News of old club members - John Roney
By Dave Shotton
I received a phone call (apparently due to slightly out-of-date contact information from the BMC!) in early January from John Roney, who was an Associate Member of the KMC between 1984 and 1989 (thanks Iain McCallum for checking the exact dates in his old Handbooks!). John never became a Full Member and our paths had not previously crossed as he had left the club about 5 years before I joined, but he would possibly be recalled by older members of the club, to whom he asked to be remembered. We did however have something in common, in that we had both climbed and walked regularly with the late Anthony Marsh (who was always very encouraging to newcomers) when we first became active with the club.
John had worked in Manchester but moved to Argyll (where he still lives) in western Scotland after effectively taking early retirement in his early 40s following a breakdown in 1994. He doesn’t use email but did leave a contact phone number. We talked about mountaineering/walking clubs in Argyll as he had not been able to find one that really suited him, but unfortunately I couldn’t help him out any further beyond those he had already contacted from details provided by the MCofS.
John had lost contact with the club after his departure but had been aware of Anthony Marsh’s tragic death in an accident on Ben Nevis in 1995. (Older members will recall that Anthony fell through a cornice overlooking the Little Brenva Face in the February of that year, but due to heavy and dangerous snow conditions it was not possible to recover his body until about 2 months later.) John had partly been prompted to contact the KMC again as he had recently met mountain guide and former Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team member Mick Tighe, who as it turned out had discovered Anthony’s body when out walking with his search-and-rescue dog in the spring of 1995.
Mick Tighe is setting up a mountaineering museum (The Scottish Mountain Heritage Collection) in Fort William which John suggested might be of interest to club members – see http://www.smhc.co.uk for details. There is no general public access at the moment but this is apparently being worked on. In the meantime John has donated his vintage boots to the collection!
