Len Stubbs - a few Memories.
By Ken Beetham
Following the sad loss of our last Founder Member in June...
Len was a former resident of Higher Union Street Heaton Norris, now I think Belmont Close. Held in such esteem that on hearing of his passing, the roads people shut Belmont Bridge on the A6 and gridlocked Stockport.
Nights at Stockport County - the open end, complete with thermos and sometimes his kind sister, Lillian, Stubbs had found if we went after half time we got in half price. Needless to say, we seldom won in those days. Len liked winners and became an absentee supporter of Liverpool, a good choice.
These are but an odd reference to a friend of some 60 years or so whose sad passing grieved so many of us. As I think the last surviving Founder Member we had any contact with, his death leaves one thinking of outdoor memories of this man whose love of toast was legendary and seemed to be able to walk 20 miles on a couple of biscuits.
He never did like walking in boots and had a habit of forgetting them, so perseverance was sometimes needed to keep up, but if you could, you passed one KMC trade test and were his friend for life.
He was a generous man; in the late 1950's I had a week's holiday left and little money to spend on petrol. Len wanted to visit the Knoydart area with Bill Grahame and he produced a jerrycan of fuel nicked from the transport firm's pumps where he worked in those days. This got me one way to Scotland.
We stopped on the way near Victoria Bridge for the night and being settled weather I slept with the windows tight shut. Come the dawn and knocking on the window revealed Len covered in a black swarm of hungry midges, none of which fancied his revolting cap. They had needed air in his old Hillman Husky estate car and suffered when daylight arrived, with Loch Tulla like a mirror. Later that day we charged along the north shore of Loch Arkaig which is like a switchback. He couldn't have seen a thing every 100 yards or so as the Husky had a long bonnet. Thank heavens I was in the back. Len met the local shepherd, talked football, and we were told of a good bit of turf for the tents in front of Upper Dessary cottage. He particularly wanted to climb Sgurr na Ciche at the heart of Loch Nevis, which I had done with Brian Waller from Carnoch sometime previously. The day was dry but misty and the idea was to go up into a corrie and scramble up to the next Munro at the eastern side, where I elected to wait for him and put the primus stove to work. After a while the mist cleared and Bill Grahame was first back - got news for him Bill, we're on the wrong mountain. Loch Nevis isn't down there, we're on Sgurr na Ciche. We've come up the wrong valley bottom. Mr Stubbs took it like a gentleman and announced that the following day he would navigate, which he did, and a great uphill boost followed as he chased a local shepherd, wearing white rim-soled wellies, whom he didn't catch. I can still see him now. That night 300 sheep followed their natural way back to base and our evening cook up was disturbed as they ploughed past the tents to the sheep collecting area down the glen.
Other memories of Stubbs included doing or 'being done' by Moffatt to Peebles, started from the Town Square in Moffatt to Peebles chip shop, after a bumpy ride in the back of my brother's van before the M6 was completed.
Once again he forgot his boots and mine were clinker nailed. We camped later that night right outside of a 'no camping' sign near Loch of the Lowes (I think it was). Len, of course, apologised to the local farmer, who, once he knew of the walk we had done, was quite sympathetic to our weariness.
One of the few times I saw him suffer was on the tussock blighted area between the Brecon Beacons and the last South Wales 2500. Tony Taylor had shoved on a bit the last few miles to get to Carmarthen before dark. I waited for Len and he produced a tin of chicken, which he shared willingly.
Only then did I realise he had done the whole walk with a carbuncle on his neck!
He had a lot of guts and it was great to see the sixty plus friends at his funeral. In conversations with me he regretted not being in contact with the new 'younger end' but I told him 'that's life'.
As a personal postscript if you have got this far, Len told me that Black Hill, not the Holme Moss swamp, but the one above the 'Moorside' was the first hill he ever ascended in his youth. Thinking of a personal thing I decided to place a 50th Anniversary Karabiner in the rocks which gently ridge one end. As I had my butties a bumble bee came from God knows where and sat about three feet away. Needless to say I talked to it and thought 'ye gods, he's been reincarnated already'. Who knows; anything was possible with Stubbie. To quote either Little Jim or Richard Williams as we approached the end of a winter '16 stoner', 'I never doubted we could walk it but I will never know how we found them all'. So old friend, Hail and Farewell and may your ashes grace the moors you loved.
Ken Beetham.
