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 – Simon Glover
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| Since leaving local government, Simon Glover has pursued his passions of playing croquet and crown green bowls (interests shared with his wife Lynda). His local history society takes him to areas he may not otherwise visit in the UK. With regards the hills, he's no longer active but his Furths research helps keep the love affair alive |
THE FURTHS AND THEIR COMPLEATERS
Biographical Background
Living
on the Wirral peninsula, just thirty-seven miles as the crow flies from Foel
Fras in the northern Carneddau range of Snowdonia, I have long been interested
in the 3,000 ft. summits of England, Wales and Ireland, otherwise known
collectively as The Furths. This
fascination, I suppose, started early in the summer of 1976, when I acquired my
first copy of Munro’s Tables (First metric edition, 1974). For the first
time, this historical Scottish mountain document published a list (pp.86-88) of
some 107 Munroists, i.e. people who had claimed to have climbed all the Munros. The list also catalogued those that had added
the subsidiary peaks - called “Tops” - and the supplemental 3000 foot
mountains in the British Isles furth of Scotland.
My
childhood home in Wallasey, stands on a sandstone ridge overlooking the coastal
plains of north Wirral and North Wales beyond, from which the long, sprawling
ridge of the Carneddau rises - something which I didn’t appreciate in my
formative years of the 1960s! It was
from here that many youthful mountain wanderings began. Like thousands of others, the first notable
hill for me was nearby Moel Famau (classified a Marilyn: height with a drop of
150 metres on all sides), first climbed on the twentieth anniversary of Hillary
and Tenzing’s historic ascent of Everest.
Family holidays saw two further Marilyns - Great Rhos (Radnor Forest)
and Aran Fawddwy - done in the successive years. (These early hillwalks were solo efforts.) A trip to Bala awakened my awareness to the
possibility of more superb mountain days to come, when I equipped myself with
W. A. Poucher’s guide The Welsh Peaks.
My
introduction to the Furths finally came on 27 August 1976 - with a sizzling
hot, almost solo (I say almost, because I tagged along with a school party
being led over Crib Goch) traverse of the celebrated Snowdon Horseshoe. It was the start, unwittingly, of a piecemeal
round of the Welsh/English Furths, which ended on Scafell on 22 July 1982. A few days earlier I had a chance meeting
with a tanned Hamish Brown at Keswick Youth Hostel, where I introduced myself. Hamish asked: “Do I know you?”, to which I
quipped “No. But you soon will, as I’m on your forthcoming autumn Irish trip!”
(Hamish was cycle-linking the Four Country Summits of Ireland, Wales,
England and Scotland.) The Irish Furths
were duly added - finishing the lot on Brandon Mountain on 11 October
1982.
The
writing part of me manifested itself late 1977, when I penned the following
brief note for Climber and Rambler magazine:
Another Top ?
Sir, - I
have found a 3000ft. top which does not appear in the 1974 Edition of Munro’s Tables. It is situated half a mile NNW of Bynack More
(Section 14 in the Tables). Its name is Bynack
Beg and its height is 960 metres on the new 1:50 000 map.
Could Bynack Beg have been overlooked when the Tables were revised for the 1974 Edition?
Could Bynack Beg have been overlooked when the Tables were revised for the 1974 Edition?
R. SIMON GLOVER,
Wallasey.
It
was published in the January 1978 issue, and I’ll never forget how thrilled I
was to see it in print - contrasted with a rather lengthy contribution from
Hamish Brown about the erring ways of the Ordnance Survey’s revision (or lack
of!) on their maps of the Scottish Highlands.
I’d like to point out that Hamish was already known to me through his Round
the Munros series, published in this periodical during the 1970s.
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| Hamish Brown - multi Munroist. Photo reproduced courtesy of SMC Image Archive |
Since
then, I’ve contributed letters to the Mailboxes of Trail and The
Great Outdoors (TGO) magazines, plus Dave Hewitt’s fanzine The Angry
Corrie. More recently the below
article, Final Furths - An Overview, was tacked on to “Munro Matters” in
the Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal 2013, from which my blog Final
Furths and Furthists was a natural progression.
The Furthists
The
primary tool used in my research is the Scottish Mountaineering Club’s Munroists’
database, maintained by the Clerk of the List (its latest incumbent being Dave
Broadhead). This currently contains 5765
people (at the time of writing, 8 August 2015), of which roughly one in ten
have climbed the Furths. The term Furthist
was publicly given to them by Max Landsberg in his blog The Call of the Mountains.
Historically
the first recorded Furthist was SMC member James A. Parker, when he reached the
3010 ft. rocky peak of Tryfan (Snowdonia) on 19 April 1929. Next came Willie Docharty, who compleated the
Munro “Grand Slam” on the stony Lakeland summit of Ill Crag on 29 September
1949. Docharty in turn accompanied John
Dow when he finished his Furths on Cruach Mhor on 1 October 1956. (They had both been making aneroid
estimations of unlevelled heights on the Macgillycuddy’s Reeks, Co. Kerry.)
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| James A Parker - the first recorded Furthist. Photo reproduced courtesy of SMC Image Archive |
The Munroist/Furthist list has its roots in the article Quod Erat Faciendum, written by Eric Maxwell (1891-1978) - a stalwart member and librarian of the Dundee-based Grampian Club - and published in the Club’s Bulletin, No. 7, 1960. This was the third instalment of a series of Munro-related pieces, the others being Munros and Tops (1958) and Furth of Scotland (1959). The latter amusingly recounts Maxwell’s traverse of the Furths in the company of fellow GC member James Anderson, and concludes with the endorsement: “We recommend to you the ascent of the three thousand foot hills Furth of Scotland.” Eric Maxwell’s catalogue included 25 names, with reference to sources, and was introduced thus:
“The
following list contains the names of all those who, to the best of the author’s
knowledge, have climbed every Munro, and shows, also, which of them have
climbed the other mountains and tops in Munro’s and/or Maxwell’s Tables. The
information has been obtained from journals, etc., in the Grampian Club
Library, and from personal knowledge.”
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| Eric Maxwell - first compiler of Munro compleaters on his final Munro: Chno Dearg 26/05/1957. Photo reproduced courtesy of the University of Dundee Archive Services |
His son David privately issued, in 1959, Tables giving all the 3000-Ft. Mountains of England, Wales and Ireland in an eight-page “erudite booklet”, similar in style and content to the 1953 Munro’s Tables. (Dave Hewitt kindly facsimiled me a copy of this hard to find publication.) It is worth mentioning that the SMC made tentative listings of Munroists in the 1960s, and in the Journal of May 1968 (SMCJ, 159/29) published a full list with the unstinted cooperation of Eric Maxwell. Iain Smart, the first recorder, seems to recall taking over from Maxwell before the figure reached 100. There was some talk of discontinuing the list then, as the SMC thought no one would be interested if they were not in that number. How wrong they were!
The
volume of correspondence received from Munroists has grown such, that Dave
Broadhead was prompted to write in Munro Matters (SMCJ, 205/43): “I often
receive copies of hill logs, diaries, spread-sheets etc all of which go into
the National Library of Scotland archive along with the letters. There is a PhD there for someone, sometime.” This is partly true for myself, in so far as
some Furthists send me spreadsheets and the odd photo. I derive immense satisfaction from the
research: contacting individuals by letter/email, the friendly support
of the SMC, The Munro Society and a lot more besides! My list naturally incorporates Munroists
(some of which are unregistered with the SMC), and also non-Munroists who are
either working their way through the Munros - but have pre-dated this
achievement by compleating the Furths - or who’ve solely accomplished these
wonderfully diverse peaks. It is a work
in progress. A labour of love.
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| Norman Wares (4151) with his wife on Skiddaw, 14/07/2011 |
Last September, I was surprised (and honoured!) to receive the following email from Munro Society member, Alan Haworth - Lord Haworth of Fisherfield (Munroist No. 2625):
“Responding
to the piece in the recent edition of the Munro Society Newsletter my Furth
Compleation was on Brandon Mountain on 26.08.2008. Accompanied by my wife, Maggie Rae, and my
long-suffering teddy bear which has had much to put up with in the hills down
the years. There was a raging gale on
the summit.
Irvine
Butterfield told me I had left the best till the last and I quite agree. One of my prized possessions is a beautiful
framed photo of Brandon Mountain taken by Irvine from the beach at Kilcummin
which I got from him a few weeks before his death”.
Alan
finished his Munros on Ben More (Mull) on 28 September 2001, the centenary of
A.E. Robertson’s historic completion. I
contacted him recently. He’d just bagged
his penultimate Munro Top on Beinn a’ Bhuird, viz. Stob an t-Sluichd, and said
afterwards that he was in some pain with his knees, hips and an ankle - but
reckoned malt whisky is a great analgesic!
Health permitting, he’s going to compleat the Grand Slam on Ronald
Burn’s centenary in 2023.
In
reply to my Furth enquiry, David Geddes (No. 592) sent a lovely letter back,
which I feel, epitomizes the essence of this worthwhile pursuit. I give
extracts from it here:
“….Good
for you gathering names and dates. I
hugely enjoyed the Furths and have many wonderful memories of places and people
encountered on my travels furth o’ Scotland.
Happily your sterling efforts will encourage others to find similar
pleasures.
….Brandon
(5/7/91) completed my personal ’Grand Slam’.
It was misty but a little bit special - Yippee!
My
constant buddy….was my faithful Working Cocker Spaniel ’Tess’. She features in almost all of my hundreds of
hill photographs and I am eternally grateful to her for her support and
companionship.”
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| David Geddes and his beloved Tess on Brandon Mountain |
David also emailed me details of his Munros and Tops compleations, which I quote fully:
“My
final Munro on that 1st round (not that I’ll ever complete a 2nd round!) was
Sgurr nan Gillean (Cuillin) on the 4 August 1988 in the company of a small
party with the famous Gerry Akroyd as our guide. A glorious day of spectacular views and
altogether a memorable experience.
The
final top was Sgurr Eilde Beag (Mamores) on the 20 October 1989 in the company
of my faithful Tess. The diary account
notes, ’wretched weather, strong wind, rain and mist.’ We walked on to revisit Binnean Mor and
Binnean Beag ’through curtains of rain driven by gale force wind.’ I recall enjoying the bleakness and
loneliness of it.
I’m
sure every hillwalker can relate to this mixed bag of experience.”
These
then are the words of a couple of typical baggers which, told from their
perspective, hopefully convey a sense of the delights (and hardships!) that
await those who take up the challenge of the Furths and other 3000 ft.
mountains.
Acknowledgements
I
am indebted to David Geddes and Alan Haworth for permitting me to share their experiences
and to Norman Wares for the use of his Skiddaw photo. Thanks are also due to Dave Broadhead, Robin
Campbell and Iain Smart of the Scottish Mountaineering Club for their input. The article Quod Erat Faciendum is held at the University of Dundee Archive.
The
following article first appeared in the Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal
(SMCJ,
204/42, 609-10) Copyright 2013, and is reproduced here with permission.
FINAL
FURTHS - AN OVERVIEW
Simon
Glover
MUCH
HAS BEEN written about Munro compleations down the years; but what of the
Furths? Inspired by Dave Hewitt’s
research into Scottish hill list compleations, and his online history 'May The Furth Be With You!'
[1], I decided to take up the gauntlet of establishing the location of Furth
finishes.
What
follows is a brief summary of final 3,000 ft summits ‘Furth of Scotland’, using
spelling of names listed in the 1997 edition of Munro’s Tables. Prior to this, England has variously been
credited with between four and seven baggable peaks, Wales 14, and Ireland
between seven and thirteen respectively.
The following statistics are based on my list so far of 52 compleaters
(which include several SMC luminaries), and spans the period 1929-2012.
Here
is the distribution of 47 known first-round finishes:
18 Brandon Mountain
5 Galtymore, Lugnaquillia
3
Beenkeragh
2
Carrauntoohil, Elidir Fawr, Helvellyn, Ill Crag
1
Caher, Cnoc an Chuillinn, Cnoc na Peiste, Cruach Mhor,
Scafell, Scafell Pike, Skiddaw, Tryfan
And
of 9 known repeat rounds:
2
Brandon Mountain, Scafell, Snowdon
1
Elidir Fawr, Foel Fras, Lugnaquillia
Five
hundred and forty four listed Munroists (March 2013) have done the Furths, just
over 10% of the overall total. However,
things are not as simple as they seem.
For instance, it is clear that not all compleations are
reported/recorded, as in the case of Paul Russell (731) who finished on
Lugnaquillia, 28/10/1977. It’s also
known some compleaters report the Furths as an integral part of their Munro
round, and this produces different dates.
Finally,
not wishing to detract from the admirable work of the Clerk of the List (and
his predecessors), it is hoped that the above serves as an interesting
introduction to my ongoing research. Anyone
who wants to impart their Furth details, or would like a copy of my list,
please e-mail moelfamau555@gmail.com
1. 12/09/2002
