rhychydwr1
Active member
RAY MANSFIELD Born in Bristol in 1942
Lived in Bedminster and one of his first memories was when he was about 3, standing in the street with neighbours cheering a soldier returning from war, and being told it was his dad. His brother Gerald was born after the war. Gerald sadly died a few years ago, also of cancer.
Went to Cotham Grammar School and started caving when he was about 14. He sometimes went into school for the morning register, then nipped out again and went caving, often with his friend, Tony Oldham. His mum wondered how he had got so muddy at school. He became part of the Cotham Speleological Society.
Began caving in Burrington Combe, often cycling out and back. He then met other cavers and discovered that there were bigger caves on Mendip. He was then hooked on the sport and later became a member of MNRC (Mendip Nature Research Committee), SMCC (Shepton Mallet Caving Club) and UBSS (University of Bristol Speleological Society). He was known to use UBSS as an alias, for example when caught on the Yorkshire Moors without a permit. This misfired once when another party wrote to them complaining about his cavalier attitude, only to be told they were all in Ireland at the time. They had overlooked Ray.
He also loved books and worked at Bristol Reference library and Bath University library before finding a job on his beloved Mendips with agricultural engineers Uphills at Chewton Mendip. He had married Kay and they bought a cottage in Oakhill, where they had regular visitors from other cavers calling in for coffee and a chat.
In 1974 he had a fantastic trip to the USA & Canada with Milche, Martin and Bob. They bought an old car and in 3 months drove 12549 miles, visited 27 limestone caves, 32 lava caves, 21 National Parks, & 6 National Monuments. They also climbed several mountains and came back very fit and very thin - it was a time when a person could only take ?300 out of the UK.
He carried on caving all over the UK and abroad, and even got conned into carrying a bag of cement all the way down St Cuthberts Swallet when they were building dams at the bottom.
However, his main interest was cave literature and from 1963 onwards became involved with BSA Speleological Abstracts as a Regional Abstractor, and by 1964 he was editor. In February 1970, with Tony Oldham, he initiated Current Titles in Speleology, an annual publication covering Caving Publications for the previous year. From 1993 CTS was integrated with Speleological Abstracts, and Ray continued to work with them for several years before eventually handing over to others.
Until the mid 80's he kept a card index of all publications he was aware of and on Boxing Day started to put the cards in order ready to type the information on to stencils, usually finishing by the end of February. Although it took him a while to agree to use a computer, he was glad when he did as he could just press a button at the end of the year and everything was sorted into order ready for printing and he just had to proof read before publication. It was a herculean effort but gained him huge respect from all over the world as an authority and added greatly to his knowledge. In 1976, the national caving body in America awarded him the NSS Certification of Merit & he was made a Fellow of NSS.
From very early on Ray had been accumulating off prints and knowledge of Mammoth Cave, Kentucky and even back in the 1970's had hinted of publishing a bibliography. Mick Sutton & Sue Hagan of CRF in America were in the UK so Ray passed all his Mammoth Cave references on to them and he co-authored with them the Mammoth Cave bibliography, which is now on line. If you need any more evidence of what a force for caving he was and how much of his knowledge he gave unstintingly to others, you only need to consider how many publications and books he is listed as an acknowledgement.
In recent years when asked the inevitable question of what he intended regarding his book collection he responded with, put an advert in the paper - "Half a ton of Caving Books, all different. Best offer over ?10".
In 1960 her went caving on Mendip with Tom Harrison, the then curator of the Sarawak Museum in Kuching, and inspired by his tales Ray always wanted to visit South East Asia. In May 1982 he set off with Janet, both carrying as little as possible in their rucksacks. They flew to Bangkok and spent almost a year travelling through Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, China, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, with a brief stop in America on the way home. They avoided most of the tourist spots but went to as many limestone areas as possible. They had lots of adventures including staying with tribespeople in longhouses in the highlands of Borneo, visiting some fantastic caves, going into China as some of the first individual travellers to be allowed in, and meeting up with cavers in Japan where they were given a warm welcome and taken on caving trips. Janet even dragged him grudgingly to Disneyland, and he loved it.
On his return to the UK he went back to work at Uphills and Janet & Ray lived at Nedge Hill for three years before moving to Downhead.
Having produced an international caving bibliography Ray was well known around the world and had regular visits from foreign cavers when they were in the UK. He went with Janet to a caving meeting in Puerto Rico, where he gave one of the lectures. They returned to China for a month with their friend Liz Price. They also went to Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary a couple of times to meet some of his caving contacts. His passport then ran out and he decided he no longer wanted to go abroad but would rather stay in Downhead, in the cottage he loved, surrounded by all his books and several cats. He built an extension on the house - definitely needed to house all the bookcases. By this time he had left Uphills and became self employed, doing odd jobs some days each week and building the extension on others. He initially did some decorating for David Reakes and ended up working in the office and doing egg deliveries for Mendip Eggs. He also went back to Uphills as assistant storeman for a while.
In retirement, Ray & Janet enjoyed many walks with their neighbour's dogs, following many local footpaths or just wandering through Asham Woods. Although he wasn't in such good health over the past year and the dog walks were shorter and slower, he seemed determined to get jobs finished so the house was in good order for Janet.
He was also a keen stamp collector, with his main interest being stamps on caves, Japan and Japanese Occupation. Being Ray, and never doing things by halves, he produced an index to his Japanese Stamp Magazine, for which they awarded him their International Silver Medal.
Ray always loved cats and Janet became involved with the local Cats Protection branch. Ray didn't become a member but was always willing to be their handyman, helping with maintenance of cat pens etc. He was also happy to stay home looking after the cats while Janet was away on holiday.
He had always been a keen cyclist and in his teens had several cycling holidays, using Youth Hostels for accommodation. He rejoined YHA in the early 80's and became a life member, sending them regular contributions to appeals as he felt they had helped him in his youth. In his teens he cycled all the way to Liverpool to stay with his uncle. When he was in his 40's he joined the Somer Valley Cycling Club and enjoyed riding time trials. When he could no longer cycle as fast as he would have liked he carried on helping the club at events - marshalling, time keeping etc.
Although in recent years he wasn't keen on going out, other than for dog walking which he loved, he was always happy for friends to call in, particularly if they were interested in caving books, prints or stamps.
In 2010 he suffered his first heart attack and 6 months later had a cancerous kidney removed. He recovered well and life seemed back to normal. At the beginning of 2015 it was found he had prostate cancer of the bones. After a year of being reasonably well his cancer spread to his spine and he died on 6th March, at home, comfortable and out of pain, with Janet and her sister Pam at his side.
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After the funeral there was refreshments in the back room of the Hunters Lodge at Priddy - the cavers' pub. There so many people there that they had to use the other bars too.