This evening at 19.45hrs, as team members were awaiting the start of our weekly training meeting, we welcomed to our Ladybridge Hall Base / HQ, former Rossendale and Pendle MRT (as it is now named) member Malcolm Welch.

At the official opening of RPMRTs new Burnley Base earlier this year, at which team member Diane Blakeley attended, Diane met up with Malcolm, and he expressed a wish to visit ‘old friends’ at Bolton MRT.

Malcolm spent many years as a Rossendale Fell Rescue Team member, which saw its name change to Rossendale Search and Rescue Team and now Rossendale and Pendle MRT.

During this time Malcolm took on the role of Rossendale Deputy Team Leader, but is probably best known within our team for his long tenure as Secretary within our regional MRT body the Mid Pennine Search and Rescue Organisation, in which Malcolm oversaw its name change from the Mid Panel Mountain Accident Panel.

Both within MPMAP and then MPSRO, Malcolm also collated our regional incident statistics, including the production of an Annual Report.

Malcolm has been retired from mountain rescue for a while now, and tonight met old acquaintances in the Bolton MRT in the guise of Diane Blakeley, our President Bob Hutchinson (who took over from Malcolm as MPSRO Secretary) Gill Leigh and our Team Leader Garry Rhodes MBE.

Malcolm stayed for the training session, commenting to our Team Leader how things have changed medical / casualty care wish from the ‘old  days,’ when those of us who can still remember, attended the casualty care courses run in MPMAP and the early days of the MPSRO by Doctor Neville Marsden of Rossendale team (Editor of Diagnosis before First Aid)

Malcolm left at 21.45hrs, promising to return soon perhaps as an exercise casualty for us on a training exercise.