MEMOIRS OF A MOLDYWARP /Episodes of Underground Exploration by Peter Ryder with cartoons by Cliff 2008 124 pp, surveys, illus, 17 colour photos. SB available from:
http://www.broomlee.org/publications/index.htm £8.75 post free
This book is both a record of the first quarter of a century of cave discoveries of the Moldwarps Speleological Group (MSG) and an autobiography of Peter Ryder’s caving adventures. The MSG was formed in 1966 and is still going today, so there is scope for another two or three books. Although the area covered is mainly North Yorkshire, Skye and Ireland also get a mention. There are gripping tales of exploring water filled passage with so little air space that one must remove one’s helmet and progress very slowly with one nose pressed against the roof. Not sure what happens if you sneeze or if there is a ripple in the water. His description of a boulder choke, “one felt like the proverbial spider crawling around inside a coal scuttle” and boulder chambers with roofs of clay. Not surprisingly there are hair raising tales of moving boulders, some by themselves, others that come down between two caving trips a week apart. There are many accounts of cave rescues, even Peter has to be rescued. He slides down a narrow hole and cannot get out. Fortunately his friends are the right side of the squeeze and with the aid of hammer and chisel he is soon released.
Peter relates many amusing anecdotes, “Portland Cement publicity stated that their establishment was 'barely noticeable' when driving through Weardale. With a hundred-metre high chimney stack bang in the centre of the narrow valley, the whole mid-section of the dale covered in white dust, a two-mile wide quarry making a lunar landscape of the fellside and heavy lorries on every road…”
Mines exploration is described, much of it original exploration. Just to name drop, Peter describes: Windegg, Ayleburn, Sil Howe, Lunehead etc.
It would appear that 1966 was the golden age of cave and mine exploration in North Yorkshire. Peter not only describes and surveys his finds but adds a bit of science by giving the geological background.
One of many surprises - how did it take 5 years for news of this book to reach Cwmparc? Despite the time delay, it is a book well worth waiting for.
Cutting coal in my spare time.