Blast from the Past - Jill Strappini (was Jill Williams)
My brother, Richard, and I were members of the KMC during the late 1950's early 1960's and our whole life revolved round climbing and walking in Derbyshire, The Lakes, Wales and, occasionally, Scotland. We were a group of us young people who were supported and advised by Bowdon and Milly Black, the Wrights and some other, very experienced, climbers and walkers. Our special mentor, though, was Len Stubbs. Derbyshire weekends always ended up at Len's house with a big fry-up and lots of chat about the weekend just past and plans for the future. Not many of us had transport and we hitch-hiked, caught buses or bummed lifts from the more affluent club members. Some of the guys had motorbikes and would turn up at the meets virtually frozen in position after a freezing cold ride!
During that time, the club hut was at Coniston and we often hitched from Manchester to Coniston on a Friday night to spend the weekend, hitching back late Sunday or sometimes even on Monday morning. Some of our friends were the Swann family - Dave, Wendy, Hazel and Jennifer as well as Tim Mepham, Melvyn Salt, Sylvia and Ian McCallum and lots of Bobs, Jims, Dudleys, etc., whose surnames I can't remember.
I know that most of them are scattered round the globe in Canada, New Zealand and South Africa.
There was a celebration dinner at a restaurant in Stretford - must have been an anniversary - and John Hunt was there in his capacity of Chairman. It was close enough to the conquest of Everest for us to be in awe of him.
I look back on that period of my life as a wonderful time. Our love of the hills and valleys was enhanced by spending so much time in them and learning how to conduct ourselves safely in all sorts of weather conditions.
Here in South Africa, we belong to a very active hiking club. Because of the distances involved in getting to our hikes, most of the ones we do take several days and vary from beach walks to bushveld to mountains. We have done The Otter Trail along the Tsitsikama coast, the Wildcoast Meander in the Eastern Cape, a wonderful 3 days hike in the mountains of Swaziland and in August this year we are doing a 5 day beach walk along the coast of Mozambique.
We are hoping to do some walking in the Yorkshire Dales next year and also revisit some of our favourite places in The Lakes. I was thrilled to find the club so active and thriving and I am looking forward to checking out the newsletters to see what you guys do these days.
[If there are any other past members out there reading this, do please write in and let people know how you are doing. Ed.]
