CDG Letters to Members

Jenny P

Active member
The British Caving Library would like to complete its run of CDG publications and we are seeking 4 issues of the early "CDG Letters to Members", which pre-date the more familiar CDG Newsletter.

If anyone has copies of issues 21, 22, 23 and 24, published between Dec. 1950 and Dec. 1956, please PM me.  Scans of these would be quite acceptable.

Thanks for your help.

Jenny P.
 

Pitlamp

Well-known member
Surely copies of these are in the CDG library? Might be worth dropping a note to the CDG Librarian (via the generic address on the CDG website) as a starting point?

The Wessex library may also be a good hunting ground.
 

Jenny P

Active member
Apparently they are not - that's why I am trying to find copies as I'm not the only person after these.  Once we find them, we can exchange electronic copies with various libraries so copies can be printed to make the various collections in different parts of the country complete.
 
If I recall correctly from my book research, those numbers were never used for some strange reason. It is not that they are missing from the collection but that they were never issued. Should that information prove to be incorrect, I too would be grateful for photocopies.
 

Ouan

Member
Martin Wright said:
If I recall correctly from my book research, those numbers were never used for some strange reason. It is not that they are missing from the collection but that they were never issued. Should that information prove to be incorrect, I too would be grateful for photocopies.

The Shepton Mallet CC library list has a note that Letters to Members numbers 21 to 24 were not published.
 

Jenny P

Active member
Ouan said:
Martin Wright said:
If I recall correctly from my book research, those numbers were never used for some strange reason. It is not that they are missing from the collection but that they were never issued. Should that information prove to be incorrect, I too would be grateful for photocopies.

The Shepton Mallet CC library list has a note that Letters to Members numbers 21 to 24 were not published.

If that is correct it would explain things as several libraries have been trying to find these and no-one seems to have them.  Many thanks for that information.

I can now just mark the BCL catalogue as "Numbers 21 - 24 not issued" and save us all a lot of bother.

Thanks again for your help.

Jenny P
 

Pitlamp

Well-known member
Didn't the late Ray Mansfield publish a definitive guide to all early CDG publications, mid to late 1970s? (I have a mental note that this may be in CDG Newsletter No.47 but no time to check as I type.)
 

Pitlamp

Well-known member
Just done some rummaging and found the reference: I was right:

Mansfield R, 1978. The Publications of the Cave Diving Group. A Complete Bibliography. Cave Diving Group Newsletter New Series No.47 (April 1978) pp. 23 - 25.

Unfortunately it doesn't appear to include "Letters to Members".

What happened to Graham Balcombe's material? Did it go to the BCA library? If that's in there but not yet sorted, it might be worth looking through any boxes of FGB's papers?
 

Jenny P

Active member
Many thanks Pitlamp, that's further useful information. 

Ray Mansfield was, at one time, a member of Shepton so maybe that's the source of the Shepton Library List note from Ouan.  I'll also be able to check out your reference to the CDG Newsletter 47, which we do have in the Library - although you do say that it doesn't include the "Letters to Members" at least I can see what it does say.

I don't recall seeing any of Graham Balcombe's material in any of our unsorted boxes.  Although they are not "catalogued", i.e. the contents listed fully, they were checked roughly and a brief note of the contents made when we first acquired them from Roy Paulson in 2007.  Sorting these boxes properly is on our rather lengthy "to do list" and, now we have a 3rd. person working in the Library, we are gradually beginning to make progess with the enormous backlog BCL inherited.  (But it's a never-ending task because new stuff keeps arriving all the time.)

Jenny P.

 

Pitlamp

Well-known member
You and the team are doing a fine job Jenny. A lot of us really appreciate it.

I went to Greenclose earlier this morning and checked the NPC Library for you - I can confirm we don't have the items you asked about. Reckon the note from the Shepton (from Ouan) is likely to be the definitive answer.
 

Ouan

Member
The note in the Shepton library list dates back to the 1990s when Bryan Ellis was librarian. I'm sure he would have consulted Ray Mansfield, Dave Irwin, Martin Mills, and possibly even Graham Balcombe, as to whether the missing numbers ever existed.
 
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