Nobbut Laiking, by Ross Brewster
Mountain rescue call-outs involving the dozen teams in the Lake District have been averaging one every other day since the new year.
No wonder world famous climber Alan Hinkes has warned that the volunteers who turn out in all weathers to save lives on the fells are risking burn-out.
The rescue teams fiercely guard their independence. The last thing they want is to become an extension of some government body. Hinkes himself feels calls for punitive fines or charging people to be rescued would be counter-productive to the ethos of the service.
But the whole essence of mountain rescue has changed dramatically over the years. Whereas a team might get 40 calls in a year, now most of them have more than 100.
Is this fair on the volunteer members? And is it really fair on local employers who willingly give them time to take part in rescues, but obviously have to make allowances for absence?
Rescue is a thoroughly professional role in 2024. Is it any longer sustainable for those team members with jobs and families without some recompense?
The fells are a walker’s paradise. But there is a common thread running through many recent incidents which could have been avoided by better judgment of conditions, suitable gear and more judicious use of technology.
If there was a bill at the end of the day perhaps some accident victims might think more carefully before they venture out.
Rescuers don’t judge and even the most experienced can have an accident. But the fells are getting ever busier. How much more can we expect the essential work of rescue teams to grow before the question of charging becomes too insistent to ignore?
As one poster on a Lakeland team’s Facebook site said: “The Lakes are not a school playground, it’s a place that can seriously risk your lives.”
Time to think of prison officers
I’m not sure there is a tougher job than being a prison officer. I used to know a chap who was based at Haverigg on the west Cumbrian coast, supposedly the model for Ronnie Barker’s TV comedy Porridge.
It was soul destroying and yet he never approached the job with the cynicism most of us would have felt.
I thought about him when I heard the story last week about the girl at Wakefield detention centre who was restrained and stripped by male officers.
The two female officers who would have been on duty had both been sent home earlier after being attacked. No doubt the facility where the girl was being held was short-staffed and hers wasn’t the only crisis that day.
They took the girl’s clothing because she was attempting to use them to hang herself. It just seems an awful mess, the sort we the general public prefer to have hidden away.
Out of sight, out of mind. Yet someone has to do it, and it’s the officers who risk their lives dealing with some appalling situations who we rarely hear about in a positive sense.
Have you got your funeral planned?
If you want to get ahead, get involved in the direct funerals business. Judging by all the adverts on TV, trade must be booming.
Having considered the options, many of us are quite willing to make our exit without fuss and that’s where these direct funerals come in.
The undertakers will take the body away, return the ashes and it’s up to the deceased’s nearest and dearest to decide if they want to organise some sort of wake.
I’m a man with a plan. Several years I was persuaded to take out a funeral scheme. A bargain they said making it sound like foraging round the supermarket for the yellow sticker items at the end of the trading day.
From what I can tell, most people’s pets will get a more abundant send-off when it’s their time to go.
My plan offers an economy coffin, a hearse, a ride to the crem and, if I so wish, someone to say a few words before I finally slide away through those curtains. Oh, and they return my ashes to nearest and dearest.
I don’t fancy a wake. A dozen curled up cucumber sandwiches should suffice. More likely they’ll take me up one of the fells and try not to pick a windy day to distribute my remains.
I wonder how much of a bargain I got for my two grand. For me no bargain at all as I won’t be around to do the maths and judge if the undertakers did a good job. The bargain is for my family who won’t be saddled with the cost and boy do funerals cost a pretty packet nowadays if you want the works
We hear plenty about the cost of living. It’s the cost of dying that isn’t always factored into the financial picture.
Life goes on amid sadness
How many commemorative services promised during the Covid lockdown ever took place?
This was a particularly distressing time when friends and relatives were unable to say a proper funeral farewell.
Life goes on amid sadness. It doesn’t mean people think any less of lost loved ones because those memorial services never quite got done.
