Gordon Parkin RIP

bobdearman

New member
Hi All,
Sorry to spread the bad news but Gordon Parkin aka "The Poison Dwarf" died last week. He'd not been well for quite a while with lung cancer affecting his one remaining lung. Apparently cause of death was pneumonia. Gordon was an extremely active Eldon caver through most of the 60's and 70's and was renown for being left down Oxlow for three days after I thought he'd left the cave and pulled up the ladders uphill from West Chamber. He also managed to blow himself up in Shay Lodge. They don't make them like that any more, fortunately.
Bob Dearman
 

bobdearman

New member
Yes three days, after being rescued he received letterboxes of religious bumf because it got to the papers that we'd caught him singing hyms.
 

SamT

Moderator
Yes, RIP Gordon.

Only met him a couple of times at the Eldon anniversary bashes.  The stuff of legends.

Tuesday morning, Gordons Dad on the phone - "Have you see our Gordon, he's not been home since the weekend"
Eldon member "Oh sh*t"

:LOL:
 

bobdearman

New member
For those of a nervous disposition please desist from reading "On being unwanted by the Eldon Pothole Club" Vol.7 No.1
 

paul

Moderator
I was on a DCRO collection in Buxton last year and a man stopped and started chatting about his past caving exploits. It turned out to be Gordon. He seemed a very interesting guy.
 

Dickie

Active member
Well, that's bloody sad!

Lots of good memories and stories around his exploits. Bob mentioned Shay Lodge sink.
I was on that trip - we were blasting a constriction at the bottom of a rift and the only detonation system we had was fuses - yep, light the end and run like hell!
Gordon, being the only smoker, had a lighter so he volunteered to light the fuse, which was only 3 or 3 metres long but was rated for 1 minute. He did a couple of dummy runs to show he could up the rift and out of harm's way in about 30 seconds, so had a 100% safety margin. He lit it and hurtled like a maniac up the rift, bashed his head and dislodged the Oldhams headpiece, which swung nicely behind him an wedged into a crack, like a really efficient chock! He puled his head to ensure it was really wedged and decided to curl up in a ball. Waiting for something to go boom is really slow, so just as he was about to shout out "It's a dud!" - BOOM!!! Gordon eventually emerged, ears ringing, his wetsuit in tatters and smoking, looking like something out of Tom and Jerry!

They don't make f***-ups like that any more!
 

Dickie

Active member
They don't make f***-ups like that any more!

Not him of course, just in case anybody misinterprets that,  but those mad situations!
 

T pot 2

Active member
Gordon lived in the Eldon Hostel for some time with a few others. Work was scarce, giros few and more money was spent on ale than food. Now the Eldon Hostel had a huge bunk bed two tiered and 20' long and under the bottom bunk there vas a void. Gordon suggested that we mesh out the sdes of the bunk and keep rabbits within in order to have a never ending food source. fortunately he met Ches and it never came to pass. Gordon was a special person.

T
 

Graigwen

Active member
T pot 2 said:
Gordon lived in the Eldon Hostel for some time with a few others. Work was scarce, giros few and more money was spent on ale than food. Now the Eldon Hostel had a huge bunk bed two tiered and 20' long and under the bottom bunk there vas a void. Gordon suggested that we mesh out the sdes of the bunk and keep rabbits within in order to have a never ending food source. fortunately he met Ches and it never came to pass. Gordon was a special person.

T

I remember the bunk bed, surely more than twenty foot long. Absolutely freezing cold, except for when what was laughingly described as a heating system spurted jets of boiling water over it at random times in the night.

.
 

Dickie

Active member
Gordon did seem to be broke most of the time - Sunday morning , cupboard doors banging "Anybody got any sugar to put on my cornflakes?" "Here" More banging and clattering "Anybody got any milk to put on my cornflakes?" "Over there" More ferreting noises - "Anybody got any cornflakes?"

He decided making resin jewellery could make some money, so began embedding some very unlikely things in resin for pendants - including once his sperm, a sure fire winner with the ladies, he thought. Didn't seem to sell much...

Had an ancient A35 which miraculously got him and Wayne to the PSM in 1973 - the underside took a bit of a hammering because he was determined to get anywhere a Land Rover could!

and so on...
 

DCA

Active member
The forthcoming issue of The Derbyshire Caver will contain an obituary for Gordon plus a couple of extracts (with permission from the author) from the EPC Newsletter. It's a long shot but does anyone out there have a photo of Gordon that I could use to illustrate the obit?

Mike Higgins
DCA Editor/Publications Officer
 
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