Introduction
I
have approached a number of people to write articles, but if readers would like
to contribute an article please contact me. The only two stipulations I make
are that the article has to be hill related and that I don't end up in court
through its publication! Otherwise the choice of subject matter is down to the
Guest Contributor.
Guest Contributor – Richard Moss
Ted Moss (1907-1987)
Myyrddyn
has asked me to write something about my father who appears in Part 7 of his
blog on Welsh Hill Lists. As is often the case there are things he never told
me and now it is too late to ask him.
Edward
Moss, usually known as Ted, was born in Eccles in 1907. He went to Eccles Grammar
School from 1916 to 1918 followed by Manchester Grammar School (Rooke Corbett had been
there earlier) leaving in 1925; he was University material, but did not go as
family support was not forthcoming. Instead he worked as a lab assistant at
Shirley Institute, the textile research centre in Didsbury and went to night
school at Manchester Tech eventually getting a degree in Chemistry at London University
as an external student in 1932. His mathematics was also good and this seemed
to run in the family as his great grandfather had published a book in 1848, “Cotton
Manufacturers, Managers and Spinners New Pocket Guide” in which he extolled the
use of the metric system.
In
the war he was in a reserved occupation researching combat clothing among other
things. He rose to head of the Mechanical Finishing Department at Shirley
Institute but was made redundant in 1966 after the Conservatives had financed a
new building but without making provision for its maintenance. He rejected
teaching and without any formal training became a medical statistician in the
Industrial Health Department at Manchester
University . There he
advised the researchers and gave lectures to industrial health officers; he was
kept on after reaching 65 for a number of years.
In
the late1920’s he walked in the Peak District and with friends started rock
climbing learning from books until they met other climbers. He climbed in Scotland and on
one occasion above Sligachan he met the ghillie John McKenzie who had been with
Collie and after whom Sgurr MhicCoinnich was named. He had several visits to
the Alps and among other mountains climbed Mont Blanc , but bad weather denied him the Matterhorn ; the alpine ascents were guideless.
In
1930 he was elected to the Rucksack Club and he was devoted to it for the rest
of his life. He was Outdoor Organiser for 10 years and I recall helping him
compile a league table of meet attenders at the end of each year. I remember
going on early meets such as the annual summer climbing meet at Cratcliffe and
in particular the dinner meets on Kinder the day after the Rucksack Club Dinner
which always started with coffee at Tunstead. In 1953 John Hunt was guest of
honour at the dinner and my father pointed him out as he strode past the window.
My brother Edward and I sprinted after him to get his autograph. In 1955 Neil
Mather came round one evening before leaving for Kangchenjunga and I distinctly
remember my younger brother asking for his autograph “in case you don’t come
back”. Neil held the altitude record on Kangchenjunga for a day before George
Band and Joe Brown summited. Ted’s advice was often sought, for example when
Ted Dance was contemplating a continuous Lakes 25’s. His technical expertise
was used when he designed a new knot for the Piggott stretcher and he was on
the ropes committee of the British Standards Institute. In 1931 he was on an
early mountain rescue involving Craig yr Ysfa and was an extra in a film about
mountain rescue featuring a supposed accident on Tryfan which was actually
filmed on the Carneddau. He was President of the Rucksack Club for 1958 and
1959.
I
have been asked if Ted was on the Kinder mass trespass. I don’t think so. The
Rucksack Club members in those days were mainly professional gentlemen, some of
whom knew landowners. I gathered that outside the grouse shooting season there
were understandings with some of them and through them, their gamekeepers. The
Club was anxious not to jeopardise existing arrangements. Of course, that did not
stop discreet trespassing in other parts and the illicit use of the shooting
cabins.
Ted’s
interest in lists must have started in the early 1930’s because he added a few
25’s to Corbett’s list in 1933. I assume he met Rooke Corbett, because he was
also in the Rucksack Club, but he never mentioned it to me and I was remiss in
never asking. Between then and 1951 he was busy ticking not just 2,000’s but
also county tops. This was tolerated by his wife Deborah whom he married in
1936; she told me she first called him a bugger half way up Arrowhead ridge on
Great Gable, where I believe there’s a big step across a gap. On holiday when my
brother and I were young, he would leave the family to peakbag and I remember
waiting for him to return on one occasion on a Pennine pass when we were on the
way to the NE coast. I recall an Easter when he went to Devon
with his bicycle by train to do Yes Tor and High Willhays. During the War the
family car, a Morris 8 tourer, was up on bricks and his peak bagging was done
by train and bike.
By the time he had completed the 2,000’s of
So
my brother and I were both brought up to the mountains. We both worked as
students at CHA guest houses leading walks, even in the Lakes in winter, with
no formal training at all. Ted once came up to Seatoller to support the two of
us as we did the Lakeland Seven from there.
His
lists and articles together with a brief history of them can be found at
All
Those Two-Thousands
By Richard Moss
(based on a 2007 article in the
Rucksack Club Journal)
In the 1952 Journal there
was an article with this title by my father Edward (Ted) Moss where he gave his
thoughts on peak bagging. He had visited all the two-thousands of England and
Wales that were on his lists and those of Simpson for the Lake District. It was
about this time that I copied these lists into exercise books and started to tick
them off. I like to think that my first two-thousand was Kinder on a RC Dinner
Meet, but it may have been The Twmpa (Lord Hereford’s Knob) in the Black
Mountains; we spent several summer holidays in the Wye Valley.
It seems that peak
bagging was an early preoccupation of the Club, judging by J Rooke Corbett’s
article in the 1911 Journal, in which he listed the twenty-fives of England and
Wales; any point above the 2,500 foot contour line that appeared on a reputable
map, such as Bartholomews’ or the Ordnance Survey one inch map was included. In
the following year he added a few more and reported a discussion based on Gallt
yr Ogof (2,499 feet) as to what could qualify as a twenty-five; the conclusion
was that a jump of at least one foot would count as another tick. It was not
until the 1929 Journal that Corbett published a revised list and a few more
were added by Ted Moss in the 1933 Journal. An opportunity for revising the
list had arisen with the publication of the one inch Ordnance Survey map
Popular edition, which had a 50 foot contour interval, and all tops with a separate
contour ring were included, together with a few special cases. This seems to be
the origin of the 50 foot contour ring criterion, and of course it led to
anomalies. On the ridge between Great Dodd and Watson's Dodd there is a slight
rise with a complete contour ring; it became known as Corbett’s Pancake and it seems a pity that it has not survived in
recent lists. Presumably some surveying was done from valleys and certainly it
looks a respectable top from near Blencathra Sanitorium. Corbett’s twenty-fives of England and Wales
thus predated The Corbetts of
Scotland by nearly twenty years, since the latter were not published (by the
SMC) till after his death in 1949. Incidentally I was pleased to learn that not
only did I go to one of the schools that Corbett attended in Manchester (as did
Ted Moss and Gordon Adshead) but that I also went to the same College.
In the 1930’s activity
increased. W.T.
Elmslie published a list of the two-thousands of England and Wales in the 1933
Fell and Rock Club Journal using the half-inch Bartholomew map, which had 250
foot contours. He included any point with a height given on the map of over
2,000 feet, which led to the inclusion of Red Tarn on Helvellyn along with some
other anomalies. Then in 1937 F.H.F. Simpson published in the Wayfarers’
Journal a list of the 2000's of the Lake District using the one-inch map and a
50 foot contour ring definition. This was soon followed by the Ted Moss lists
(using the same definition) for the rest of England (1939 RCJ) and for Wales (1940
RCJ). In those days the OS maps did not include grid references, so the
position of a top was recorded as being in a 2 mile by 2 mile square by a
lettered and numbered grid as in many road atlases. It was in 1952 that Edward
Moss reported that he had visited every summit in England and Wales in the
article All Those Two-Thousands,
which included some additions to the lists and he noted further additions in the
1954 Journal. Subsequently he listed and visited all the (then) county tops of
England and Wales.
He collected the tops
during the 1930’s, 1940’s and early 1950’s, during which time he was the Club’s
Outdoor Organiser (1945-55). Train and bicycle were used for at least some of
his trips, particularly during the war, when the family car, a Morris 8 Tourer,
was up on bricks. I recall waiting in the car with my brother and mother on the
way to a family holiday on the NE coast somewhere in the Pennines while he
nipped up some missing peak. Also I remember Easter 1950 at home in Manchester
while he was visiting the Dartmoor tops by train and bike.
Many other England and
Wales lists have been published since his, starting with the 1973 book by Bridge,
who acknowledged his use of the earlier research. Subsequent lists appear to be
unaware of the original published lists and this has led to some notable
omissions. For example North Star was added recently, but is on Simpson’s 1937
list as Honister Crag. In Wales the Guardian reported in 1988 that a group of
pensioners had discovered a new peak in the Berwyns and it now seems that this
is called Cadair Berwyn New Top although
it is in Corbett’s 1929 list as Cader
Berwyn S Top. A few new peaks have been recognized, not because earlier
listers were not diligent in there searches, but because of failings in the
maps available to them, with crag symbols often obliterating contours. More
recent lists have refined the definition of a two-thousand, to a 50 foot drop
all round rather than a contour ring. Hi-tech is now being used to determine if
a doubtful top qualifies, sometimes with agonizing over whether a drop is 49
feet or 51 feet. It seems that to some the technology is of more importance
than visiting a likely spot.
Over the years I added
to my own lists the few new peaks reported, including rejects from other lists,
and anything that looked interesting on the map. I left Manchester when I was
17 and spent student vacations working in North Wales and the Lake District, so
by the time I got stuck working in Hampshire I had completed the Lake District
list and the Carneddau, Glyders and Snowdon groups. Progress then slowed
considerably, with orienteering becoming a major interest, but with in-laws in
North Wales the rest of Wales eventually succumbed. It was not till retirement
to Cumbria that I turned my attention to the Pennines and rapid progress soon
had me thinking which should be my last top, since it should clearly be a
significant one that I had never visited.
I had never been in
Manchester for the Marsden to Edale walk, which is permanently on the Club
calendar for early January, so early in 2007 I finished on Bleaklow. I was
alone and sat with some red wine thinking of my father.
At the Club Centenary
Dinner Jim Perrin spoke about how Members went on and on and on. I don’t think
he had in mind anything like Kinder to
Bleaklow in Over 55 Years, which could well be the subtitle to this
article.
Did you know they are available for GPS download or Hill Bagging tick list here...
ReplyDeletewww.haroldstreet.org.uk/waypoints/download/?list=moss
Thanks Phil, as ever Haroldstreet is leading the way with many historical listings of merit
ReplyDelete