Number in series 59; Year of publication 1966 - Fell and Rock ...

244 TWENTY YEARS OF SCOTTISH MEETS
Australia, presumably to reorganise the finances and general
business arrangements of that country.
In 1958 we were back in Kinlochewe; and in 1959 we once
again enejoyed good weather in Skye. One of the pleasant
features of our meets is the Volcano tea-making ritual. Started
by Theo Burnett, carried on by Bentley Beetham and, from
1959, by Gladys Cook, it has often been a source of comfort
to the weary climber (if he arrived down soon enough). We
have much reason to thank these unselfish people.
At Glencoe in 1960 we were compensated for our usual bad
weather by the excellence of the Ballachulish Hotel, a happy
discovery.
The ideal number for our meets seems to be 30 or thereabouts.
The 55 who attended the Invershiel meet of 1961
had to be accommodated in an hotel, a guest house, a
bungalow, caravans and tents; the meet proved utterly unwieldy
and the pleasant intimacy was lost. However we were
back to normal numbers in 1962 at Fort William. The weather
was cool with remarkable visibility. Graham MacPhee
reported 12 feet of snow on the summit of Ben Nevis. This
was to be his last meet and in just over two years wc lost our
three Grahams—Ackerley, MacPhee and Wilson—all good
company and sound climbers.
Mist, wind and rain were our fate at Killin in 1963 and
here, at almost literally the centre of Scotland, we realised
how much we missed the sea.
We were back in Glencoe in 1964. The enlarged queues of
cars at Ballachulish were a pointer to the way things are going
in Scotland. This was even more apparent at Aultguish in
1965. Rough one-way roads had been turned into doubletrack
highways and small country inns swallowed up or
reduced to appendages of the large modern hotels built beside
them. Do we approve or not Let us feel fortunate that for
20 years we saw the Highlands at their best; we may regret
the opening up of our many secret recesses but it is consoling
that, since most of the members of the Scottish Meet are not
now so young, we can often make wheels do more and legs
do less.
For the record:
Arran 1946, 40 Glencoe 1950,60,64 Kinlochewe 1952, 53
Aulttruish 1965 Inchnadamph 1953 Skye 1947, 54, 59
Fort William 1948,55,62 Invershiel 1951,61 UUapool 1957
Glen Affric 1956 Killin 1963