Muriel and Joan

As told to John Spencer

August 5^th, 2020

Preface

"I 'interviewed' (it was a rollicking good fireside chat really) Muriel Sauer, nee Thorpe, and Jean Todd, nee Edwards, both NMC Founder Members, for 'County Climber' one cold February afternoon in 2016. I had intended to organise another get-together, and they were very keen with many more stories to share. Unfortunately Joan died a few months later aged 93. The bulk of this piece is based on that conversation, with further anecdotes provided by Muriel with whom I took afternoon tea on a number of occasions thereafter. She herself became increasingly frail (but not before, to her delight, she found herself centre stage at the 70th anniversary of the founding of Keswick Mountain Rescue Team), but remained fiercely independent, often to be spotted cruising round the streets of Fenham on her mobility scooter, until she felt she could no longer cope at home and moved into a care home. She died peacefully a few weeks short of her 99th birthday."

John Spencer 2020.

There’s something special about climbing partnerships that goes beyond ‘mere’ friendship. They can be some of the most enduring relationships in a person’s life, often lasting well beyond the time the participants, for whatever reason, actually stop hitting the crags. There are a number of possible reasons for this: the mutual trust and dependence, especially when the chips are down and an epic ensues; the craic, the laughter, even the arguments; and if nothing else, the simple joy of shared experiences in special places. Nonetheless, when Joan Edwards, newly arrived on Tyneside, was placed opposite Muriel Thorpe in the tracers’ office at Vickers- Armstrong in 1942 neither would have imagined the friendship they struck up would be still going strong over 70 years later, long after both of them gave up climbing. Earlier this year I had the great pleasure of spending a couple of afternoons in conversation with these two remarkable nonagenarians, both founder members of the NMC.

‘We sat in front of the fire...’ Muriel on the left

We sat in front of the fire in the front room of Joan’s rambling house in Forest Hall and over the course of an afternoon the old pals reminisced. Muriel had brought an envelope of photos and Joan dug some out as well. We drank tea and ate smoked salmon sandwiches and Battenberg cake and the stories rolled out, some of them sparked by the photos, interspersed with much chuckling and scurrilous reflection, and the odd disagreement (‘That was so-and-so at X’......’No it wasn’t, it was what’s-his name at Y’). We not only talked about the old times, but also (or so my notes tell me) about climbing on gritstone, jamming, falling, or rather not- falling, soloing (both of them disapproved), how today’s climber ‘starts out’ (e.g. climbing on an indoor wall, going on a course, and so on - quizzical eyebrows were raised), bouldering mats, chalk (Muriel had used it), grading....and much more.

There was so much more to tell and to hear and we agreed we’d do it again. Sadly this was not to be. Joan succumbed in May to the cancer from which she’d been suffering for a while. However I have managed to take afternoon tea with Muriel on a few occasions over the summer and autumn and have filled in some of the gaps.

Joan’s family was from the North East but she was born in Liverpool and brought up in Birmingham where she enjoyed hiking and cycling but not (as yet) any climbing. Muriel, born and bred in the west end of Newcastle, loved shinning up trees as a young girl - she and her pals left notes for future ascentionists in some of them - and admits to getting a bit of a thrill from the potential danger.

Thus primed she had her interest in climbing and mountaineering sparked on a family holiday to Switzerland in the summer of 1938. Grindelwald was a sleepy little village in those days, and with trouble brewing in Europe there were few tourists around.

One day she and her sister Frieda went for a walk up a gorge. There they met a handsome young Austrian guide, Hermann Steuri, quite well known as they later discovered, and part of a ‘dynasty’ of guides headed by his father Fritz. Since he had no clients at the time (and perhaps fancied his chances!) he was easily persuaded to take them climbing, which he did over the course of the next few days. He was even going to take them onto a glacier on their last day but a change in weather unfortunately prevented that.

Muriel returned to Tyneside as keen as mustard. Unfortunately she couldn’t find anyone to climb with for a couple of years, until she bumped into Arthur Edmonson at Once Brewed Youth Hostel. Also known as ‘Preston’ (because that’s where he came from!), he was to become a founder member of the NMC, and for a while they climbed together at the then- popular venues, mainly Crag Lough, Great Wanney and Simonside - Bowden Doors, Kyloe, Corby’s and most other familiar contemporary County venues were yet to be discovered and/or developed. Meanwhile Frieda never really got into climbing although she remained a keen walker until she joined the Land Army in the Second World War.

Joan’s arrival in the tracers’ office was fortuitous. She and Muriel started youth hostelling and hiking together, often joined by Frieda, and this inevitably led to them climbing together. They joined other climbers from Durham University King’s College Club (note: King’s College became Newcastle University in 1963) at the popular venues. They initially climbed without a guidebook, relying instead on word-of-mouth. Loose rock and vegetation meant that a spot of gardening on the lead was the norm. They even climbed at Crag Point (1) and lived to tell the tale! There were also occasional forays to venues such as Brimham Rocks. Around this time, the Northumbrian Mountaineering Club was formed in the wake of two accidents at Crag Lough. However it was disbanded almost immediately as most of the men left to join the Forces to do their bit for King and country in WWII.

Climbing apparel comprised corduroy trousers, an old sweater, a cut-down raincoat, and perhaps a cycle cape when it rained. Footwear was nailed boots, and plimsolls for rock climbing. They owned a (hemp) rope but initially had no other gear, not even a sling, their sole means of protection being to drape the rope over a spike or flake as they progressed. The dictum ‘the leader must not fall’ was never more apt!

Muriel leading on Window Buttress, Skye, 1945

Crag Lough - Bill Miller Muriel and Bob Conn

Few people owned a car so there was no mid-week climbing and transport to the crags was by bike, bus or hitch-hiking. The preferred accommodation was a youth hostel, but a barn or railway station waiting room or even bivvying out did the trick when necessary. As is still the case today there was much more to their activities than simply the climbing, with a huge social dimension. Companionship was the quintessential element.

There were few female climbers ‘on the scene’ at that time, even fewer after the start of the war as able-bodied young men went off to meet their fate. However, despite the male dominance they felt they were always treated with respect and treated as equals. Having said that, on one occasion a (male) wag filled the bottom of Joan’s rucksack with rocks to see how she would cope with the extra load on the walk back from the crag– she coped!

When the opportunity arose they climbed further afield. A Bank Holiday weekend in the Lakes might involve cycling to Once Brewed on a Saturday afternoon (they worked on Saturday mornings), an overnight stay in the youth hostel, or later at ‘Antic Hay’ the first Club hut (which belonged to Basil Butcher) near Winshields farm, then cycling on and (hopefully) climbing the next day. The journey home on the Monday was usually completed in one push. Later on they started to hitch-hike. They climbed on Great Gable (ticking off Napes Needle, of course), in Langdale and in Borrowdale, although climbing in the latter was not so well developed in those days.

In 1944 they hitchhiked to Wales in the summer holidays, managing to get a lift on an American military convoy. From time to time they had duck down and hide as they passed through checkpoints, and when they arrived at their destination they went away with a bagful of luxury items such as chocolate and tins of soup (remember this was a time of rationing). Most of their climbing was in the Ogwen Valley - they climbed on Tryfan and Idwal Slabs – but they also did the Snowdon Horseshoe.

The following summer they went north and hitched to Skye where they tackled some big mountaineering routes and sections of the Cuillin Ridge, although they decided against an attempt on the Inaccessible Pinnacle; they had no guide so didn’t know where the route went, they had no gear other than a rope, and they had never abseiled...fair enough! During their visit they only saw two other climbers on the Ridge, but also met a photographer who was probably W.A. Poucher, the mountain photographer (2).

Meanwhile, the NMC was re-formed in 1945 when people started to return to the crags at the end of the war. There were 29 foundation members - Joan and Muriel were two of them - and the first official meet, at Crag Lough, was on June 23rd. The traditional venues remained popular but other venues were developed, such as the Henhole crags, and Joan was involved in some of the new routing being pioneered by Basil Butcher and Keith Gregory. She also did some of the drawings for the first Northumberland guide, which appeared in 1950, covering Crag Lough, Simonside and Great Wanney.

Joan with Frank at the top of Black Adams Corner (Diff) after the FA, May 1947

Muriel married a Yorkshireman. She had seen his photograph in a magazine and wrote him a letter in his capacity as a guide. To her surprise he appeared at the family’s front door out of the blue when he was stationed near Newcastle. They eventually went climbing, but romance followed later.

After marrying they moved to Keswick in 1946, where he worked as a teacher, and in due course had two sons. They climbed together a little bit, although there was some rivalry in the partnership, but Muriel eventually stopped climbing because of the demands of raising the children. However she was very involved in the early days of the Keswick (originally Borrowdale) Mountain Rescue Team founded in 1946 by the famous Colonel Westmorland following a bad accident on Great Gable (3). Living in Keswick raising two boys on her own was a challenging period for Muriel, and she is grateful for the support of family and friends.

On top of Great Wanney - Joan 2nd left back row, Muriel 2nd left middle row

Joan, still living in the North East, continued to climb, and as soon foreign travel became possible again after the war, she and her friends’ horizons broadened. She met her husband John through a shared interest in the mountains, and they climbed together both at home, rock climbing, walking and even indulging in a little winter climbing, and in the Alps. As her daughter Angela writes in her obituary, they made an unsuccessful attempt on the Matterhorn, but did manage to climb Monte Rosa, albeit having a narrow escape when one of the party fell. Joan also took up skiing, initially in the Cheviots.

Eventually she gave up climbing, citing the occasion (described in her obituary) when she and John climbed at Crag Lough and left their baby daughter in the carry-cot at the bottom of the crag as the moment it dawned on her that this was not necessarily a good idea (!). They gave up climbing as partners and not long afterwards she stopped altogether. She never climbed again but continued a very active life with her family in the ‘great outdoors’, in which camping and hill-walking featured prominently. Unsurprisingly at least two of her children went on to take up climbing themselves. John died in 1992.

Muriel as the 'guinea pig' for Keswick MRT

Keswick MRT at Kern Knotts - Col- onel ‘Rusty’ Westmorland far left, Muriel in the middle

Meanwhile Muriel moved back to Tyneside in her mid-50s, and went to work as a drawer at Tyne and Wear Metropolitan County Council where there was an active group of climbers and walkers, including John Vaughan, then working as a landscape architect. She bought some modern gear (a harness, some krabs and slings, a helmet, even some PA rock boots, which she still treasures) and started climbing again. She also did a bit of caving, descending around a dozen pots, which she didn’t enjoy as much as the climbing (because ‘you were always wet’), although she did enjoy the camaraderie. She gave up climbing altogether when she was 62, her last climb being on Idwal Slabs with John.

Joan’s daughter describes in her obituary how she continued to travel, including walking in the Cuillin on Skye in her 80s, undertaking a long-haul trip to Tahiti aged 90, and, despite some physical frailty, a holiday in Venice and the Dolomites aged 92, only a year or so before she died. Muriel’s travelling exploits featured in an article in a 1995 edition of the Club Newsletter, the precursor of County Climber, then edited by Martin Cooper, describing her first bungee jump in New Zealand in her 70s. In the article she admitted to still liking ‘a spice of danger and adventure’; and, after the bungee jump

Joan in Cust’s Gully Great End, 1947 (note the alpenstock!)

‘The adrenaline must have been working overtime as I was high for days afterwards’!

Throughout all their busy separate lives, although they really only climbed together for a few years, Muriel and Joan maintained their close almost sister-like friendship for over seven decades. Especially after Muriel had moved back to Tyneside, and with their respective children grown-up and independent, they spent a lot of time together, including holidays, one memorable trip being to Alaska. Joan’s daughter Angela wrote of Muriel: ‘

She has been at family occasions all my life.....she is so close to the family that she said to Clare (Joan’s granddaughter) she would be an adopted Granny to her!’.

Muriel at home, with two of her paintings

In terms of their climbing partnership, they considered it most impertinent of me to ask which of them was the better climber; they both insisted they had climbed at the same standard and usually alternated leads. In any case, the standard (grade) of any particular climb they tackled was not important, the satisfaction and enjoyment came from simply ‘being there’, and the camaraderie and friendship, although the thrill of a little bit of danger was part of the attraction of climbing as well.

The afternoon finally came to an end, and we resolved to meet again to carry on the conversation. Alas this was not to be. Joan, who mentioned she was feeling a bit under the weather having just completed a course of radiotherapy, sadly died in May before we could arrange another get-together. She was buried in St Cuthbert’s Chapel, West Woodburn. A Northumbrian piper played after the burial; John Vaughan was able to attend the funeral on behalf of the NMC. Thus came to an end a remarkable friendship.

Muriel lives alone in a ground-floor flat, one of her sons living in the flat above. She gets out as much as she can, aided by a mobility scooter, and lately has also been attending a keep-fit class, recognising that the key to independence and (relative) health in old age is staying active. She took up painting in her seventies, taught and inspired by an artist called Kate Stenhouse, and several of her own paintings (and one by Kate) adorn her living room walls. However, at the moment she’s not doing any painting although she has several unfinished projects, and just needs some inspiration to get going again.

It’s hard to avoid clichés when reflecting on their friendship. Seventy years! Muriel was of course sad to lose her dear friend, but at 94 is fatalistic about the fact that all good things come to an end, that’s life. Nonetheless, I dug around for an appropriate sentiment about friendship and found this from P.G.Wodhouse, which I am unashamedly misquoting:

‘There is no surer foundation for a beautiful friendship than a mutual taste in adventure’

Editors’ notes

(1) Crag Point is a crumbling sandstone sea cliff just south of Seaton Sluice described thus by the inimitable John Dalrymple on the northumberlandclimbing.co.uk website: ‘It is up to 18 metres high, so you could be forgiven for expecting it to be quite popular. However, the rock is soft and sandy, loose in places, much of the access is tidal, the landings are appalling, there is precious little protection and there are hardly any safe belays at the top for top-roping. In short the place is a death trap and NOT recommended. Indeed, it is so bad that seabirds won't nest on it.....Despite the awful nature of the place, this crag has had a history of climbing by students from Newcastle University. These hardy souls must have been early candidates for the Darwin Awards. In 1969 a comprehensive guide was produced by Steve Belk and G. Pickup. The development of this guide was done in and a lot of it has fallen into the sea.

Twenty eight routes were described in the 1979 (‘Trouser Legs’) guide in which the crag was given its own chapter. By the time of the 1989 (‘Poseidon Adventure’) guide this had been downgraded to a paragraph, and in the current (2004) guide to a couple of sentences. It is a dangerous place, indeed a night angler died there a few years ago when a section of the cliff collapsed.

(2) WA ‘Walter’ Poucher was one of the leading British mountain photographers and guidebook writers in the period during and following World War II, and well into the sixties. In his pocket guides to mountain walking he pioneered the use of ‘topo’ photographs (usually black and white), providing route instructions, the routes clearly marked in white, as well as advice on navigation, equipment, weather and so on. On the basis of the guides’ success, apparently, Poucher encouraged Constable, his publishers, to produce selected rock-climbing guides, in a similar photographic format, paving the way for Rockfax! Poucher died in 1988 aged 97.

(3) Westmorland’s full name and title was Lieutenant Colonel Horace ‘Rusty’ Westmorland and he was awarded the OBE for services to mountain rescue. A particular view from Great Gable, thought by him to be the finest, was marked by a cairn, now known as ‘Westmorland’s Cairn’. His ashes were placed there.