It seems traditional that this editorial should now be a place to bemoan the stnte of the club – its membership, finances and activities. "Not what it used to be, not like the C.U.M.C. in the thirties, when the likes of Jack Longland and Geoffrey Winthrop Young were pushing back the limits on Cloggy and when the club was a major force in the climbing world." I seem duty bound to claim this is a penniless end poorly supported club, with enthusiasm on the wane and stagnating in its cliquey insularity.
Well this I can’t do. The club may indeed not have two pennies to rub together, this journal is no longer the important, hardback mountaineering publication it once was, but the C.U.M.C. still lives and breathes in a difficult environment. Cambridge, miles from a worthy bit of rock or a respectable hill, is not the best of places for a mountaineering club. Being a Cambridge student in the eighties is a high pressure, poorly paid job, and if any of us was a totally committed climber, they probably wouldn’t be here anyway. In these days of hard climbing on the dole or under the spreading umbrella of commercial sponsorship, the club cannot hope to be at the forefront of development.
Despite this, the club maintains a healthy level of activity, the freshers this year have embarrassed the older festerers with their keeness and the pages of this journal should show that all areas and types of climbing are frequented. There is a place in this club for both the lycra-clad rock athlete and the person who just finds peace and a release in the raw beauty of the Scottish hills. I find it encouraging that most of the people I climb with in the C.U.M.C. manage to combine some of both the above and much more besides.
Looking further afield, outside Cambridge, I do, however, find cause for concern. Much space has been devoted recently in climbing magazines to editorials and articles announcing "the death of British climbing" and warning of the growing level of commercialism in our "sport". Bolts, tights and competition climbing; gym walls, redpointing and multi-day sieges – all are vigourously supported or slated. But I can still go out and climb rock or ice as I used to (very slowly), and get my enjoyment and precious freedom in the way climbers have done for years. The climbing world has always been a back biting, anarchic melting pot of ideas and will continue to be so. This shows its vitality.
It is the fate of the very countryside which we enjoy that needs our attention. Beware threats to our access to the places we take for granted and abuse of the land we enjoy now. The Armed Forces and commercial concerns, aided by governmental support, are encroaching further and further into the wild places of Britain. Ski-development and The Forestry Commission have scarred some beautiful Scottish hills to give an obvious example. It has been discussed elsewhere, but don’t take it too lightly, go sit on a Pembrokeshire sea cliff – let the wind and sea spray blow into your face and listen to the sound of £1000 shells being fired into the sea from the vast military ranges.
So if you want history, read of the glorious years in the old journals. If you want excitement, release, Kebabs in Worksop, cheese-on-toast in the C.I.C. hut, escapism and cramped minibus journies, the C.U.M.C. is not dead yet.