In August 1990 a group of Team members and wives (17 in total) left Bolton on a Friday evening and travelled overnight to Lochinver in NW Scotland arriving around 6.00am on the Saturday morning. At 7.00am they set off on the long trek to a mountain named Suilven which the group then climbed.
Suilven
The purpose of the visit was to scatter some ashes of one of our former Team Leaders, Howard Hill, who had died some months earlier.
Former Team Leader Geoff Seddon scatters the ashes on the summit of Suilven
The group then returned to the vehicles near Lochinver. The round trip was just 12 hours, a grand total of approximately 24 hours since leaving Bolton. A drive of around another hour brought the group to the hamlet of Rosehall, Sutherland where lived a long standing friend of the team namely Dave Goulder. Now Dave’s association with BMRT went back to the early 70’s when he ran a bunkhouse behind Glen Cottage in Torridon. For a number of years the Team booked the bunkhouse for a week of winter mountaineering and during these annual visits some friendships were formed which last until today. Check out www.davegoulder.co.uk
A late evening of food and drink was had in the local hotel bar (The Achness Hotel, highly recommended these days for food) and then all 17 of the group slept at Dave’s overnight on floors and even in the attic! On Sunday morning as the group gathered to leave, Dave’s son Tom, aged 8, came out of the house with a little miniature model of a birds nest which he had got from the local craft shop. He handed it to us saying ’I want to give this to Bolton for Howard’
The group with Dave Goulder his daughter Polly and son Tom
Now this birds nest has been around our previous base at Overdale and more recently at LBH for 22 years. it has never had a place to call home. Its been on shelves, in cupboards, in drawers and moved from pillar to post. How it’s ever survived no one knows but it has. So now it has been preserved in a lovely display frame and can rightly become a proud part of BMRT’s history.
The birds nest now framed
