A weekend away

Oh my thumping head. I've spent the weekend in Bangor, attending the UCNW Stage Crew 25th birthday bash and going up a mountain. I went up by train last sunday: I was going to hire a car, but after working out costs and petrol, it worked out cheaper to go by rail. Besides, it allowed me to have a drink or several. And, when I got to my destination, to have several more, and then some. I stayed at the Eryl Mor Hotel, which conveniently enough was directly opposite the pub. It also boasts, as I found out the next morning, a spectacular view across the Menai Straits, Bangor Pier and harbour, and the wide, snow-flecked sweep of Snowdonia.
It was great to meet up with a few old faces - I wasn't sure that I'd recognise anyone, or whether they'd recognise me. In a couple of cases, it took a bit of intent peering behind fading hair and wrinkles to work out who was who. Besides, alcohol was involved, which didn't exactly help things at times. I'd half-expected that we'd be meeting up at the Student's Union, but no: apparently, it's hardly open anymore, it's losing money and it's about to be pulled down. It was a bit of a shame, because I would have liked to have seen the old place one more time. However, its failing state suggests that its heyday had been when I was a student there, in the times when a room with a fire safety limit of 125 persons was regularly filled with more than 4 times that amount, where the air was thick with cigarette smoke and cheap 80s perfumes and body spray and beer fug and a frantic joy. Whether this is a good or bad thing, I'm not sure. I did walk past the place as I went home, and I could see the toll of the years - if it didn't get pulled down, it would fall down. Some things hadn't changed: the faded Welsh graffito on the wall of Jock's bar, the signage painted by green algae, the curtains on the upper floors in their half-open, half-torn, mostly stained state - even a half-drunk bottle of Newcastle Brown, placed behind a pillar and visible through the floor-to-ceiling windows, could have been there since 1989. Overall, though, I think we did best to stay in the comfort of the Tap and Spile.
On Saturday morning, nursing an aching head and a stomach full of a Full Welsh Breakfast (that's an English Breakfast, coooked in Wales), I took the bus up to Llanberis for a climb up Snowdon. My intention was to get the Sherpa bus to Pen Y Pass, then go over Pyg Track and down the Llanberis Path. Once I'd arrived at Llanberis, however, I quickly revised my plan. First, there was an awful lot of snow on the mountain: second, there was a freezing cold hard wind blowing gale strength. I realised that meant my original plan would be impossible to undertake because of the wind direction and strength and because the snow on the Pen Y Pass side would probably make any Snowdon ascent extremely difficult, even if well equipped. Instead, I took the Llanberis path, which is a tedious, dull, hard and very long slog up the mountain. There were plenty of other people going up the path, and it didn't cease to amaze me how poorly equipped some of them were. I went up with my trusty Berghaus boots, waterproof trousers, winter jacket, walking poles and a backpack with map, lights, food, medical pack, water and other useful bits; One chap I saw, while wonderfully coordinated in his clothing choice, had skimpy pixie boots, a lightweight summer jacket, a tastefully chosen bandanna and a jaunty little knapsack. Others were plodding up as though they were just popping back from the shops, including carrying a plastic shopping bag with a few bits and pieces in.
After getting past Clogwyn Station, the snow appeared, but it was deep snow that had been lying for quite a while and had turned into a very hard crust, with soft and rotten snow below. It had blown into drifts in some areas higher than my head, and left only very thin paths up, especially at the point where you walk under the rail line and look over Pen Y Pass towards the Glyders. I trudged on up, fighting my hangover and the wind and the cold, until I go to the point where the path deviates higher up from the rail line, under Carnedd Ugain and towards Clogwyn Coch, and saw a few groups of people sitting on the snow. Some where shuffling gingerly upwards on their bums, while others were shuffling gingerly downwards. After a few more steps, and not without a slightly rising sense of horror, I realised why: the snow had turned into an extremely dangerous sheet of ice, pointing down towards a sheer fall. I tried probing the snow, but it was quickly obvious that it was a solid icy crust. I also realised that I would have to be extraordinarily careful in order to turn round and get the hell out of there. It was brought home to me how you need crampons and ice axes whenever on the side of a snowy slope like that. Amazingly, some idiots with minimal equipment were still trying to get higher up. I decided to turn back, with lots of very small, careful steps and judicious use of walking poles. I wasn't helped in this by the wind, which was doing its best to unbalance me. What was also worse was the wind direction - from the south, meaning that it was relatively warm, meaning it was melting the snow, meaning that it was a rapidly increasing avalanche risk - if not that day, then later. Anyway, as you can tell, I made it off safely.
The next day, two brothers, in their 30s and both married, fell and died, less than 100 metres away from where I reached.

On this day in history....

I've just installed Sunbird (a calendar/task application) on the computer, and was playing round with the dates, when one came up: Sunday, October 5th 1986. Exactly twenty-two years ago to the day, I was on my way to university for the first time. Indeed, it was my first time away from my family, if you except a week at scout camp and another on a school trip. The weather was actually not too far removed from what it has been today: cold and grey and damp, although the rain then came in gobbets and gusts rather than the fairly solid downpour of this morning. My going was not exactly what you could call a cheery affair: for starters, I was feeling extremely apprehensive about what I was heading to, and about what I was leaving behind. My parents had only just split up, and there was a lot of pain and rancour floating around. Dad had moved out, mum was trying to keep it all together, and my sister was going to have to face all the emotional maelstrom by herself. In a way, I was glad to be going – I could shut out all the hurt. At the same time, I really felt for Karen and mum, and was worried about what would happen.
Anyway, I'd packed my bags the previous night. Actually, I should say bag: An enormous blue rucksack, stuffed to the gills with clothes, books, a kettle, some fruitcake crushed in the bottom, a sandwich toaster donated by my aunt, a few items of cutlery, various bits and pieces and, on the outside, a collection of pots and pans, meaning I'd clank as I walked. I say walked, I mean staggered, as the thing weighed a ton. My dad had promised to bring up the rest of my stuff, including my camera, later on in the term. I'd gone up to the pub and said bye to my mates, and had, if memory serves me well, a fairly good night's sleep. Then, early on that cold Sunday, my dad turned up on the gravel drive in his company Volvo, and loaded my stuff, and we all set off for the station in an atmosphere of tense, nervous bursts of talk interspersing the tense nervous silences. We picked up my girlfriend en route, adding another layer of emotional unhappiness to the mix.
We arrived at about eightish at Reading station, and I remember it being surprisingly busy for a Sunday morning. The entrance at that time was through a narrow door in the old Victorian station building, past a grimy, grey ticket office with scratched plastic panels separating the vendors form the public, and a station guard in the old BR uniform, his grey hair slicked back beneath his cap, busily checking tickets and pointing people in the right direction. We crossed over to platform 8, and my dad insisted on us all having coffee in the depressing little tearoom. As we waited, announcements floated through the air, then there was one relating to my train:
'Due to works, the 8.50 to Birmingham New Street will terminate at Didcot. Please alight there and take the connecting train to continue your onward journey.'
My mum looked at me with a wave of first, shock, then disappointment, then concern, then brief anger passing over her face. I just shrugged. Well, we all just waited on that platform, me smoking with Jo, Mum, Dad and Karen stood around, and no-one really knowing what to say. The wind picked up a little: it was cold, and flicked rain at us. Eventually, and with some feeling of relief on my part, the train arrived. I hauled my bag onto the train, kissed mum, hugged Karen, said goodbye to dad, and then Jo burst into frantic tears, but what could I do? I hugged and kissed her and said goodbye and that I'd call that evening, then she abruptly pulled away, sobbing. I got on the train, and pulled the door to behind me. The guard walked up and down the concourse, and blew into his whistle. I leaned out of the door window and said goodbye again, then there was a soft judder and the whole engine strained forward, each wheel rolling first gently then gradually picking up speed. I waved to mum, and karen, and Jo and dad and blew kisses, and they waved back as the receded into the distance, and I saw Jo suddenly turn her back again and sob. The train pulled out of the station: rain flicked into my face. I saw a line of shirts on a washing line, waving goodbye, I saw the graffiti on walls and alleys, the industrial units lining the train tracks, train carriages in sidings, and then I went to sit down, dragging my rucksack with me. I don't recall much of this part of the journey – in fact, it didn't last long, before it pulled into Didcot station, in the shadow of the power station chimneys, and I had to run, or rather stagger with greater alacrity, to catch the connecting train.
What I recall of this journey was first, how long it seemed to take. The train crawled all the way through Banbury, Leamington Spa, Coventry, Birmingham International and Birmingham New Street, Wolverhampton, Stafford and finally Crewe, where I had to change again. Next, I recall the cheery voice of the train driver, who happily recounted the names of the stations and any and all delays and cancellations due to works on the line, and who whistled and sang to himself, having left the intercom on. Over the next few years, I heard his voice many times, and always associated it with that journey into the north. The carriage always seemed to be mostly the same, and in fact seemed to contain pretty much the same people: there were always several students, pretending to read something academic, somebody, usually male, talking loudly and self-importantly, a little old lady, and a group of Glaswegians drinking McEwans and playing cards. On this first occasion, there was also a group of Japanese tourists, taking photos out of the window. Incongruously, sat right in the middle of them, was a fully-blown hippy, with long frizzy ginger hair, John Lennon glasses, and purple corduroy flares with yellow loons stitched in. Considering that this was 1986, it was retro to say the least.
At Crewe, I had to wait nearly an hour in the freezing cold before my connection arrived – the train to Bangor. I got on, and somehow got talking to the hippy, who, it turned out was an ex-student at UCNW Bangor. Anyhow, I spent the journey talking, and the sun suddenly appeared and mountains rose like waves suddenly, and my heart rose, and I realised that I was entering a brand new chapter of everything.
At which point, I think I should stop for now and leave the description of what happened next for another time.

A few more pics

These are from 1987 (21 years ago! How is that possible? there are people at my uni now on the verge of graduating who weren't even born when I first started boozing it up there), taken in the Mandela Bar and outside one of the entrances to the Main building. the former are of Michelle Shocked, a folk and protest singer of the time, and still among the very best gigs I have ever been to, and the latter of a very bored John Webb picketing the massed hordes of students trying to get to a 9.30 lecture. These pictures are all very typical of their time.