The Black Rose Pothole Club

 
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who pushed the darkness just a little too far.

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Anyone who actually wants to go caving should contact

Adam Cooper                                                       Duncan Jones

adam@deepdownunder.co.uk                            Black Rose Caving Club          

http://www.deepdownunder.co.uk/                              http://www.brcc.org.uk         

   Artists there included Bobby Kaye (Comedian), Charles Mitchell (Organist) who worked with Connie for 25 years, Spencer K Gibbons (Country and Western/Rock) who was Connie and Johnnie's Cruise Ship Director for 5 years, Beryl Chapman (Singer) who is Duggie Chapman's wife (The Producer), a film of Connie presenting the best of Southport for the Tourism Board, Teddy Alexander who worked with Connie in the old days and came out of retirement for her, Peter Lindup a musical speciality act, Mathew Corbett remembers with pleasure his years of working with Connie on the Sooty Show and Asa Murphy, a new swinging singing star from Liverpool. A good show.

    Jonnie Seaton was indisposed and couldn't attend so a video was taken of the entire show, which over ran by half an hour, just for him.

 The proceeds for the attendance/ raffle raised £2,500 and this went to the Queenscourt Hospice where Tommy Bowers spent his final days.

    Photos were forbidden in the theatre but here's a few I took earlier.

 

 

     Attending were Big Jack, Brian & Isabel, Ged & Sandra, Jim Boursey, Mike & Mary, Pete & Barbara, Scorcher & Dianne, Skipsey & Val, Tiger & Liz.

HAVE YOU ANY PICTURES OF THE FEBRUARY SNOW ?

PLEASE SEND IN

1) Ged builds granddaughter a snow house 07-02-09

2, 3, 4, 5) Ingleborough and Ribblehead Station by Big Jack 06-03-09

6) Proper snow back in 1962 at Scar End Hostel

1  2  3 4 5

6

I have been reliably informed that Brian Lewis has been seen

whistling up a sheep on his front lawn today .... hmmmm ?

   http://12121.hostinguk.com/tangiers.htm

New site about Ged's exploits in Caves of Hercules in Morocco 1989

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14-01-09    Ged & Sandra back from their Egyptian Trip - see new web site here.

Click on thumbnails -This is not a hoax.

23-10-08

Black Rose Caving Club

   Well, after 5 months of glorious sunshine, I arrived in Bulgaria to a downpour of Biblical proportions. Thunder and lightning rule OK?

     As the Zandana Cave floods from the bottom up, I gave it miss.

On to plan B, which was a photo-shoot with TV Star Pepi Borisova, promoting Mall Varna, Bulgaria's biggest Super Store, shopping for shoes, (steady on Ged), and working on video projects in Varna City.

   Later on, to promotion shoots at Pliska, the first capital of Bulgaria, and Madara with its gigantic vertical cliffs and "dry" rock caves.

 I actually climbed the 1000 foot to the hill top fortress of Madara.

 

 

    There is a little wayside cafe at Madara that reminded me of Bernie's Cafe, and we got the best cup of old-fashioned milk coffee in a long time, in a huge mug.   Meanwhile, enjoy, I did ...

 

Photos by Ged - Courtesy of Peace Havens Limited - Bulgaria

Hi there, My name is Cathy Tazzyman and I live in Ingleton, I am one of the many nieces of William "Eddie Hunt" who was a member of the old Black Rose team. I never ever saw any pictures of my Uncle Eddie when he used to cave and I wondered if anyone had any old photographs for me to look at. My uncle Eddie was a good man and he had a big heart, and it seems only yesterday that we used to chat, even though its now been nearly 5 yrs since he passed away. Kind regards Cathy Tazzyman

My e mail address is tazcath@btopenworld.com

Cathy - All I can suggest is to contact the Cave Rescue Organisation - Ged

Message from Richie in Canada    ....   Hi Ged     02-03-08
My new email is rkirby@silomail.com  or kirby.rick@gmail.com
Hope you have an enjoyable evening at the reunion, sorry can't be there again this year
Still biking, picture taken in Virginia on the way to the Blue Ridge Parkway in 2007 September
Richie -- Wisdom: We are all born naked, wet, and hungry....Then things get worse.

 

And Sletcher cant be reached at the address you have on your website !!!

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REQUEST FOR INFO   09-01-08

I recognise David Heap from your photo. He was head of history at William Hulme's Grammar School, Manchester from approx 1968 - 1973 and introduced me to caving which I carried on through my university days. I was sorry to learn that he had died in 1995. Are you in contact with anyone who knew what happened to him after leaving WHGS?           Regards, Mark Clegg           email       Kk558@aol.com

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Who's doing what these days?

GUARD EXTRAORDINAIRE

Rumour is that our Big Jack has a big boy's job as

a "responsible person" on the Worth Valley Rail

and is still "hamming" it up on the airwaves.

 

Click to view

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BULGARIA UPDATE - August

We go Sinbad's at Golden Sands, every night, for the variety show with

Bulgaria's most celebrated belly dancers, Tifani, Julia, Pepe and Mimi.

On to Mimi's birthday party where everybody, young & old, join

in the dancing. We get invited because Ged and Mimi are old

friends ?  and we thought our man in MI5 was Johnnie Seaton.

Click here to go to Mimi's Birthday Party

 
The exploits of Steve Manly in MI5.
Tel 01202 514 722  -  johnseaton@supanet.com

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Bulgarian Cave Monastery

( Ged Dodd) 18th Feb 2007

The nearest I got to caving this year was visiting the Cave Church of Aladzha Monastery near Varna on the Black Sea Coast of Bulgaria.

click to view photo gallery

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Email from Dave Newsholme on 12-10-06

  davenews@blueyonder.co.uk

Hi Ged

To the best of my knowledge we have never met but round about 1959 onwards I was caving regularly in the Dales. I do remember sneaking on Leck fell one night and going down Easegill (County?) with a couple of lads one of whom was called Dave who only had 1 arm. I think the other one was called Pete, who told me about pushing Spectacle pot. I think we met in the Marton. Could this Dave be the one in some of your photos? I was also in a Rose pothole club but mine was WHITE. Another coincidence is that I first went caving in a small way, Dow, Sleets etc with a few mates when I was in the ROC. Living near Leeds though I was in the HQ at Headingley pushing markers round on the big map. I remember enjoying the exercises tracking the Canberras etc flying in from Germany. That didn't last long though when the caving bug took over. I started caving again in 1985 with my teenage sons. I found the SRT absolutely brilliant and the fact that the three of us could bottom some deep pots really quickly. Happy days.  Regards  Dave Newsholme

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Jonnie Seaton's new book is now available April 2006
 

Action packed political thriller of the exploits of Steve Manly in MI5.
Tel 01202 514 722  -  johnseaton@supanet.com

Or write to John Seaton, 139 Kinson Road, Bournemouth, Dorset, BH10 4DG

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Hi folks, I've been off-line for a long time ( months) and am just catching up, Connie is  fairy godmother in Cinderella, yet again!. Hope you are all well and hope to see you at the Wheatsheaf 25th March?  Cheers   Johnnie Seaton. 13-12-2005.

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY

click on pic for a Merry Christmas message

 

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Cairn Cavern

(New Discovery 21st April 2005)

          So, Pete Cumpsty collars Ged at the Dinner and tells him about this rock shelter he had stumbled on whilst out walking, near the Roman Road, and plans were made to have another look, complete with Ged's metal detector, on the first available sunny day, it being out in the wilds.

     It had rained the previous day, leaving an inch of water over much of the floor inside the shelter, about 10 feet square and 3 feet high, so we had a dabble outside and found a horseshoe, well, more a small pony shoe, and an Olde tent peg, and a ring pull off a sardine can. Wow.

      Pete had brought a powerful lamp which revealed an inner dry cavern, at least as large as the outer, which we didn't enter, because it meant getting muddy, and we weren't kitted up for caving. We will return.

Click on photos to enlarge.

Pete detecting outside, holding pony shoe and enjoying the view. (Photos by Ged)

 

5th May 2005

    Pete Cumpsty and Adam Cooper had a good day at the shelter. No obvious finds apart from a old fence post left inside the cave at the back, but they did find 3 or 4 round house remains, about 1/2 a mile away.

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Anyone remember this oldie?

email 28-03-05 from TEnright3@aol.com

Hi. Have just been looking at a web site of the Black Rose Caving Club Oldies !
My name is Colin Enright originally from Liverpool. I seem to remember your name from the past. Do you remember me ? Other names of Scousers in Ingleton in the early 60s were Johnny Martin. Ken Bradley. Also we were good friends with Meesh who I think came from Barrow. Also I remember Mike Myers and Alan Edmundson and Kim Alderton.
If you are the one I remember, did you have an ear ring ? Also your friend had one. Very unusual for that time. You worked in the Barrow Ship Yard. And I remember seeing your photo in an advertisement for Vickers in a barrow handbook ? There was also a guy who knew you ,forget his name, he said he was from the Kendal Mint Cake Family, did not believe him !  He never did any caving.
We first met you when you had the coal or wash shed behind the Craven Heifer Pub ! We stayed there many times. Most memories have faded ! I have a photo of Meesh when he stayed at my house in Liverpool,.
It would be nice to hear from you if you remember me.

Regards Colin Enright

Hi Colin, please send photo of Meesh by snail mail or email, and get yourself to the reunion at the Wheatsheaf. Always room for another oldie. Regards Ged.

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William E.G. (Eddie) Hunt of Ingleton,

 passed away suddenly at the

Royal Lancaster Infirmary on

Tuesday 12^th August 03 aged 69 years.
 

Eddie Hunt - Profile

from the Black Rose Story by Ged Dodd

Eddie Hunt - 01/12/02 - photo Ged Dodd

   When I finally tracked Eddie down after 40 years he maintained that he never was in the Black Rose as such, but he had always knocked around with Jed, Jim, John and Just, or the Four Jays as he used to call them. That was Ged (Jed) Dodd, Jim Varey, John Kirbitcon and Frank (Just Courting) Squirrel.

     As it happened, when we left the Scar End Hostel it was Big Eddie Hunt,  the blaster at the local quarry who immediately got us the key to this dry ex-quarry building up on Storrs Common which we could use as a hostel, and although we were no longer in the old club we still regarded ourselves as the true Black Rose and carried on regardless.

  When I say Big Eddie, I don't mean tall, I mean wide. He was built like a Sumo Wrestler, the proverbial brick outhouse. Whoa.

     Eddie was just larger than life. A true Yorkshire man, blunt spoken, generous to a fault, plus a built-in habit of giving his friends an affectionate bear-hug that could break ribs, a painful fact, to which his girl-friend would testify. He broke two of her ribs in an affectionate embrace, but by the same token I can not recall him ever doing anything out of anger, although he did have this wicked sense of humour.

     As Eddie tells it, "When I were at t'Quarry we had five pound sticks (dynamite) and you had to drop them down the hole, you see, and if the hole were too tiny the middle went and you were left with t'carton in your hand. So I thought, well, I'll stuff that full of paper, I'll go up to t'hut, and I'll get that lot up, somehow or other, so, put a dud fuse in and lit it, slung it in and there were all sorts coming out of t'hut then ... ha ha ha."

    Almost as funny as when he would stand on top of the quarry throwing live sticks of dynamite at me saying, "Catch 'em, you gret softy, they can't go off, there's no detonator in 'em ... ha ha ha".  Oh happy days, they don't make fear like that anymore.

   Eddie, being a local from Ingleton, was the door-man who stamped your hand with an indelible blue pass-out on the Saturday Night Dance at the Institute.

    He remembers this was done to stop the local girls from smuggling us potholers into the dance via the lady's toilets round the back of the Institute. Money was in short supply those days. A pint or the dance? No contest - make mine a pint. We lads had this curious priority code of Caving > Drinking > Girls ... but the girls had another code of Boys > Boys > Boys.

    He says, "That was a horrible job on t'door, 'cos they all come up Kay-lied, Pee-eyed an' all sorts. (The dance was on the first floor, up lots of steps.)  I use to stamp them anywhere they wanted stamping, an' I wasn't bothered, lifting skirts up, stamp their boobs, one bloke took his willie out an' I stamped that an' all.... ha ha ha."

     Eddie was later featured in Sid Perou's film A Wet Sunday at Sunset which promoted the Cave Rescue Organisation. He supported the CRO whole-heartedly for many, many years with his ready jovial attitude, and his ability to sober up rapidly on a Saturday night when Dodger Brown came a' knocking on his door. Most rescuers were shouted out on a Saturday night. One would think potholers could be more considerate and wait until Sunday afternoon when the effects of Hartley's Ulverston Best Bitter had worn off.

    Eddie's strength was legendary and if you got tired humping those heavy ladders then he would more than likely take them off you, put them under his arm... and then he'd grab you and put you under t'other one ... just because he could ....  ha ha ha.

     Oh happy days, they don't make them like him anymore.

     Privileged to know you Eddie - take care mate - Ged

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Pete Dale with imaginary
friends on Ingleborough

Photo magic by Mrs Sarah Cooper.   xx

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Children's Corner

My daddy Adam the potholer by Lucy Cooper aged 4

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The Meet at Bernie's - 12.00 Friday 27th Dec
A walk up the waterfalls to Scar End Farm
Dunc, Ged, Pete Cumpsty and new boy Clive went walkies down memory lane and met the present owners of the Old Hostel. Photo Duncan Jones. BRCC.

Alan Rucastle from No1, Ged Dodd of the old Black Rose, Wendy Algar and Feargus Barton from No2,  Pete Cumpsty of the old Black Rose. We would like to thank them for their hospitality and the whiskey - Cheers.

________
From: "wend algar"  : scar end  :  Date: 28 December 2002 10:09
Dear Ged, Thanks so much for the pictures, they're fascinating.... as were all your
stories! We really enjoyed meeting you all. Feel free to pop in anytime
you're passing and say hello. There'll always be a mug of tea (or a glass
of whiskey) and a welcome smile for you guys. Best Wishes,
Wendy & Fearg (& Tai the collie)

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The Meet at Bernie's - 12.00 Sunday 15th Dec
A Walk up Easegill
Dunc and Ged and Pete Cumpsty went walkies down memory lane and we had a great time. Suggestions for another ????

 
Photo Pete Cumpsty 1957    -     Photo Duncan Jones 15/12/2002

Abandon hope all ye who enter here. 1958

END

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Anyone who actually wants to go caving should contact

 Duncan Jones

Black Rose Caving Club

http://www.brcc.org.uk

 
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Aromatiques

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