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Happywanderers Cave and Pothole Club

How the “Happy Wanderers” came into being

Five lads were exploring around Castleton in Derbyshire. We bumped into each other once or twice and formed a lasting friendship. We visited Peak Cavern, Winnats Pass, Giants Hole and Peveril Castle. There was Malcolm (Tiger) Culshaw from Southport, Pete Matley from Salford, Frank Shuttleworth (Bazz of Bolton) and Philip Wallace from Bolton and myself from Barrow. It was summer 1955. We decided to meet up again the following Easter at Ingleton.
Mike Myers

AUSTWICK BECK HEAD; A TOUGH NUT TO CRACK
By John Cordingley

They weren’t the first subaquatic cavers to investigate; it had been dived by the legendary Bob Leakey in the previous decade (using a home made regulator and a car battery and headlamp joined by 80 feet of cable!). The two Happy Wanderers divers had a good look but decided to leave it until they had more experience, as the sump looked very low and cluttered with boulders and Bob’s assessment had been discouraging. Other generations tried later on; Mike Boon was there in 1970 but didn’t make significant progress beyond where Leakey got to.

I dived the known sump but it was static, immature and soon became too small. But all the flowing water was coming out from between large boulders in a different part of the bedding. Thus began a concerted effort with a ratchet winch, to move said boulders aside. After several trips a nice active sump pool was revealed. It was less nice underwater because the sump itself was choked with bag slabs. A lot of digging got me to where there was a thin airspace overhead, after 5 m. It was just possible to get one eyeball out of the water like a periscope and see it carrying on. A bit more slab shifting saw me through into a short canal passage but the way on was underwater. From this point onwards everything has been wide open.


The trick is to be ready to pounce when it does come into condition.
On one of the dives I was surveying back out when I suddenly encountered a gigantic white eel, staring at me. It was massive; I’d have struggled to get both hands right around it. I looked at it for a while and it glared back, lazily irrigating its gills as if to say “I’ve got all the time in the world, pal!”. There was a bit of a stand off then, happily, I won the staring battle and it shifted sideways. I saw my chance and scuttled past the brute, sharpish. We first referred to it as “Eric the eel” but maybe it should have been Erica? However, eels are sexless until they’ve returned to the Sargasso Sea to breed. So we decided we’d call it “Eric(a)” to be on the safe side. Don’t ask me what pronoun to use. We’ve never seen it since then; it’s still lurking in there, somewhere.