Obituaries

Clifford Downham
1950-1996

Cliff who has died at the age of 85, played a major role in the “engine room” of the Yorkshire Ramblers’ Club as Secretary and as President for two years – 25 years in all between 1954 and 1979 – nearly a quarter of the life of the Club.

Ernest Clifford Downham was born on the 14th October, 1911 in the small village of White Ash, near Oswaldtwistle and educated at Accrington Grammar School. After school he soon become a very good rock climber and tough potholer, and a founder member of the Northern Cavern and Fell Club, a small body of hard potholers which was formed in 1929.

It was in 1934 when an accident, perhaps worse than any previous one, certainly from the rescuers point of view, happened in the final chamber of Gingling Hole on Fountains Fell where a member of the Moor and Fell Club severely fractured a leg. Cliff played a major role in getting the injured man to the surface through extremely difficult pitches and continuously restricted passages, in what must have become an epic rescue. The accident might have had grave results but for the happy chance that an experienced and determined party (none other than the Northern Cavern and Fell Club) was found at the first shot. It was obvious that some action was imperative and so in February 1935 the Cave Rescue Organisation was formed with E. E. Roberts as first chairman and Cliff as its secretary for a time.

Cliff joined the Yorkshire Ramblers’ Club in 1950 and quickly made his mark as a competent, hardworking secretary with a friendly nature and a natural concern for others. A modest man, he never sought the limelight and was reluctant to accept the Presidency in 1966. He was elected as an Honorary Member of the Club at the 1968 annual dinner, with acclaim.

During his service as secretary there were two major events in the Club. First the 1957 Himalayan Expedition, in the organising of which Cliff took a prominent part, and the other was the Lowstern Club Hut. There is an interesting account in the Y.RC. Journal 9, page 20 about the early days of the hut, but there is no mention of what Cliff did in organising the work force of members in restoring and renovating the “Old Golf House” during 1958. He was on the site nearly every weekend after Easter until the Hut was opened in November. It was a splendid effort and he insisted on obtaining all materials “at the right price”, thus saving the Club a lot of money. To mark the occasion Frank Stembridge wrote a song “Lowstern or Downham’s Folly” which was sung at the 1958 Club Dinner.

The year 1937 was an important one for Cliff, he married Nellie and afterwards lived in Huncoat, near Accrington until 1947 when he came to live and work in Bradford. He moved to Ambleside as secretary to the Climbers’ Shop and when he retired in 1977 went to Grasmere, finally returning to Ambleside again in 1987. Whilst living in the Lake District his concern for safety on the hills helped in the formation of the Langdale and Ambleside Mountain Rescue Service and he was its second secretary.

A warm personality and a loyal friend, he set a fine example of service; few men could have measured up to him in his concern for others and the energy he put into all his activities in the Yorkshire Ramblers’. We shall long remember his rich Lancashire accent and his personal friendship with us all.

Nellie was a most welcoming and generous hostess to all those who visited them in the Lake District and we offer her our sincere sympathy.

Stanley Marsden

Peter Cawley Swindells
Member 1964 -1997

Peter was a member of the Club Committee from 1967 to 1970 and from 1973 to 1979. The gap in 1971 and 1972 was due to his absence in Ireland. He was Vice President from 1980 to 1982 and Resident from 1986 tol988.

When he joined the Club in 1964 he was living in Bradford. In 1976 he moved to Nantwich. The move made very little difference to his regular attendance at Club Meets but improved his acquaintance with the Welsh lulls.

He was a friendly, entertaining and generous man with an impish sense of humour. He was also a strong walker who, given a choice, always opted for the more demanding route and for the more testing distance. There was no bravado about this. He was a competent and reliable navigator. He had completed the Scottish Munros and was involved in preparing to tackle the Irish equivalents. On any reckoning he was a good man to be with on the hills.

He also had a strong and beneficial effect on the Club’s policy and well being. Moved by the trend towards more walking than climbing and pot holing (which used to be the other way round twenty years earlier) he inspired the Club to put a man on every Scottish Munro in the course of the 1983 Whit Meet. A record sixty-four members, plus guests, tackled this enterprising venture with complete success and the event gave a great deal of pleasure to all those involved. He also argued for one major Club expedition every four years and the first of these was the Bolivian Expedition of 1988. The difficult business of demolishing and rebuilding Lowstern was started when Peter was President and he devoted much time and energy towards keeping this important project rolling.

On meets Peter could always be relied upon to turn up with a selection of well researched activities. In his later years in the Lake District he drew inspiration from the geriatric scrambles described in R.B. Evans ‘Scrambles in the Lake District’. Only a few months ago, at the September Joint Meet, he took us up Crinkle Gill on to Crinkle Crag, over-Bowfell to Angle Tarn, thence down Rossett Gill to the Old Dungeon Gill Hotel where an evening pint was always an occasion for Peter to discourse enthusiastically on Club affairs, his latest book, future meets and holidays to come. He will be most sorely missed, the more so because his many friends shared long days with him on the hills so very recently. We extend our deepest sympathy to his widow Seon, to his sons Robin and David, and to his daughter, Claire.

Arthur Salmon & Alan Brown

Harry Leighton Stembridge
1902-1997

Harry was born in Leeds in 1902. He was educated at Harrogate Grammar School and afterwards joined his father’s firm of garment manufacturers, William Stembridge & Sons, which specialised in women’s wear. With the outbreak of the Second World War his younger brother Frank was ‘called up’ for the Armed Forces. Harry was required to keep the family business going fulfilling contracts for forces’ uniforms. During this time he was in the Home guard and received a commission.

He joined the YRC with his brother Frank in 1933 and served on the committee from 1933 until 1938 when many of the Club’s activities closed as war was imminent. After the war he again served on the committee until 1949 when he became Librarian for the next nine years. From 1954 to 1956 he was the President, and was elected an Honorary Member of the Club by acclaim in 1977.

Olive, his first wife died at Huby in 1952, where Harry lived until 1967 when he married Betty and moved to Craighall, Bedale. Hall Farm, theft new home, was virtually a ruin but they transformed it wonderfully. He quickly became a supporter of village life, including the local cricket club of which he became President. Added to this he continued an active life fishing, painting, skiing and mountaineering both at home and abroad.

Harry was agile on the crags and while at Huby produced an illustrated guide for the YRC Journal of all the then known routes on Almscliff Crag. On a visit to Rhum with his son David they put up new rock routes. He climbed abroad, in the Lofoten Islands and in the Tatras, also in Austria and Switzerland on several occasions. With a group of friends and David he skied the Haute Route from Saas Fee to Forclaz. In 1969 he joined a trek to Everest Base camp.

One of his more ambitious trips was to Peru with Alf Gregory in June of 1963 where they spent six to eight weeks in the Andes (Cordillera Blanca). He and Alf made three first ascents over 18,000ft including Nevada Pisco over 19,000ft in the then little known country. They also searched for the rare 30ft. Puya Raymondii plant to photograph whilst they were there.

Potholing and caving were of course another varieties of climbing and one remembers the happy and eventful days in the early fifties spent at Mr. Barbour’s farm in Killesher, N. Ireland and the late evenings at The Black Lion across the Border. These were the early days of Marble Arch, Reyfad and several other-potholes and caves. Marble Arch is now advertised as a tourist attraction for coach parties.

The Scottish climbing meets were usually attended by Harry; if he wasn’t climbing he would be off fishing. He was always a great example to the younger, less experienced members of the Club, whether at Almscliff or wherever the Club happened to be.

At the YRC annual dinner of 1955, inspired by Charles Evans, the chief guest, the idea of the YRC being the first regional club to mount an expedition to the Himalayas was born. Harry provided much of the enthusiasm and was the driving force along with Stanley Marsden and Cliff Downham. In 1957 the expedition set out for the Jugal Himal with the 23,256ft Lonpo Gang (The Great White Peak) as the principal objective.

He was a man of many parts; a very capable artist in water colours, wrote poetry and watched birds and was interested in wild flowers. Shortly after his retirement in 1960 he took on the role of Liaison Officer for the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme, and then was appointed County Commissioner for the Scouts in Central Yorkshire. He was also on the Board of the Outward Bound School in Eskdale.

Harry had an endearing cheerful personality, he was rarely upset and was always there to help. It was fitting for his final journey to be from the little church in Bedale to the Cemetery nearly a mile away. Most of the congregation, walking, followed the four bearers in a mixture of driving rain, high winds and blue skies. The reception was held in the ‘Stembridge’ room in the village hall, the village that had become his home for the last thirty years.

Harry was a remarkable man in so many ways, he will be greatly missed by members of the Club and his friends in the mountain world, the villagers of Bedale, but most of all by his wife Betty, and the two families they made into one so successfully, David, Patrick, Madeleine, Katherine and his grandchildren.

R. E. Chadwick & J. A. Holmes

The Climber

How steep the slab above the overhang
seems from my little stance beside the lip.
For forty feet, so far as I can see
the holds are slight, mere shadows on the face.

Below my heels the crag drops to the scree.
Far, far below the stream glints in the sun,
sending faint murmurs through the quiet air.
Shadows of clouds chase across the distant hills.

Once on the slab of butterflies
that gnawed my stomach fade and calculating calmly I can weigh
each move unflurried by the grip of nerves.

Smoothly I shift my weight from toe to toe.
Splayed finger tips now near, now reaching far
for sustenance, until, by movement
imperceptible, I gain a little height.

Now comes the crux, with nought but pressure holds,
a balanced lift by muscles smooth and slow,
a gentle press of fingers on the rock.
My whole world centred on the next few feet.

I do think of all the years when I,
on training bent, made my reluctant limbs
go where I willed up crag and sliding scree
until they ached and threatened to give in.

This is my harvest. Here on this sunny day,
poised upon meagre holds, high on the slab
with sinews, balance, nerves working in tune
I would not change my place with any man.

H L Stembridge

A. B. Hargreaves 1904 -1996

Many members will have seen the obituary notices in the national press to the death, aged 92, of Allen B. Hargreaves. ‘A.B.’ as he was better known to the climbing world, although he was never a member, retained for the Y.R.C. a long and lasting affection and by marriage had a link with the Club. In 1935 he married Maud Gordon, who was the granddaughter of our own Cecil Slingsby. I am grateful to John Snoad of Ilkley for reminding me of this relationship and sending me a copy of the Slingsby family tree.

Following his cremation on November 20th 1996, four members of the Club attended the Wake held at the Farmers’ Arms, Greenodd, which we will remember as a joyous social occasion as ‘A.B.’ would have wished. It was rather like a multi-club joint meet, with good food and wine, the company of old friends and the sharing of many memories.

My own first meeting with ‘A.B.’ was I suspect earlier than any attending the Wake. It was in August 1938, shortly after my 17th birthday, and I was enjoying an extended stay at Idwal Youth Hostel. The warden then was Connie Alexander, who looked kindly on any budding youthful climbers. Lacking any regular climbing partner it became my habit to loiter at the foot of Milestone Buttress or Idwal Slabs, with a 100 ft. of Jones’ Alpine line, eager to cajole any chance companion up any climb within my modest ability. It was on one such day that I met three climbers at the foot of Idwal Slabs who invited me to join them. We did Tennis Shoe, Holly Tree Well, Devil’s Staircase and Devil’s Kitchen; no big deal today perhaps, but it was in nails and for a 17-year-old beginner a day long to be remembered. The three climbers were Colin Kirkus, Alf Bridge and A.B. Hargreaves.

I was not to meet ‘A.B.’ again until 1947 when I was then living in the Lakes. Along with Eric Amison, James Joyce and joined sometimes with Harry Griffin, Tom Price and Bill Peascod, we formed a group that met with some regularity. Never a natural climber, and hardly bold, I was often grateful for ‘A.B.’s tuition and guidance, for chiding me for clumsiness and hesitation or, when leading, giving me some confidence. This, of course, was years after his great days when, along with Kirkus, Jack Longland and Menlove Edwards, he had pioneered some of the great routes of Snowdonia and the Lake District. By comparison my climbs with ‘A.B.’ were modest indeed.

Many other members will share memories of ‘A.B.’ In the fifties and sixties he was a regular attender at the New Year parties that I then arranged, and as John Lovett will confirm he was an enthusiastic member of the annual private pot-holing parties based at Harden. ‘A.B.’ was also a frequent guest at our Annual Dinners, sometimes representing either the Climbers’ Club, the Wayfarers’, or the Fell and Rock, of all of which he had at some time been president. His last appearance amongst us was as my guest at our Centenary Dinner and, but for his last illness, he would have been the guest of Mike Hobson at our most recent dinner.

I feel greatly privileged to have known ‘A.B.’, a superb climber in his day and, to the last, one of the great characters of British mountaineering.

George Spenceley