I have been waiting for Mrs Trellis to share his memories of Aber caving during the 1967 outbreak, but as he has not done so I will paste them for all to enjoy:-
"Another notable weekend was during the foot & mouth outbreak of 1967 when all caving areas were closed other than Burrington Combe on Mendip. We stayed at Mike Harris' house in Keynsham and queued up (yes queued up!) to do Rod's Pot and Goatchurch. Mike Harris wasn't too pleased when someone, smashed on scrumpy, puked in his fish pond and killed all the goldfish. The highlight of the weekend for me was sighting, outside Goatchurch, a member of the Homo Speleologicus Reactionarius Mendipus species. This callow youth sported a pair of hobnailed boots (Hobber Power!), the remains of a boiler suit, and a compressed paper helmet with a chin-strap of hairy twine. He appeared to be assembling the rusty remains of a "Premier" carbide lamp. "Youth", I said, "argh" he replied, "youth", I continued, "don't you know you should have a rubber ring between the two parts of the lamp?"
"Rubberrrr" he replied, "don't know nothing about rubberrrr, this be all metal argh".
I stood back while he struck a match, the flare of the phosphorus highlighting his acne craters, and applied it to the carbon-block, bible-black jet of his Bradford built wonder light.
A whoosh of acetylene came from the lamp's joint, immediately setting fire to the hairy twine round his chin. Startled by his sideburns actually burning and his cardboard helmet starting to smoulder, he threw the flaming helmet to the ground and stamped it into small pieces with his hobnailed boots."
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