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Remembered Today:

Fell & Rock Climbing Club memorial


seaJane

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Just saw something about this on a programme about Derwentwater: this is from the WIkipedia entry:

 

"A plaque commemorating members of the Fell & Rock Climbing Club who died in World War I is set on the summit rock of Great Gable; an annual memorial service is held there on Remembrance Sunday. The club bought 3,000 acres of land including Great Gable and donated it to the National Trust in memory of these members, and the plaque was dedicated on Whit Sunday 1924 by Geoffrey Winthrop Young in front of 500 people. The bronze memorial, weighing 70 kg, was removed in July 2013 and a replacement, with spelling errors corrected, was installed by Royal Engineers in October 2013."

 

More: http://www.yrc.org.uk/yrcweb/index.php/journal/vols1-5/60-vol5-cat/no16/262-v5n16p146

More: https://www.frcc.co.uk/?s=war+memorial&submit=Go

 

Edited by seaJane
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I saw the snipet on the programme Jane refers to: I was especially impressed by the H&S in effect at the unveiling. Not a hard hat or reflective jacket in sight.

 

I must say, though (and seriously) a very impressive memorial.

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I really enjoyed re-reading that thread - had forgotten I must have read it before, as I contributed! I have since (last June) spent a week at a writing course at which Andrew Irvine's great-niece was one of the tutors. 

 

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I too enjoyed the re-read

and since 2011 I have also followed DB's advice and read the Wade Davis book (Into the Silence) - well worthwhile

 

regards

Michael

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9 minutes ago, michaeldr said:

I too enjoyed the re-read

and since 2011 I have also followed DB's advice and read the Wade Davis book (Into the Silence) - well worthwhile

 

regards

Michael

 

Probably me, but I found it unreadable. It was 5 or 6 years since, but my memory was that it (like so many books from across the Atlantic) could have done with an editor's hand.

Edited by Steven Broomfield
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Since 2011 when I contributed to the previous thread referenced by Michaeldr, I too have read and enjoyed 'Into the Silence'.  It is long and detailed, but it's half-way between a reading book and a reference book, and I would not have it shorter (although I can see why some would). 

 

Since then I have also discovered a mountaineering connection 'on the other side of the wire'.  Several years ago, I bought a watercolour belonging to a series commissioned by a German general from an artist serving under him.  Generalleutnant Theodor von Wundt commanded the 51st (Württemberg) Reserve Infantry Brigade on the Somme front between Ovillers and Beaumont-Hamel, and in recent times I have translated substantial excerpts from his personal war diary covering the early phase of the 1916 Somme offensive.  Earlier, however, I researched his personal history and discovered that he was a noted Alpinist and married a British woman, Maud Walters, also a climber, whom he met in Chamonix.  They spent their honeymoon climbing the Matterhorn together.  More recently, I have acquired copies of climbing books by von Wundt and Geoffrey Winthrop Young and intend, when time allows, to try and find out whether von Wundt was acquainted with the British Alpinist community before the war.  If anyone can assist me in that quest, I would be most grateful.  

 

Mick

Edited by SiegeGunner
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  • 3 years later...

Three photos taken on Great Gable at the Fell and Rock Climbing Club Memorial this morning:

1. A view from the mountain near the top;

2. The crowd gathering around the memorial a few minutes before 11.00am;

3. A member of a Mountain Rescue Team laying a wreath at the Memorial.

IMG_3545.JPG.cebbf00bc23e68683c1851ecd0e11fc4.JPG

 

IMG_3553.JPG.8382bdfb7e70b6ed5fd940525fc30d06.JPG

 

372666355_IMG_3561-Copy(2).JPG.940bec03d7b1b46eef488fcaabb6c483.JPG

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Thanks for the photos - that's quite a crowd! Glad to see the weather looks so good.

All the best, John

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20 hours ago, johntaylor said:

that's quite a crowd! Glad to see the weather looks so good

Yes, it was a good turn out, and (unseasonably) mild. Last time I was on top of Great Gable (not for Remembrance) it was blowing a gale, and we could hardly keep our feet!

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  • 11 months later...

Photographs taken this morning on Great Gable; it was a beautifully sunny day, but unlike last year Windy Gap between Green Gable and Great Gable was suitably breezy, such that it was hard to remain upright.

1. People making their way up at about 9.30.

2. Gathering at the cairn on the summit at about 10.40 (many more joined before the short ceremony at 11.00, and the crowd included many younger people, which is pleasing).

3. The throng descending the zing zag path down from the summit after the ceremony.

4. The view over Wastwater from Westmorland Cairn, just to the west of the summit.

IMG_0035.JPG.524e2f0a40313b68c4b20fe970c5866e.JPG 

 IMG_0049.JPG.ac882d6c0deed8bf936a32f28ec0e9ff.JPG

 

IMG_0053.JPG

 

IMG_0047.JPG.20aba18145f09edcf6c3278628e1f6cb.JPG

Edited by A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy
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Beautiful to see and I can imagine how a remembrance service resonates with such an elevated view, and perspective on loss.  

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1 minute ago, michaeldr said:

Thank you Michael, I’d never heard of this initiative until now and it seems such a wonderful idea.  Stunning scenery and those that way inclined must feel close to God (or whatever deity they believe in) when up there. 

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7 minutes ago, michaeldr said:

Absolutely fascinating and quite moving information.  I had no idea.

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I hesitate to digress here, however this may perhaps be of interest; one never knows. FS, your sentimentthose that way inclined must feel close to God (or whatever deity they believe in) when up there” is often alluded to by quoting the opening words of Psalm 121.

As a church chorister, boy and man, for over 15 years, and later as a mountaineer in Great Britain as well as in the Austrian and the Italian Alps, I grew particularly fond of those words. Indeed, I am still. However, later yet (after the singing and the climbing) I read the autobiography of Yehudi Menukin.

In that book he describes his father as being a Cantor (or hazzan [חזן] in Hebrew — the person who leads the services in the synagogue.) In short, a professional expert in repeating those words.

Menuhin explains that he learned from his father that the accepted English language (King James version I suppose) reading of those words is simply taking them at their face value and doesn't allow for the Jewish sense of humour which can be found even in the bible. He also reminds that in ancient days (think Elijah and the priests of Baal) the people then thought that you were nearer to God on a mountain top, whereas the Jewish concept was more that the Almighty is all around you and everywhere.

Thus, Menukin snr. suggested, the lines should be read as two questions followed by a statement of affirmation. Also, the opening two questions should be read rhetorically and with a good large dose of irony in the voice.

I will lift mine eyes unto the hills?
From whence cometh my help?
MY help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth!

Edited by michaeldr
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33 minutes ago, michaeldr said:

I hesitate to digress here, however this may perhaps be of interest; one never knows. FS, your sentimentthose that way inclined must feel close to God (or whatever deity they believe in) when up there” is often alluded to by quoting the opening words of Psalm 121.

As a church chorister, boy and man, for over 15 years, and later as a mountaineer in Great Britain as well as in the Austrian and the Italian Alps, I grew particularly fond of those words. Indeed, I am still. However, later yet (after the singing and the climbing) I read the autobiography of Yehudi Menukin.

In that book he describes his father as being a Cantor (or hazzan [חזן] in Hebrew — the person who leads the services in the synagogue.) In short, a professional expert in repeating those words.

Menuhin explains that he learned from his father that the accepted English language (King James version I suppose) reading of those words is simply taking them at their face value and doesn't allow for the Jewish sense of humour which can be found even in the bible. He also reminds that in ancient days (think Elijah and the priests of Baal) the people then thought that you were nearer to God on a mountain top, whereas the Jewish concept was more that the Almighty is all around you and everywhere.

Thus, Menukin snr. suggested, the lines should be read as two questions followed by a statement of affirmation. Also, the opening two questions should be read rhetorically and with a good large dose of irony in the voice.

I will lift mine eyes unto the hills?
From whence cometh my help?
MY help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth!

Hence “goeth unto the mountain”.  And I suppose perhaps why Moses went up on the mountain to find his 10 Commandments.

The subtleties of your concluding quotation are not lost on me.

Edited by FROGSMILE
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40 minutes ago, FROGSMILE said:

The subtleties of your concluding quotation are not lost on me.

Glad that you found the little digression of interest

All the best, Michael

Edited by michaeldr
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One of the names on the memorial on Great Gable is, George Corrall Turner, an Ilkley man killed in September 1917. By coincidence I wrote about him for the local newspaper last week for a feature about some of the names on the local war memorials.

 

He is also on my blog:

http://ilkleyremembers.blogspot.com/2019/03/captain-george-corrall-turner-26th.html

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2 hours ago, michaeldr said:

I will lift mine eyes unto the hills?
From whence cometh my help?
MY help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth!

 

It was the favourite Psalm of Oswald Chambers who wrote the ever popular religious tract ‘My Upmost for his Highest’

 

Chambers was a chaplain with the YMCA in Egypt during WW1 but died after an operation to remove is appendix in 1917.

 

At his funeral the beautiful lyrical version of the psalm from the Scottish Psalter was sung:

 

“I to the hills will lift mine eyes

From whence does come mine aid.

My safety cometh from the Lord,

Who heav’n and earth had made”

 

I was going to use this photograph of him as a WIT post but never got round to it

 

 

oswald chambers.png

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Thank you @FROGSMILE, @michaeldrand @ilkley remembersfor those comments. Interesting to know a little more about George Corrall Turner, in particular.

Regarding the effect of the mountainous environment, both Robert Graves and Frank Richards talk about escaping to walk in the mountains when at home on leave, in their case the Welsh mountains, and I am sure that there would be many others who felt the same healing effect.

By the way, @ilkley remembers, for some reason I can't open the photograph of Oswald Chambers.

I also owe an apology, in that I had thought that the fourth photograph had been rejected as making the total amount of data uploaded too large, but I see that it did in fact upload, so I have now added a fourth caption and unified the dimensions of all the photographs as they appear in my post.

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