Participating in the DEA scheme was one of those key moments in my life. It pushed me physically further than anything I had done before, and it introduced me to walking and mountains, two things that have had a profound influence on my life. It also took me to Snowdonia, a place for which I have an abiding love, and introduced me to a group of exceptional people, with whom I am forever linked through joint experience, and whose friendship endures. Without the Boys’ Brigade, Chris Belfield (my Company Captain), and the support of my parents, done of this would have happened.
When my Company Captain, Chris Belfield, suggested that I went on a DEA training weekend in the autumn of 1966, I had no idea what to expect and perhaps that was a good thing as if I had known, I probably wouldn’t have gone. It was a shock to find myself sleeping under canvas (for the first time) in the very muddy back garden of Ron Dickinson’s house. Heaven knows what the state of their garden was like after the weekend. I was not a brilliant student, and I struggled with every aspect of the training. And as for walking up and down the North Downs on the night expedition, a seemingly pointless exercise, I hated and feared it. Yet, despite everything I didn’t need persuading to come back next time.
I don’t know that sleeping in an ex-pigsty (the house of Maurice Beeby in Trottiscliffe) was much of an improvement, but at least we avoided tents and mud.
I am slightly embarrassed to admit that I struggled to come to grips with map reading and, in particular, the compass. I shall be eternally grateful to Dave (Thilthorpe) for guiding our group through our Silver and Gold expeditions, and thereby allowing me to gain my Gold Award and, more importantly, to achieve the status of an assessor. It was only then when faced with those who knew even less than I did that the penny finally dropped and I grasped the essentials of navigation.
The downside of being an assessor without a car was that for the night expeditions you could count on being thrown out somewhere in the back of beyond to wait for a group to arrive whilst the others went to find a telephone or search elsewhere if the group were running late. The worst was to be left above Trottiscliffe waiting all evening on the Pilgrims’ Way at the foot of the North Downs.
There are only a few songs that I associate with specific times and places, all, oddly enough associated with walking. One of these is ‘Grave New World’ by The Strawbs, a song I first heard sitting in the back of Martin Harris’ Austin Mini whilst hurtling around the North Downs assessing (in 1972?), a song that was being played in stereo on a cassette – the height of luxury and innovation at the time.
Assessing on the night expeditions was always exciting, being partnered with people that you perhaps didn’t know very well, although being driven by Robert (Hardy) was a terrifying experience. Assessing with Dave (Thilthorpe) in his Reliant Robin always guaranteed that you kept warm. There was always an element of wanting the group to be on time so you didn’t have to wait up all night for them, but when a group was running late it did at least give you a chance to get out of the car and get some exercise as you tried to anticipate where they might have gone wrong, or retrace their route in the hope of finding them.
When groups got lost, as they generally did, it was a relief to find them safe and sound. From time to time groups took the initiative to seek help by knocking on doors when they really hadn’t a clue where they were, and I recall the embarrassment of one group when an overly helpful man insisted on giving them a lift to the exact checkpoint, leaving the group to sheepishly step out of the car in front of an equally embarrassed group of assessors.
We spent a long time searching for a regular venue for the expedition training, and we ended up in some bizarre venues. A weekend spent in a transport storage depot on the A20 at Wrotham Heath was truly awful (how desperate we must have been), and squatting in a disused RAF building at West Malling airfield wasn’t much better, even if Ray Colechin found the acoustics of the old mortuary ideal for his clarinet.
One recurring theme of the expedition weekends was that the tuition was undertaken without tables or any fancy display equipment, and each assessor proudly brought along their own ‘flash cards’ showing the conventional map signs, plus an array of maps, charts, books etc. With everyone spread out on the floor in amongst a mass of other noisy groups the conditions were hardly ideal for teaching. It was hard work, but always incredibly rewarding, and the task of the assessor was made easier by the fact that the participants were generally eager to learn.
I had the great fortune of having gloriously sunny weather for my Gold expedition. We were a well-matched group. Dave (Thilthorpe) was brilliant at navigation, and so there was little chance of getting lost, and he was ably assisted by Andy (Gibson). Jim (Kelly) provided the humour and the meals, whilst Greg (Air Cadet Force) and I tagged along carrying our share of the gear. Our route from the campsite at Capel Curig took us past Llyn Cowlyd to a campsite at Cwm Eigau where we camped up in the shadows of some derelict buildings. I remember that Jim ended up with wet boots, which he successfully dried over the stove that evening. The only problem was that the next day he found that the soles had warped, and so he struggled up over the Carnedds complaining frequently, if not all of the time, probably with justification. This didn’t prevent us successfully reaching our second campsite at Nant Ffrancon without difficulty. The third day was the hardest, with a climb over the Glyders to Pen-y-Gwyrd. By the time we reached Pen-y-Pass we were suffering from the heat, and I think that it was Dave Hollands who kindly bought us ice-creams before we set off up the Miner’s Track to the campsite at Llyn Llydaw. The final day was long as we descended the pipeline and then climbed up from Gwynant to the Ancient Trackway, in the days before it was forested. From Dolyweddelan the track back over to Capel Curig was straightforward, and we finished the expedition on schedule. I don’t remember feeling anything other than relief to have finished the expedition.
Before the M25 and M56 motorways were open, the journey from Gravesend to Snowdonia was rather an ordeal, particularly if you were a new assessor and allocated to go up on the coach. For many years we had the same driver, George, who stayed with us for Easter and became very much one of the group. There was an obligatory stop on the M1 at a service area to count that everyone was safely on their way, controlled by Dave Hollands with his clipboard, and inevitably wearing his orange cagoule and bobble hat. I believe he timed and recorded each and every trip. If the journey up was bad, the return trip was torture, particularly for those who finished their expeditions on the Sunday without having had time for recovery. Luckily most people were soon asleep for the overnight trip home. Inevitably someone would dig into their now redundant emergency rations of Kendal Mint Cake and tinned condensed milk, with violent and unpleasant consequences for everyone. The sight of 50 exhausted and rather grimy people stepping off the coach at the Watford Gap services on the M1, and hobbling across the tarmac to take a early morning breakfast or to use up the last of their spending money on sweets and fizzy drinks was both comical and pathetic.
We had some pretty awful base camps in the early days. That at Capel Curig was simple and the site was often waterlogged making conditions uncomfortable, not least for the Silver groups waiting to start their expeditions. Unfortunately, Williams’ campsite at the foot of Tryfan was worse and I recall that in heavy rain the campsite was impossible, and many Silver groups started their expeditions with sodden gear as water swept down off the mountains and through the tents. The toilet block (a grand title for a stone structure with several toilets, generally without doors, and an external sink with cold water) was grim. At least assessors had, for the first time, dormitory accommodation where we could manage some sleep between assessing shifts. By the time we reached the Jesse James bunkhouse (near Llanberis) we had reached the height of luxury with decent facilities for assessors, and reasonable camping facilities for the groups.
The team who prepared meals for us (both in Snowdonia and on training weekends) were unsung heroes, getting up before the crack of dawn, and going to sleep only when the last assessors had safely returned to base camp. They managed to produce wonderfully filling and sustaining meals in the most difficult of circumstances.
In the days before mobile telephones there was always the need to find a working telephone to keep in touch with base camp, and if you were unlucky to find yourself based by the telephone at Tai Hyll (?), you knew that you were inevitably going to be thrown out of your comfortably warm car for, perhaps, hours, whilst your companions went on to the next checkpoint in search of another group, or to locate a missing group. If a group were running late it was inevitable that someone would have to be left behind at the checkpoint whilst the car disappeared to the next checkpoint, and the next group.
I believe that it was Colin Marshall that developed the computer programme that was used to record details of each and every expedition. If a group were running late then it used to predict their ETA (estimated time of arrival) at the next checkpoint based on the actual time achieved on the previous section – once behind schedule the predictions became more and more absurd, creating uncertainty as to when the group might actually appear before the coach left on the return journey.
The main rendezvous point for assessors was the Afon Milk Bar in Betwys-y-Coed, and you could be pretty certain of meeting up with another set of assessors at virtually any time during the weekend. There, whilst enjoying a hot drink and perhaps some food, we would discuss the events of the day, groups in difficulty and try to outdo each other with stories of waiting or searching for lost groups.
There were always checkpoints that were more sought after than others, and so a trip to the Glyders, the Carnedds or Snowdon was considered to be a plum draw for the ‘elite’, even if it meant an early start or waiting for hours in a wild wilderness. A weekend spent assessing Silver groups around Betws-y-Coed was considered to be less demanding and, therefore, less appealing.
Everyone got one day on base camp where the phone was manned, and detailed records kept of the progress of each group, both on paper and using the super-sophisticated (for the time) computer programme. Here the movement of cars and assessors was co-ordinated in response to information fed in from other assessors, to ensure that every group was checked at their checkpoints (something that other groups operating in the same area failed to do, judging by the widespread use of orange cards left at checkpoints strewn across Snowdonia). I think that we set very standards of assessing and monitoring, and assessors were always at hand should problems arise. There never seemed to be a shortage of assessors willing to give up their Easter weekend to go to Snowdonia, and this meant that we were able to cover all checkpoints and campsites, and have assessors available on call to deal with emergencies. Luckily, problems were rare even if I recall the odd case of hypothermia, visits to the hospital in Bangor and the intervention of Mountain Rescue services. Every day there was a telephone conversation between Colin (Marshall) and John Young, hosted and broadcast live by BBC Radio Kent, when the progress of each group was relayed to anxious parents and Company Captains waiting back in Kent.
One Easter I travelled up with Steve (Brookes) and Andy (Webber) in the relative luxury of Steve’s stately saloon car. I had only recently passed my driving test and so when Steve complained of stomach pains on the way back to Kent, I found myself reluctantly driving his car. I had learnt to drive in a Mini, so his car felt like a monster. I drove very slowly towards Llangollen in search of a hospital. We came across a police car and sought directions to the hospital. To my dismay they offered to escort us there, so I followed cautiously as they shot off, necessitating them to wait for me at every change of direction. When, finally, we reached the cottage hospital, the police car turned in and I managed to turn into the driveway of an adjacent private house, necessitating a tricky reverse manoeuvre in front of a bewildered couple of policemen. Steve was kept in for observation overnight, so we ended up making do sleeping in chairs in the reception area. In the morning Steve was feeling fine, so he took over at the wheel, and I was able to once more enjoy being a passenger.
MICK SAYER