Today very experienced team member Gyles Denn assisted by team member Nigel Booth, carried out a full day of rope training / stretcher lowering / raising with team members at the small quarry just prior to the main quarry at Cadshaw, Turton and Entwistle.

This all day exercise was a consolidation of previous intensive evening training held on a number of Wednesdays over this summer by Gyles Denn, and on previous Sunday sessions.

For today the nine Bolton MRT team members present were joined by four members of our friends and colleagues at Cheshire SART, who had asked if they could see our ‘rope work’ methods in action.

Present today and welcomed from Cheshire SART were their Deputy Team Leader Phil Walton, Susie Skinner, Fabrice Fleurot and Andy Isherwood.

Our nine and the Cheshire four were joined mid afternoon by our Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE and Trainee Member Martin Battersby, shortly after which at 14.52hrs a call out from GMP, for assistance with a search operation, curtailed all further training, and as usual in instances such as this, it happened right at the point when the maximum amount of team kit had been unloaded out of bags and was in training use throughout the small disused quarry workings!