A LETTER FROM DUNCAN

Bob Tarron, Peter Varley, Ian Robson, Peter (a pee on every pitch) Hughes and a number of others whose names I can't remember.

Most of us were earning about £9 a week and couldn't afford transport - that's why people like Peter Varley and Ian Robson were so important - we needed their cars! But a great opportunity came up - the old Letchworth Daimler Ambulance was for sale for a massive £125. The father of one of our "birds" was a Bank Manager and he arranged a loan, split 5 ways which we had to repay over a couple of years. This was a magnificent vehicle, it slept at least 6, was an incredibly smooth ride and did 11 to the gallon. In fact it used so much petrol that the 20 gallon tank had to be refilled halfway to Wales. In those days we used the A5 and stopped for a few pints at the Fleur de Lys at Nuneaton. We would stay so long that all the garages had closed, but there was a particular one we knew of where the owner slept above the garage. I remember throwing stones at his window to wake him up - as soon as we told him we wanted 20 gallons he was down like a shot!

On our way back from the Lakes one time, Doncaster was completely blocked for miles. To our amazement a police motorcycle drove up "Where are you going", "South" said our driver. We were then escorted by police outriders all the way through Doncaster and out the other side - he forgot to ask whether we were a genuine ambulance!

This vehicle had a pre-select gearbox and could be driven quite fast. The fastest and most reckless driver in the club was Tim Farnell, quite mad - he used to like finding loving couples at the roadside at night and embarrassing them by pulling right up to their window and switching the headlights full on..

When we went to Wasdale Head one snowy Easter quite a few members camped and then Ambulance syndicate slept in luxury in our Daimler with smoked glass windows. No one could see in but we could see out. On the first morning an agricultural looking man went round the tents taking money from all the campers. We thought this was brilliant especially as he didn't realise that the ambulance had about 9 people sleeping in it that night. What made it even better was when we discovered that the site was common land and that the guy had nothing to do with it at all, but he was very enterprising and made loads of money at the cost of the campers.

I remember the hut, running water was provided - in the stream 50 yards away. But in those days we didn't need to wash. I lived in a flat in Letchworth and couldn't afford heating. So I would only bath in the summer months. It was quite normal to come back from Wales at 2am on Sunday night, appear in the office (Meredews in Letchworth) at 9am without anything more than a shave after a full weekend of rock climbing, drinking and the Betws-y-Coed dance on

Dear Albert,

I was delighted to receive your letter this morning, Graham arranged a reunion some time ago but I was unable to attend. This time I will be there, I wonder if the behaviour of the members has changed since the last Club dinner I attended at the Station Hotel (around 1961) which ended up with most of the pudding being used as ammunition!

Your brief history of the club missed some important details. Originally it was called the North Herts Mountaineering Club. In around 1957 I went on a CCPR rock-climbing course at Plas y Brenin - as a result I became an enthusiastic climber. At that time I was a member of the local marriage bureau (Young Conservatives) and got quite a few members involved in climbing, there was so much interest we decided to form a club, I think it was going to be the Letchworth Climbing Club. Somehow the NHMC got to hear of our activities, they suggested a merger and offered a seat on the committee and all the benefits of the club. The idea of having a NHMC bunkhouse in North Wales instead of using one that we had found in Ogwen (complete with mice) was too tempting so the merger went ahead. Our party included myself, John Wright,