Ben Dors

rhychydwr1

Active member
BEN DORS

"The Hunters Lodge and all those pints of Cooking;
Those dry stone walls which jump when you're not looking.
A honk that, makes : bells ring,
These Mendip things
Remind me of you."

In my memory it is always summer on Mendip, soft, green and peaceful, a place of the country, in the country. It is a memory of walking down leafy Priddy lanes, the distant sound of singing emanating from the Hunters Lodge Inn, spiritual home of Somerset caving, barely pervading the consciousness, but always spurring one on until at last a door opens from the cool night into a warm, smoky hubbub - a typical English pub with a typical English Mine Host. Summer days that will never end, for they live fresh and: clear in the recesses of my mind.

But now a breath of sad winter touches my scene. For Ben Dors died last night. To all who patronised the Hunters ? and they are legion - Ben was the common denominator, a historic figure built into the masonry, whose cheerful ruddy face has welcomed not only today's visitors, but also ghosts from a famous past - Balch, Harris, Tratman, Savoury, Balcombe, architects of the very foundations of Mendip speleology. Ben knew them all.

As if hewn from the local limestone, solid characters grew up around that place before caving had. learned to crawl, and like the rock they have weathered away and one, Gilbert Weeks, Jack Maine - Ben Dors.

The singers have gone, the old bar has gone, Ben has gone. We meant nothing by 'They Words', Ben, as I think you knew. But these words mean something.

They mean we will miss you.

Alan L. Jeffreys, 9.7.80

from BC Vol 79 page 55

 
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