Feature
Celebrating 50 Years Of The Glasgow Glenmore Club
Introduced by Henry Perfect
The 21st century hill walker checks the e-mail or mobile phone for last minute changes, sets off in a comfortable car (with ‘Satnav’ guidance!) to spend a pleasant weekend in a heated hostel or club hut; the latest gear guarantees comfort at all times, and having consulted perhaps two or three guide books there is a path to the summit; and if you stray off route, there’s GPS; you then return for a hot shower, change of clothes and sleep in a duvet-covered bed …………but things were not always so, as chronicled in a book published to mark the first 50 years of the Glasgow Glenmore Club, one of Scotland’s largest and most active hill walking clubs.
Back in the early post-war years it was a time of limited travel and leisure opportunity, especially for young people. However, some had the good fortune to attend outdoor courses at the recently established national training centre at Glenmore Lodge, near Aviemore. At the station they were sent to the ‘Pot Luck’ tearoom until everyone had arrived, and then bundled into the back of a tarpaulin-covered truck for the bumpy drive along the track to ‘The Lodge’, which is now Cairngorm Lodge Youth Hostel. The success of the Lodge must have made a deep impression on Dr. Stewart Mackintosh, Glasgow’s then director of education during a visit there in 1953. He saw the potential benefit to young people, and particularly schoolchildren, who had attended courses at the Lodge of continuing the outdoor activities they experienced as adults. With his support the following year the Glasgow Glenmore Club was formed, similar to the already existing Edinburgh Glenmore Club. His department helped a lot in those early years, providing outdoor and indoor meet facilities as well as equipment. Whilst today hill-walking, scrambling and climbing are the club’s main activities, in those days sailing, canoeing, pony trekking and skiing also featured, reflecting the many and varied activities at the Lodge. These are symbolised in the branches of a twig of Glenmore Forest pine, which forms the club badge and logo.
Photographs from meets in those days, like the group on The Brack in 1954, depict clothing from almost another age: no trendy Gore-Tex jackets, waterproof trousers, or state-of –the-art rucksacks with on-board water bottles and umbilical drinking tubes for the walker who doesn’t want to stop. Then it was Ventile or proofed cotton jackets, wool and often hand knitted socks, usually darned, and old day trousers unless you could afford breeches. And, of course, for navigation it was only the compass and the sometimes-unreliable one-inch OS maps. Waterproofs could be ex-army capes, useful for doubling as a tent groundsheet, or a cycle cape. Then came cagoules in the early to mid 60’s and the plastics revolution had begun and with it the onset of better and increasingly costly kit for the hill.
How could you survive without polythene box, bag or bottle? It’s hard to imagine wrapping up a ‘piece’ without foil or Clingfilm. For the benefit those readers who weren’t even born then, the answer was the paper bag. Needless to say, sandwiches were often damp and paper was ingested as well. Another memory of that time was the vacuum flask often pulled from the rucksack with a tell-tale noise of slushy broken glass and leaving its liquid cargo among the precious contents of the pack.
The first outdoor meet was led by the club’s first chairman, Jock Nimlin, to Earls Seat in the Campsies: this was readily accessible by public transport which was a key factor in choosing meets. Another limitation was that many people worked on Saturday mornings. Arrochar and Arran featured a lot, then the range gradually extended as car ownership and holidays increased. 1962 saw the first trip to Glencoe and 5 years later the crossing of the Great Glen for a meet in Kintail and then Skye a little later in 1971. Early mutterings about ‘ foreigners also having hills’ prompted meets in the Lake District and Wales, and then the first continental meet in Mayrhofen, Austria, in 1984. Its success led to overseas meets every two years with visits to the Pyrenees, Dolomites, and French and Swiss Alps – and this year back to the Austrian Alps. The transport logistics for these trips proved challenging and one year, to overcome the difficulties of carrying lots of gear on multiple train changes, a bus was chartered for the journey to Cogne in the Italian Alps. However, the driver missed the booked ferry, got lost in the Paris rush hour, and the vehicle overheated. After a journey of 36 hours the exhausted passengers were greeted by a downpour – and the bus experiment was never repeated!
For many years weekend meet accommodation centred on SYHA hostels and despite an increasing use of private hostels recently, the youth hostels remain a popular venue, not least because a number are large enough to accommodate the club’s most popular meets at New Year and Burns Supper weekend. These are major logistical operations, attracting up to 50 or 60 members with the promise of good days on the hill and bonhomie in the evening, including country dancing (a regular feature of the early courses at Glenmore Lodge). Recently at Tulloch Station bunkhouse, the space indoors was just not enough for dancing, so sets went into action on the platform in sub-zero temperatures. When the last train of the evening slowly rumbled past, there were some very bewildered looking passengers gazing onto a Strip the Willow in full swing! Enthusiasts have created new dances, notably the Glenmore Jig and Ratagan Rant, the latter to celebrate a memorable New Year meet at Ratagan hostel.
Over the years the SYHA has relaxed its rules as times have changed, the wardens became managers and no longer is it necessary to surreptitiously take a ‘nip,’ fearful of being caught by the warden. And it was not always the demon alcohol that might cause trouble: one member, eminent in his chosen profession, forgot the autumn time change, rose at 7 am and was put out of the hostel for an hour by the warden because it was actually 6 am and he wasn’t meant to get up for another hour … and the club had an exclusive booking of the hostel!
Mountain safety must be in all our minds when venturing into the hills and is a frequent topic at indoor meets. More experienced members help others to develop their navigation and other skills and from time to time navigation exercises are held on day meets. In the late 60’s and early 70’s the Club prepared and manned mountain safety stands are several exhibitions, most notably a mobile mountain safety exhibition dedicated to the memory of Donald Duff, a surgeon at Belford Hospital in Fort William, who was one of the pioneers of Scottish mountain safety, founding the first civilian mountain rescue team. Working in conjunction with the Mountain Rescue Committee of Scotland including Ben Humble, the driving force behind the exhibition, the Club helped with displays throughout the UK. At the time it was well received as making a significant contribution to promoting mountain safety just at the time when lots more people were heading for the hills.
Long before the SMC published its guides to the Munros and Corbetts it was somewhat frowned upon by the mountaineering establishment to be collecting or bagging Munros just for the sake of another tick in the Tables; after all, when the club was founded less than 25 people had scaled all the Munros. But these hills were to reinvigorate the club in the mid 60’s when it seemed the club was getting soft and opting for too many ‘easy days’. The first member to scale 100 summits helped turn the tide by setting the challenge. With the spread of meets to more distant hills, the first completion by a club member was made in 1978. It was not a conspicuous event, in fact decidedly understated. Fast-forward over 25 years and some 60 Glenmorons have completed the Munros, with welcome assistance for many from the club’s rock climbers to tackle the Inaccessible Pinnacle! Of these, 8 have added their ‘post-graduate qualification’ of climbing all the Corbetts as well. It is rumoured that one or two are doggedly in pursuit of their doctorate - the Grahams. Completions are now a very sociable affair – crossed walking poles for the final few steps to the summit cairn, champagne, cake and other goodies – and for one Glenmoron completer this year it was the climax of a 54 year journey over the hills.
It would be tempting to speculate how an article written in 50 years’ time might read, when hopefully the Club celebrates its first centenary. No doubt there will be remarkable advances in equipment and perhaps access might even be controlled, with permits for particular areas to protect the environment. However, we can be certain that one thing won’t change – the experience of being on the hills which adds so much to our lives – and especially the camaraderie of sharing this with like minded folk, which clubs like the Glenmore have made possible for an increasing number of people. This increase was reflected in a talk at this year’s Easter meet at Glenmore Lodge by Nigel Williams, the Deputy Principal –, who said ‘in the early days we trained people for the hills, and now we train the trainers’.
New members are always made very welcome, and often make their first contact with the club at an indoor meet. These are held twice monthly for most of the year, and feature outside speakers and club members whose talks cover ever more exotic locations (like a recent expedition to the Kamchatka peninsula in Russia). Arrangements are also made for the outdoor meets, usually a day meet and a weekend meet each month. The club provides the opportunity for members to extend their activities to include climbing and even, at times, has ventured underground. The club has a membership of around 120, of whom a high proportion is very active, which augers well for the future.
If you would like to find out more about the club, visit the website at http://www.glasgowglenmore.org.uk/ or contact the secretary, Henry Perfect, on 0141 931 5962.
Most of this article was taken from ‘How you’ve changed: 50 years of the Glasgow Glenmore Club’ costing £10.00 plus p&p and available from the secretary. The ‘50th.’ will be celebrated at a dinner and ceilidh at Loch Lomond Youth Hostel on Saturday 30th. October when former members will be most welcome.