“CLIMBERS, LIKE SPACEMEN, WERE THIN ON THE GROUND IN BURNAGE.”


Cairngorms in 1971, and fearful that ‘certifi cation’ was undermining climbing’s ethos of risk and self-reliance, the BMC asked Sir John Hunt to take an overview. His report, published in 1975, warned that ‘by structuring safety conditions and codes,’ there was a danger that mountain training might ‘cramp initiative, to the detriment of safety.’ He proposed wide-ranging changes, including a constitution for the MLTB and oversight by the BMC.


Thus began one of the most intense and uncomfortable controversies in the history of British mountaineering. Jack Longland, fearful that his vision would be undone, simply ignored the BMC’s new constitution for the body he chaired and carried on as before. The BMC, responsible for administering an organisation it couldn’t control, suddenly lost a signifi cant proportion of its income, threatening bankruptcy. The fi ght spilled over into the corridors of Whitehall


and Westminster and the pages of the national press. It was only after a mediation process led by the Alpine Club, and some sensitive rebuilding work, that a solution was found.


Despite becoming absorbed in the mountain training world – he was appointed chief instructor at Plas y Brenin in 1958 and became director in 1960 – Jackson never lost his passion for mountain travel and exploration – nor the fundamental ethos of mountaineering. He also drew some of the leading climbers in Wales to come and work for him, including Don Roscoe and his future wife Barbara Spark, freshly returned from back to back all-female expeditions in the Himalaya. Barbara would go on to set up the outdoor education department at Bangor University, where Don went to work later on. This fl owering of outdoor education and mountain training, the growing number of local authority outdoor centres, the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme, the teachers and scout leaders bringing young people into the mountains, made new demands and carried increased risks.


A series of accidents involving young people in the early 1960s gave impetus to calls for a recognised system of qualifi cations for mountain leaders; Longland, Langmuir and Jackson all joined a working group to this end in 1962. Its offspring was the Mountain Leader Training Board (MLTB), founded in 1964 by the BMC and the Central Council of Physical Recreation with Jack Longland as chair. Barbara Spark and Ray Greenall ran the fi rst Mountain Leader Course at Plas y Brenin that same year. There was just one award, the Mountain Leadership


Certifi cate, but the MLTB added further qualifi cations and its importance grew. The new structure gave mountain training a measure of infl uence within the sport that some climbers came to resent, a process that accelerated when Jack Longland became a deputy-chair of the new Sports Council in 1972. Although the BMC administered the scheme, it was the Sports Council that paid the bills. Alarmed at increasing numbers of noisy groups, shocked by the deaths of six young people in the


Re-heated arguments are rarely palatable, and it’s fair to say that the training debate of the 1970s has largely faded from memory. There is still an active discussion about the role of the outdoors in education, and how formal that process should get. But Mountain Training, the successor to the MLTB, isn’t where that argument happens anymore.


Ray Greenall Ran the fi rst


Mountain Leader Course at Plas y Brenin in 1964.


Alan Blackshaw


Perhaps best known for Mountaineering – from Hillwalking to Alpine Climbing, the successor to John Barford’s book, he was also president of the BMC, the Alpine Club and the UIAA.


Sir John Hunt Led the 1953


Everest expedition and published a


controversial report in 1975, proposing wide-ranging


changes, including a constitution for Mountain Training and oversight by the BMC.


Iain Peter Ex- chief executive


R A balancing act on Crib Goch.


of Plas y Brenin and instrumental in the creation of the fi rst UK-wide training board.


SUMMIT#73 | SPRING 2014 | 75


PHOTO: SUSAN JENSON.


PHOTO: ALEX MESSENGER.


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