proceed to the aircraft crash at Wrexham, fifty-three miles away.

They reached the crash at 11.0 p.m. to find firemen recovering bodies from the wreck which was still smouldering. The course helped until 3.0 a.m., searching for a tenth body (none were found by 1.0 a.m.), then they returned to Snowdonia. Lees fund himself falling asleep at the wheel, so he came up to the hostel instead of driving the last forty miles back to Valley.

It was the course's first experience of an accident. The second came eleven days after when they went up to Dinas Cromlech to pick up the bodies of two soldiers who had fallen over a hundred feet from Horseman's Route.

In February 1953 these P.T.I.s went to Scotland to join the annual winter mountain rescue course in the Cairngorms. Only three were left to attend it. Of the other four, one had returned to his unit because he didn't possess the high medical standard required, and the others had expressed the wish, in the words of the report, to cease training.

These men were married, and a team leader is as much at the mercy of his profession as is a doctor but, unlike a doctor, he is often in danger. And whereas the man can die only once, some wives will suffer the pain and fear of death every time the man is late home. Mountain rescue, like medicine or religion, is a vocation, and the best men come to it in a spirit almost of dedication. There is no room for other commitments, either to wife or family. There can be no division of loyalties; when a team leader falls in love either the team or the girl is going to suffer. The best men see that it is not the team. Continue to Chapter 3