The Fifties

"I. One of the questions I was going to go back on, one was, in the early days of your rescue work I presume there weren't half as many accidents as there are now? Because. . .

R. Quite a lot of Fell accidents, I've been up Dungeon Ghyll when we've been bringing someone down and while we've been there, there's been another accident. If the first patient wasn't so bad, we've put them in the van and then gone up and got the other one. Or we've been up Langdale - Kendal hospital, sorry, and they've said "There's another accident at Dungeon Ghyll, will you go back?" We've had that several times, you know - oh, what would it be, 1950's, round there somewhere, all these young ones went mad on climbing before the Mountain Rescue started, when John Bulman, when the Bulmans were there and oh, there was one accident every week and two or three through the week but they always happened at round about 4, more or less when they've practically got to the top and been careless, you know and perhaps just turned round and fallen over or someone's been up and they've been watching them and they've just come onto the side to watch them and they've come down Raven Crag from the top. It's wonderful, you know, some of the people that've fallen off Raven Crag to the bottom and then lived. There was a boy Bennett, he was unconscious in Kendal Hospital for a month and then came round and then others just fall a yard or two and they've had it. There's a little tree there on Raven Crag there and there's more than one fallen into that tree, you know.