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| This is the Tuesday Group on Ben Nevis, spring 1978. We had just climbed Tower Ridge. I'm second from the right in my Boroughmuir rugby shirt. Peter Cliff, our instructor, is obvious. |
Monday 22nd November 1971 was a definative point in my life.
Our family had just moved to Edinburgh after what could at best be described as a difficult time. I joined an Edinburgh primary school, Sciennes, and met a bunch of children who were nothing short of amazing; welcoming, kind and the stability I needed. I loved that school.
Our homework was to bring in a news item, which meant cutting an awkward hole in the family paper. This particular Monday the news was grim. A group of Edinburgh school children were lost on the Cairngorm Plateau.
By Tuesday the extent of the tragedy was known. Five children perished, together with an assistant. Only the teacher and a boy survived.
Although we knew this was terrible, as ten-year-olds, such events seem abstract. However, for the staff working within the Edinburgh teaching community, it must have been awful.
To help us understand, our teacher arranged a visit from a member of the RAF mountain rescue team. Although it was 50 years ago, I still have his image in my mind. A stocky man with a beard. He showed us the contents of his blue canvas rucksack, which included an ice-axe, crampons and an intriguing snow anchor thingummy called a Deadman.
And that was it! I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
Fortunately, our education authority didn’t abandon adventure activities, but rather put all their efforts into getting it right.
The following year I met Kenny Spence, a renown climber, and he encouraged me. I moved to Boroughmuir where there was an amazing outdoor education department run by Stewart McDonald, and in 1977 I was lucky to join Peter Cliff’s Tuesday Group; a club for Lothian kids with a passion for the mountains.
The names of tragedies are weigh heavy, and as you would expect, this one cast its shadow. Our teachers referred to it simply as Fèith Buidhe, the area where the children died. However, it never dulled their enthusiasm with us budding adventurers.
On leaving school, I studied Outdoor Education, and apart from the odd wrong turn, I have more or less stuck with it.
From time to time I think about those little souls lost on the mountain. Perhaps this summer I'll take a stroll to the place where a seeping stream passes through a honeysuckle-yellow landscape (the translation of the Gaelic, Fèith Buidhe) and say to them, 'Hello, you are remembered, and have left your mark'.
Footnote
We did visit in July 2020 and sat watching oblivious walkers pass on their way to Ben MacDhui. We thought about the young people and how they had touched our lives, then left a hidden note and made our way.
It was a special moment ❤
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