St John Cadets

There’s a certain dread I feel when I answer the phone and a voice I recognise floats down the line. Not everyone of course, but some people distinctly have this effect. In this particular instance I had been forewarned that a phone call and a ‘request’ were imminent. I guess foreboding is an appropriate curtain raiser for a certain dread. The phone call finally came and the request was formally made; would I please help the St John cadets with their ‘caving’ day on their upcoming camp.

‘Yes’, of course I should be happy about helping to introduce hundreds of ‘the next generation’ to caving; ‘Yes’ I should be more community spirited and ‘Yes’ of course it’s never as bad as all that in the end. But there you have it, I may look all saintly but it’s just an illusion that my natural good looks and bushy beard create.

Here’s a natty life hack I have observed about volunteering; it’s one thing to turn up and lend a hand, and completely a whole other thing to left in charge. The former is tolerable on a good day and latter to be avoided as one might avoid a beggar parked up in the middle of the footpath. Yet here I was having ‘responsibility’ foistered upon my puny and unwilling shoulders. Could I help? ’yes’. Could I be in charge? Not on your nelly. Perched on a slippery, near vertical slope I pushed back, squirmed vigorously and clearly used the ‘N-o’ word on at every available juncture in the conversation only to eventually ring off with my name at the top of the list of ‘helpers’. Happily for me the waters were muddied somewhat by the fact that Alice had been easier to contact than myself and therefore she had being spoken to first and, well, we all know that Alice is good at these sorts of things. So as the days passed, everytime I was asked about how my organising of things was going I dragged mention of Alice into the conversation and demurred.  

          Fortunately for the little dears who attend St John cadets, Alice was indeed organised; there was a safety plan, suitable caves were selected, practical things like ladders and gear lists were forthcoming and copious volumes of assistants were engaged.

          Saturday 2^nd December and the day dawned bright and full of enthusiastic youthful promise. Lunches were packed and every last spare torch however uselessly dim and mangled, was un-earthed. Last minute planning stepped up a gear or more probably three. Team leaders, parent helps and ‘certain’ cadets were paper-shuffled back and forward between the various groups with carefree abandon as a constant stream of fresh information came to hand about their experience, capability, and whether or not they were likely to even turn up.

‘Lauren can lead Winch head by herself’, Alice reassured me at one stage, ‘she knows it really well, and then Lindsay is freed up to go to Golf Course with you’.

‘Oh, ok’, I concurred… as an example of one of the many horse-trades executed at this heady and adrenaline infused time. (Later on in the morning, as we edged nearer to actually considering starting to think about the possibility of leaving, Lauren shepherded Alice and I off to one side in a conspirational manner and whispered “I’ve never been to Winch head”. Funny.)

Soon enough the quiet environs of the CCB were shattered by the influx of two or three thousand notably short people. The official census may not have been quite that high, but then we all know about ‘alternative facts’ these days don’t we. If organising cavers is like herding cats (and that, on a good day), adding 40-60 children/parents/helpers to the mix, ups the ante by a least a magnitude, so socio-paediatric scientists tell us. The older I get the more terrified of young children I am, they seem to get smaller every year. Six year olds were typically 5 foot tall and quite muscular in my day, now they hardly look ready to be out of nappies.  I worry that they might get trampled underfoot.

Therefore, stepping very carefully, we herded the kittens into smaller groups in the hope that they would be more manageable or at least less at risk of getting squashed flat under someone’s wellies. This entailed reading everyone’s names out, a job that bewilderingly fell to me. It was like reading some alien language, nothing was familiar, no ‘Peter and Jane’ here, no ‘Tom, Dick and Harry’ either, even letter combinations were not pronounced correctly. Thus, Jethro becomes Jet, Bridie is spelt with three y’s and silent p, and I remain convinced that ‘Marli-o-neshaa’ is not a real word let alone a proper noun suitable for attaching to a small child.

What I haven’t told you so far, is that I used to be a little involved with St John cadets a few years back. From memory I was in charge for a short spell, when all the more seniors leaders inexplicably and simultaneously retired and/or contracted a permanent dose of malaria. One happy upshot of which was that I happened to already know most of my team from these earlier times.

On the whole our little team were all rather sedate and polite, and our day solidly uneventful – relatively speaking. Other teams had cadets hurt themselves simply getting out of their vehicles (toe snagged in sliding door mechanism and they face-planted the gravel road); hurt themselves climbing down a rock near the Winchhead entrance; leaders who stopped their cadets actually going into the cave they were supposed to explore; and one team who had a punch-up (and that was the cadet thumping the leaders…). Yep, our lot virtually had rigor mortis in comparison.

Climbing into harnesses

 

A quick snack

Re-inforcements (Lindsay)

Still working on those harnesses

Cautiously admiring the Onga-onga

Checking out some Moa bones

Not that we didn’t enjoy ourselves, if enjoy is a word to be employed so freely here. The cadets that Lindsay and I took to Golf Course smiled, joked and regularly tripped over unseen objects on flat surfaces, being the teenagers that they were. Having arrived at Golf Course it was but the work of 2 ½ hours to ease the seven of them over the precipice and down the handline to the base of the entrance rift. As some of the cadets were of the gangly lightweight type, we began to worry about early stages of hyperthermia as we waited about interminably, consequently I put another layer on as their incessant shivering was making me feel cold. 

Down the handline, on belay

Dropping into the 8m rift

A nervous smile and off we go

Swiftly negotiating the entrance series, it was around 2 o’clock when we arrived at the main streamway. Here Lindsay called a council-of-war, having realised that we had only 2 hours left before we were ‘due’ back. My mind reeled at the disheartening possibility of ratcheting the cadets back up the entrance rift, having just witnessed them tackle it when gravity was on their side. I voted for continuing on through and then gathering on the ridge top for a communal crossing-of-fingers in the hope of there being cell phone coverage so that we could excuse our lateness before SAR were dispatched.

 

Golf Course rift

 

Bridging a millstone pool

and keeping the feet dry...

Somewhat amazingly, given progress to date, we managed to get the rest of the way through the cave in one piece and up onto the ridge before nightfall. Even more astonishingly there was Vodafone coverage here and I was able to let the relevant parties know that we were in the back of beyond with a multi-hour hike in front of us with a bunch of tired and hungry cadets – in other words that we were all fine and not to worry. 2 hours along Lindsay’s newly marked and cut track and we were back to where we started from. No broken bones, no lost souls and only a handful of minor breaches of the St John health and safety regulations.

Made it! Golf Course exit

Cookies all round of course

By the time we returned to the CCB we were nearly 3 hours late for our initial rendezvous, and Alice, having chewed her fingernails to around about the first knuckle, was just gearing up to raise the alarm.

‘But I txt you’, I protested, ‘didn’t you check your phone?’.

‘Oh, I never thought of you having cell phone reception way out there’ she countered. There’s one for the de-brief…

Despite being an hour late for our already re-defined finish time, we stopped off at the lower Nile and went for a very welcome dip in the shimmering evening sun. Of course once in the water no-one wanted to leave and here there really was no cell phone reception, but in the end the last cadet dragged themselves free of the water. We eventually got them back to their camp site very very late. I immediately sought out the head-honcho to make our apologies, only to be met with surprise that we were back ‘already’, and a hearty “of course!” when I sheepishly added that we had been swimming for the past hour and a half before coming home.