The DERBYSHIRE CAVER No 135 Autumn 2014 The late Keith Joule on the first pitch of a Gavel Pot – Short Drop Cave exchange trip IN THIS ISSUE – • Pete Mellors on the Derbyshire Key • Happy memories of Keith Joule from those who knew him • Fay Hartley on Coalpithole No 10 Shaft and much more . The newsletter of the DERBYSHIRE CAVING ASSOCIATION £2.00 THE DERBYSHIRE CAVER No 135 Autumn 2014 Editor: Material for inclusion can be sent hand-written or via email. Mike Higgins Please send contributions for the next issue as soon as they are ready. 56 Robin Hood Crescent Edenthorpe The views expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the Doncaster editor nor of the Derbyshire Caving Association. DN3 2JJ Email: [email protected] The website of the Derbyshire Caving Association is at: www.theDCA.org.uk CONTENTS : Editorial . 3 The first DCA Newsletter . 3 Farewell Keith . 4 DCRO Call Outs . 8 Cliffhanger 2014 . 9 Coalpithole Shaft 10 . 10 Lids and Gates . 11 White Hall Centre . 13 Winnats Head Cave – new anchors . 14 Reynards Kitchen . 15 Photos – Cliffhanger . 16 Cover photograph courtesy of Des Kelly THE DCA - WHAT WE DO AND HOW TO JOIN US DOING IT The aim of Derbyshire Caving Association (DCA) is to protect the caves and promote good caving practice within the Peak District and surrounding areas. Membership is open to all clubs, individuals and outdoor activity providers with an interest in caves and caving or mine exploration. Check out the DCA website for further information (www.theDCA.org.uk). Membership enquiries should be made to the Secretary at [email protected]. The newsletter of the DCA has been in publication for over fifty years and is of paramount value as a forum for cavers in the Peak District. The Editor welcomes contributions from all cavers, whether DCA members or not. News, articles, letters for publication, etc. should be posted or emailed to him at the above address, or give him a ring on 01302 882874. The Derbyshire Caver is posted free to DCA members; non-members may subscribe by sending a cheque for £9 (payable to DCA) for four issues, to the Secretary or Treasurer. Some back issues are also available for sale. Quarter-page adverts are £5 per insertion. Current issues of The Derbyshire Caver are available from the following outlets: Hitch'n'Hike, Bamford; The Old Smithy Teashop, Monyash; Peak District Mining Museum, Matlock Bath EDITORIAL THE 1ST DCA NEWSLETTER Following on from the introduction of the colour The very first Derbyshire Caving Association front cover in the last issue, the back cover is now Newsletter was produced in February 1962 (The also in colour, with a selection of photos from the Derbyshire Caver title didn’t come into being until Cliffhanger event in Millhouses Park, Sheffield, in 1998 under Iain Barker’s editorship), consisting of June. From the next issue, scheduled to be Spring 5 duplicated typewritten pages. There was the 2015, I would like to be able to use the back usual appeal for articles and information, cover for photographs from cavers whose work followed by a report on the DCA AGM held on isn’t usually published. I know that there are 21st October 1961 at the Eagle Hotel, Buxton, no plenty of cavers in Derbyshire who, like myself, doubt a more comfortable venue than Monyash take photos for their own pleasure and if you Village Hall. Geoff Workman was elected have one that you are particularly proud of and Chairman, Dave Allsop Hon Treasurer and D J would like to see in print, please send it in to me, Brindley Hon Secretary. preferably by email and as a .jpeg file, with a view to it appearing on the back page. It just needs to Amongst other business was agreement to hold a be of an underground scene in or near the Peak Congress at Buxton Town Hall in September, a District, whether cave or mine, and, naturally, in proposal to fit a gate on Carlswark Cavern, and colour. the setting up of a card index of farmers relative to caves, etc. An anonymous donation of £1.00 to Colour printing comes at a cost, of course, and DCA funds was reported. the cover price of “The Derbyshire Caver” is now £2.00. However, this is the first price increase The newsletter included a report by John Robey since Spring 2000, and there can be few on the 3rd International Speleological Congress publications that have held their price for that held in Austria. This started with an opening length of time. At less than the cost of a decent ceremony and excursions at Graz, moved on to pint of beer it still represents very good value for Vienna for lectures and films, progressed to money. Dachstein for visits to caves and prehistoric salt mines and finished at Salzburg for the final Readers will notice that, after a life of some 10 sessions. years, the “News From Around The Peak” feature has been dropped. I struggled to fill a page in the Details were given of the discovery of Thistle Pot last issue with small news items and the reality is by Pegasus Caving Club and of recent digging that people now get their news instantly via there. They had high hopes that “a new system social media, websites and email. has been discovered with all the continental trimmings which one often reads about but never DCA Vice-Chairman sees in this country”. In the absence of any volunteers to replace Bob The death of Eli Simpson in Skipton Hospital on Dearman as Chairman of DCA, it was agreed at 1st February was reported followed by a brief the Council Meeting on 28th June to co-opt Terry obituary. Jackson to fill this post until the next AGM. Consequently, the position of vice-chairman is Finally, it was noted that the Derbyshire Caving now vacant and DCA Members should contact Association now had 7 member clubs and 6 Jenny Potts with suggested nominations as soon associate members. as possible. The cost of the newsletter to non-members was 1/- post free (5p in modern money). Mike Higgins Mike Higgins 3 FAREWELL KEITH Keith Joule, DCRO Controller, cave explorer, back into one of the crazy crawls below Toad member of TSG and Crewe CPC and a thoroughly Haul when Keith realised that, as he crawled, the good mate to all, died of a heart attack on Easter boulders were moving along at the same pace; Sunday 2014 while walking over to Easegill for a spotting him back from a climb up into a natural Top Sink to Lancaster trip. Here are a few shaft in the lower (normally flooded) section of tributes and memories from some of the many Raven Mine, when he realised that he’d done “a people who knew him and were close to him. bridge too far” - and many other dramas. But he always survived these escapades, with a rich tale to tell afterwards. Not that it was always Keith who came unstuck; he came to my rescue on two occasions. The first was in Dowbergill, when we’d taken the wrong traverse line, and I slipped in the narrow fissure and become badly jammed by my personal tackle bag and belt. After several attempts to sort me out, Keith took great delight in slicing through my belt with his knife and thus allowing me to slide down to the icy canal. The other occasion was a time when I was working for Ralph’s Up & Down Adventures company, leading a group of undergraduate vets in P8, and I came down with a debilitating dose of food poisoning. In the ensuing DCRO callout, Keith was the underground From Alan Brentnall controller and when he stuck his head into Ralph’s emergency KISU and saw my miserable I first met Keith while we were both serving beer “sorry-for-myself” face, he just laughed and behind the DCRO bar at the 1999 Hidden Earth laughed so much that I couldn’t but help but see Conference in Buxton. We got to chatting about the funny side of it all (I was DCRO’s Training Derbyshire caves and caving, and we obviously Officer at the time!). But the evacuation plan and both enjoyed caving. Not long after, Keith tagged execution he put on was second to none, and I onto our mid-week caving group, KCC, and that was very proud to be a customer of my own team was the start of a long friendship which lasted that day. right up to Keith’s death this year. My last trip with Keith, not long before his death, Of course I’d heard all about Keith’s exploits long was the classic Croesor-Rhosydd traverse in the before I met him, and I was surprised how Moelwyns –an excellent trip which neither of us friendly and supportive he was in real life; not the had done previously. Keith was his usual cheerful hard caver that came across from the articles in self, making the most of each adventure to the Descent! But caving with Keith was always full as it popped up; shouting “Yee Hah!!” on the interesting; his involvement went way back, and zip-wire, leaping about on the “Bridge of Death” he always had an interesting story to tell. and generally enjoying the trip to the full. We caved regularly, and not only in the Peak, but Like many other cavers in the Peak District, I find also in Yorkshire, Wales, Mendip, North Pennines it very difficult to understand that my regular and even further afield in the Dubs in France and caving partner and friend, once such a large in Mallorca.