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Richard (Dick) Playford - Ullswater, The Lake District, 1962
This is my third submission but I believe I now have it cracked. How do these damned computers work! The age of steam - that's when every thing ran like clockwork & quicker, & I called all grown-ups Sir - no-one calls me Sir now - standards have really slipped. Birch all of them.
50 years ago on 27th December and the coldest Winter of the 20th Century - God, was it cold, no such thing as central heating & Dad was well off as he owned a car - almost Victorian by todays stardards. Warden laid low .:. Chief Instructors report sais - "I have known nothing like the cold we have had to endure during this past course (ended 22 Jan 63!) Ullswater (lake) has been completely frozen over with skatable ice & was crossed on a number of occasions by members of staff".
Do I remember the ice being broken for the first two mornings for our morning dip? They then decided that a morning COLD shower would suffice!! Not in the report, but I remember it. Any other course 75 remember that too - to confirm ???
I 'called in' in October this year & spoke to a lovely lady ANNICE & some others whose names I did not note down (apologies) to confirm that I have been revisiting all these years to the Lake District & might have moved there but for other priorities over the years. I have crawled everywhere in years hence, included & possibly inspired by it, to include the Arctic Circle, seeing the Aurora Borealis, the Western Desert (following my Hurricane fight pilot Father & being thrown out by Sadam Hussain-death richly deserved), The Persian Gulf, and some other places.
More narrative has disappeared - damned computers, letters are much better! I have written somewhere that my box brownie took a photo at the summit of Scafel Pike with PIP - otherwise we would not have known, as it was a whiteout - could not see past our fingertips, in our yellow coveralls -the best available for the time -someone at the centre said! The same could be said for Helvellyn (and Striding edge) - couldn't see right or left, or how dangerous it was, total white out. OMG !!! (I've been there since & a nephew who was at St Andrews Uni & Now a Dr - who is also a qualified Scottish Mountain Rescuer) said wow - did you really do that when you were 17yo? I DID - Yeah !! Best thing I ever did apart from learning to jive & join the forces.
Keep rockin'
50 years ago on 27th December and the coldest Winter of the 20th Century - God, was it cold, no such thing as central heating & Dad was well off as he owned a car - almost Victorian by todays stardards. Warden laid low .:. Chief Instructors report sais - "I have known nothing like the cold we have had to endure during this past course (ended 22 Jan 63!) Ullswater (lake) has been completely frozen over with skatable ice & was crossed on a number of occasions by members of staff".
Do I remember the ice being broken for the first two mornings for our morning dip? They then decided that a morning COLD shower would suffice!! Not in the report, but I remember it. Any other course 75 remember that too - to confirm ???
I 'called in' in October this year & spoke to a lovely lady ANNICE & some others whose names I did not note down (apologies) to confirm that I have been revisiting all these years to the Lake District & might have moved there but for other priorities over the years. I have crawled everywhere in years hence, included & possibly inspired by it, to include the Arctic Circle, seeing the Aurora Borealis, the Western Desert (following my Hurricane fight pilot Father & being thrown out by Sadam Hussain-death richly deserved), The Persian Gulf, and some other places.
More narrative has disappeared - damned computers, letters are much better! I have written somewhere that my box brownie took a photo at the summit of Scafel Pike with PIP - otherwise we would not have known, as it was a whiteout - could not see past our fingertips, in our yellow coveralls -the best available for the time -someone at the centre said! The same could be said for Helvellyn (and Striding edge) - couldn't see right or left, or how dangerous it was, total white out. OMG !!! (I've been there since & a nephew who was at St Andrews Uni & Now a Dr - who is also a qualified Scottish Mountain Rescuer) said wow - did you really do that when you were 17yo? I DID - Yeah !! Best thing I ever did apart from learning to jive & join the forces.
Keep rockin'