Editorial

By Thos. Gray

FOLLOWING a custom usually observed, this, the first number of the Yorkshire Ramblers’ Club Journal, commences with a short preface by its Editor.

The sequence of events which have led up to its publication are briefly reviewed in the article on the formation of the Club by our late Honorary Secretary. With a larger roll of members its advent would scarcely have been so long deferred, but the delay thus occasioned has had one advantage. A certain amount of interesting matter has accumulated during the period of waiting, and the grave responsibility of filling its pages has been partially lightened.

The Editor makes no effort to define the limits of the matter which will be found between the covers of this journal. It will attempt to be an accessible and permanent record of the Club’s work. Articles descriptive of rambles on the highways and in the byways of travel; accounts of mountaineering expeditions; records of climbs or cave-work; and reviews of books or notices of current literature bearing upon the Club’s interests, will appear in its pages.

Yorkshire will, without doubt, receive a considerable share of attention. Its dales still cherish many old-world manners and customs, and much that is quaint in habit and speech. They contain some of the most picturesque English scenery, with the added charms of their past and present human occupancy; history, tale, and legend fill them with moving interest. Its caves and pot-holes are only just beginning to yield their secrets to the adventurous explorer. Its fells, perhaps, do not suggest serious mountaineering, but climbers can find on them interesting short scrambles which afford excellent practice for more arduous work. Easily accessible the mountains of the Lake District and North Wales have claimed a large portion of our members’ holidays. Norway with its great possibilities of fresh mountaineering work has attracted us. Switzerland has filled many of the Club’s evenings in past years with increasing interest, and the fascinations of her alps and valleys, peaks and glaciers, have never waned. Perhaps we are a little too late to achieve much that is new, but we are not too late to enjoy the old, and if other men still continue to make new ascents or to find new ways up mountains the Yorkshire Ramblers hope to do likewise, and to record their adventures in these pages.

From stranger, wilder lands we may have tales of stirring incident, but it is none of the Editor’s business to prophesy, and he has said perhaps sufficient to indicate what the journal will attempt.

It is not proposed to confine it entirely to members of the Yorkshire Ramblers’ Club, and the Editor is sanguine enough to believe its readers will also not be limited to that body. lf it helps to luring together Yorkshiremen and dwellers in our Northern Counties of kindred tastes to strengthen our organisation it will have attained another of its objects.

The Journal being now an accomplished fact, the Editor hopes the members of the Club will not fail to supply him with interesting matter with which to fill its pages. Its continuity is perhaps most seriously threatened by the disinclination of the average member to put pen to paper. He is therefore especially anxious to disabuse members’ minds of any preconceived notions of his editorial severity. Keenly conscious of his own shortcomings, he knows it is easier to criticise the work of others than to do it himself. He is anxiety to make the journal fulfil their wishes must plead his excuse. He asks them to bear with his failings, and credit him at least with a single-hearted desire to do his duty.