A Hello from a former member
Jim Gregson recently spent a pleasant twenty minutes chatting and reminiscing with Martin Mandel who asked to be remembered to those members who know him and used to climb with him. Martin now resides in France, between Chamonix and Geneva, where he regularly has withdrawal symptoms due to absence of gritstone. He was briefly back in the UK visiting his young daughter(s?), and looking very well. There will still be a number of KMC folk who used to have good hill or crag days in Martin's company.
Jim remembers particularly a couple of steep learning curve days for Martin when he was taken out for some scary iceclimbing ventures with Bob Anderson, Tony Dilger and Jim, once in Cwm Idwal and on another (rare) occasion to climb at Cautley Spout in the Howgills - during this one, after climbing the initial very steep pitches roped up, we decided to continue solo up the rest of the ice; there were a few other steep steps which we nonchalantly tackled with Martin bringing up the rear. Naturally, in KMC fashion, we forgot that it was all very new to Martin and he had a nasty fright at one point where he had barn-doored badly and almost shot off back down on what could have been a serious toboggan ride. However he survived the episode and said that he'd learned quite a bit from the rest of us.
If you know Martin and would like to contact him please email the club, he would enjoy hearing from you.
