summer with him, but as soon as the autumn came, I was put into tricounis and forced to solo up moderately difficult routes behind him. I shall never forget the appalling drop as I swung out of Ivy Chimney, and Little Gully Wall fell sheer below me for a hundred feet, and there was no rope in front or behind and an alien collection of screaming metal on my feet where before there had been the smooth delight of my soles on rock. I felt like a carthorse. But I never climbed barefoot again, indeed, I had always felt vaguely that I was cheating, and then, of course, it would have been so bad for prestige when I turned professional, like climbing in shorts. Soon I came to take a quiet pride in every climb I led in nails that previously I had led only in bare feet. Eventually I came to maintain with Lees, that beginners can best be taught to use their feet only if they learn this way. Rubber-soled boots are treacherous on many surfaces: greasy rock, wet grass, mossy boulders. There is only one place in Britain where vibrams are fairly safe in bad weather: on the clean rough gabbro of Skye, yet even here, I have wished for nails on a round of Coire Lagan in the mist.

When Lees came to Valley there was a Welshman called Gwyndaf Thomas in the team. Lees had been watching this man carefully, knowing that a nucleus must be formed to train the novices and to take the more difficult and dangerous jobs during rescues. Thomas measured up well to the standard required. He was sent on two mountain rescue courses and, by the summer of 1952, had been training for fifteen months. He was, according to Lees, "becoming a very competent mountaineer".

On July 13th, 1952, the Valley team had gone to Cader Idris in mid-Wales for the weekend exercise. Cader is not a mountain that has a reputation for solidity, but a knowledge of loose rock is one of the qualifications for members of a mountain rescue team. On this day the novices were being instructed in elementary rock-climbing on boulders while Lees took the seven more experienced men to climb the Cyfrwy (north) face of the mountain.

Four parties were formed, two on each rope. Lees pointed Thomas and his second, Barratt, up an arête of moderately difficult standard. This climb hounded a gully, and on the other side was a similar arête which was allocated to another party, Peel and Rushworth. Lees and the others went away to do a route called the Cyfrwy Arête.

At midday the first party on the Cyfrwy Arête reached the top and moved along and down a little to see how the other four were getting on with the easier climbs. Peel was at the top and bringing Rushworth up the last pitch. Across the gully and about seventy feet below the top they could see Barratt. He wasn't climbing but was belayed, with the rope running round a corner to Thomas who was out of sight, apparently making his way up the final tower.

Those at the top shouted to Barratt to catch them up on the descent. He understood and continued to watch Thomas's rope. He realised that the leader was going extremely slowly; in a quarter of an hour the rope ran out only ten feet. A short time after this he heard Thomas say, "This is dicey", then, almost immediately, "This is very dicey!" Barratt waited unhappily. Then Thomas shouted, "I'm coming off, Johnny" (Barratt), and the rope went slack. He pulled in about ten feet, when suddenly there was a terrific weight on him which pulled him against the rock, on to the belay, then the rope went slack again and the broken end came up and whipped past his face. He heard the rumble of rock, and looking over the edge, say Thomas falling, and as he watched, the other hit the grass at the foot of the gully and came to rest 300 feet below.

He shouted to the others who were not yet out of hearing, and Lees Continue to Page 6