A cross the peace of the Ullswater valley occasionally a shot would ring out, followed immediately by another, the sound echoing off the fells. This double firing of a shotgun was a signal to local GP Dr James Ogilvie that he was needed, his wife’s finger on the trigger alerting him and neighbours to the emergency. If the doctor was not within earshot, someone else who knew where he was on his rounds would send word so he could attend the casualty.
In the history of mountain rescue there are some great stories of initiative and human endeavour to respond to those who need help. In 60 years, Patterdale Mountain Rescue, which is marking its major anniversary in 2024, has come a long way since the days when huntsman Joe ‘Hunty’ Bowman and local farmers would gather to assist anyone who had come to grief on the fells.
Dave Freeborn, president of Patterdale Mountain Rescue, its team leader from 1991-2008 and a member since 1981, has witnessed other changes. “Before we became a recognised team set up by Dr Ogilvie, it was farmers and mountaineers who rescued people. They would gather people from local hotels if they looked a likely lot and had climbing boots.”
It’s also not that long ago that calling for help meant one of the walking party setting off to find a distant farmhouse or a public telephone box to alert the emergency services.
Communications have, of course, come a long way, but it is not the only development in 60 years of mountain rescue.
Dave continues: “Then it was lots of people suffering from hypothermia. Thankfully that doesn’t happen much now because of outdoor clothing which has improved so much. Now it tends to be broken bones when people have fallen.”
Patterdale’s territory is arguably one of the most high-profile in Cumbria because it covers Helvellyn and Striding Edge, the northern side of Kirkstone Pass, Aira Force and Ullswater itself. It is certainly considered to be one of the busier teams in the Lake District, typically attending 85 callouts a year.
Perhaps reflecting the frequency of incidents in the area, The Herald newspaper was calling for a formal rescue squad to be formed as far back as 1922, but it took a man of vision and action Dr Ogilvie, who was an experienced climber and mountaineer, for a team to be established in 1964.
It was able to set up a base when the Patterdale Hotel offered the use of the end of a barn. Known as Deer Howe, it comprised a control room and a small training area. The team also had use of small garage for its single vehicle.
Later the team merged with Outward Bound Ullswater Rescue Team which operated as a separate organisation further up the western shore of the lake.
The hotel supported the team for a long time charging just a peppercorn rent for the facility but eventually Dave and others decided they needed to look around for a more permanent base. His wife Jacqui recalls: “Mice were eating the ropes, and when people were brought down off the fell their stretcher had to be put on the garage floor while we waited for the ambulance.
“If we were going out for an evening, we used to have to phone the police station to tell them where we were so we could be found if needed.”
It took some time to find a location within the national park where they could construct a purpose-built base but eventually a small woodland site opposite the church in Patterdale was identified. “Patterdale Estates, which owned it, said they would be happy to let us have it if we could get planning permission,” explains current team leader Mike Rippon, who has been a member for 16 years.
The new centre was built and opened in 1999. It is a large building and has facilities to provide the highest standard of on-site medical care, a control room with the latest communications technology, security for vehicles and equipment, an indoor training area and educational facilities for school groups and the public.
“Ten years after we moved in the option came up to purchase the land and even though there are lots of covenants on it it allowed us to be masters of our own destiny,” adds Mike.
The £375,000 they needed came from donations and fundraising. Over the years the team has acquired considerable resources and equipment. A tour of the centre takes in their new, £78,000 converted Land Rover Defender and two older, long wheelbase Defenders (a third is garaged with Ian Chambers, at Tirril, who contributes by looking after it for the team). The new vehicle came about in a special turn of events. Dave explains: “Prince William generously received a Land Rover, which he then kindly handed over to Mountain Rescue for a raffle. In an unexpected stroke of luck, our team emerged victorious in the draw, making us the proud owners of this Land Rover. It’s truly an extraordinary gift from Prince William and a remarkable addition to our Mountain Rescue efforts.”
The team is equipped to carry out rescues on the lake and other waterways as well as on land. A dedicated area was added to the base as a boat house to accommodate a maritime rescue specification, rigid inflatable boat, which is a declared resource for the Coastguard and was summoned to support operations in Carlisle and York during Storm Desmond.
The team is due to take delivery of a new, £82,500 boat this month. More typical water-based rescues are typically people falling on the rocks or into the water at Aira Force and swimmers and paddleboarders getting into difficulty in the lake, often at Howtown Bay and St Patrick’s Landing.
Change has come, too, in the weather with increased frequency in major events like storms and floods, the most notable in the Ullswater valley in recent times being Storm Desmond in 2015. The team was operational non-stop for four days. Its own headquarters didn’t escape the deluge either as the beck immediately behind the building flooded the ground floor.
“Storm Desmond changed quite a lot, even how we operate here,” says Mike. “We were severely flooded and because of that we had to rethink a way of waterproofing the base as much as we could which involved construction work.”
At this time extra floor and storage space was added as well as updates to the control room. There is a further control room which other emergency services are able to use in the event of major incidents.
Each member of the Patterdale team has a ventilated locker with their personal rescue kit. There are racks of two-way radio, stores of ropes and stretchers and a huge drying room to ensure that dry, usable kit is always ready to go.
A pleasantly furnished room is set aside for recovery and waiting families; more sombrely, it can also be used as a temporary morgue.
Barely a year goes by without a fatality on Striding Edge, a narrow ridge used on the final ascent of Helvellyn. It can be a hairy experience on a blustery day; it should be avoided completely by inexperienced walkers in wind, snow and ice.
Accessible only on foot, it typically takes the fully kitted out rescue team 80 minutes to reach casualties on Helvellyn. “Following one fatality in 2018, the very next day someone else fell and landed on the exact same spot and we were able to rescue him,” recalls Mike. “He survived and went on to raise £18,000 for us. It can be like that: so tragic one day yet so rewarding the next.”
Sadly, the team is still coming to terms with the loss of one of their own. Volunteer Chris Lewis was critically injured when taking part in a rescue during the night of February 6, 2021, on Red Screes above Kirkstone Pass. The team had been called out after one of two campers, who had broken travel restrictions brought in at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, began experiencing chest pains. The two men were later fined £200.
Chris fell around 500ft and severely damaged his spine. He faced a long and challenging recovery but was determined to continue as part of the team by lending his expertise as a trustee. After a short illness he succumbed to pneumonia and died in Furness General Hospital on September 4, 2023, aged 62.
At Chris’s funeral, Patterdale MRT provided a guard of honour with ice axes crossed over his coffin borne by pallbearers drawn from the team members; other uniformed Mountain Rescue personnel lined the path to the church.
“Behind the surface people are still suffering,” says Mike. “It’s brought home to the team awareness of the risks that are out there especially during night rescues.
“It made us ask, ‘what can we do better?’ and that’s led to a whole new area of training to make team members more conscious of the dangers and to instil confidence in everyone to shout up if they don’t feel comfortable doing something.
“The nature of what we’re doing means going into dangerous situations because someone has already got to a point where they need rescuing. Risk management is a critical part of what we do.”
The makeup of the team, the volunteers’ different skills and the demographic of the valley today have all changed from the early days.
“It used to be mountaineers helping mountaineers but it’s not like that now and we have all sorts of people, including some who haven’t done much mountain practice,” says Dave, whose own background is as an outdoor instructor, graphic designerw and videographer. Jacqui, who volunteers as base controller and a trustee, was a nursery nurse and runs their guesthouse.
Mike, who is a commercial manager in construction, says: “It’s a result of society changing. There aren’t the people living in the valley like it used to be and now team members might live ten-15 miles away.”
They have two intakes of volunteers a year and, from around eight applicants each time, may accept just two. “We look at their skills set and bring people in who meet our expectations then train them in what we need. We take them out for a day in the fells then invite them for training. Our probationary period lasts about 18 months until they are accepted.
“We need to cover all bases because there are a lot of roles within the team like control room, people with technology skills, vehicle knowledge, search and rescue skills, and we have people who just want to pack and carry. There is a place for everybody.”
Medical skills are important too and there is a paramedic, an anaesthetist, an A&E nurse and consultant and a GP among the team.
Members’ ‘day job’ employers also contribute to the service by allowing their staff time away from work to volunteer, and families also have to be prepared to see mum or dad rush off to a callout at any time.
Mike, who is married to Katie with three children, says: “I have a very flexible employer that grants me the ability to drop everything and dash out the door. The beauty of modern communications is that we have access to all the management and information systems and I can actually operate that and coordinate a rescue from my desk, but generally we mobilise the team, draw up the rescue plan and execute it from base.”
Mike says he relies heavily on his three deputy team leaders: Matthew Cox, Neil Barrow and Dan Farley. There are also officers who lead different departments: Sean Duffy, who is in charge of training, Dr Andy McAlea who is the team’s medical officer, equipment officer Matthew Neilson and radio officer Eelco Docter.
The team currently numbers around 50, including half a dozen probationers. There are 12 trustees, chaired by Chris Sanderson, and volunteers who work solely on fundraising and work on the public relations trailer at events. The team meets every other Tuesday evening and on the last Sunday of each month for training.
Annual expenditure runs to around £105,000, which includes having high quality kit for all conditions for members. One of the most popular fundraisers is the duck race at Glenridding on April 1, which will return in 2024. A range of merchandise and an annual photographic calendar can be purchased from the team’s online shop, which also has information on various ways to donate. Bequests are another important source of funding.
Regular income however is what counts. The Supporters’ Club was established by the late John Scott in 1998 and the team is keen to raise awareness of it among people who want to formalise their support with a single, family or lifetime membership paid via standing order.
The 60th anniversary will be marked modestly with a weekend at Patterdale Hall in May, when team members, former team members and their families, supporters, dignitaries and representatives of the other emergency services will be invited for a party. An open day will be held at the base for the public on the following day. An end of year team dinner is also planned.
Mike says: “We get a lot of support from local businesses, hotels, The Quiet Site and Rookin House activity centre that fundraise for us. That continued support from the local community is really important; there is a huge amount of goodwill and generosity “People we rescue do a lot for us too and raise money in all sorts of different ways.
People do so many different things and without it the team wouldn’t survive. We do want to thank everyone who supports us.”
And they don’t just rescue people. Together with an RAF helicopter crew they helped release a bull that had got stuck in a gully on one occasion and led two horses down off High Street when their rider fell off and was injured in a storm. They have rescued goats, numerous sheep and 24 hounds that had to be brought back off a ridge.
Patterdale MRT is one of 12 independent teams in Cumbria represented nationally by the Lake District Search and Mountain Rescue Association (LDSAMRA) which ensures the region’s voice is heard nationally by reporting into Mountain Rescue England and Wales.
Members attend national and international events where best practice and learning are shared. Patterdale has also ‘supplied’ personnel to the wider cause. Mike Blakey is set to take over as chairman of LDSAMRA and Ray Griffiths, the longest serving member of Patterdale Mountain Rescue Team, is honorary president of Mountain Rescue England and Wales.
Dave adds: “We look after our rescues in the valley, but we also want to play a bigger part when we can.” With 60 years’ experience in one of England’s most challenging landscapes, they have a lot to share.
mountainrescue.org.uk mountainrescue.org.uk/join-our-supporters-club
