an event open to civilian youths as well – and even girls. Captain Joyner (or Yeti as he was apparently known) created two more Dartmoor exercises for the squadron and the regiment in 1959, and then in 1960 Colonel Gregory organized the first Ten Tors event open to the public. Twenty-one teams assembled at Denbury Camp on 14 September 1960, including one civilian team of three young men from Exmouth who knew the moors well and were known as the ‘team of three’. At 6:30am on 15 September the teams were given the grid references of ten tors and set off from Haytor, aiming to reach Denbury Camp by 9:30pm the following day. With 20 miles to go the ‘team of three’ were in the lead but were overtaken by RAF Halton when they took time out to cook lunch! The event was a huge success despite the tough conditions and only six full teams completing the task. A second Ten Tors was planned for May 1961, when it was easier for schools to take part, resulting in a much larger uptake from the public, including teams of girls who slept in a separate camp overnight. Team sizes were reduced from ten to six, the finish moved to Hexworthy and different length routes were introduced for different age groups; 156 teams started out and 83 full teams finished.
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