The St. Cuthbert's Swallet entrance rift is the best most used example on Mendip. It was Rostam Namaghi who suggested using a Pantin to me as a way of heaving my septuagenarian frame up it. Worn on the left foot it works well to pass the constriction part way up - worn on the right led to...

I am going to be very boring and quote from my log now! Pete Rose and I did a very frustrating photo trip in Shatter Cave on 21st September 1999. On the way in I heard a stream flowing inside the entrance. I visited the cave again on 15th October with Peter Rose, Nigel Cox, Simon Brooks and...

Funnily enough many years ago our local public health consultant wrote to me wanting to research radon absorption in cavers by getting volunteers to go into a cave and provide blood samples. I might still have the letter somewhere. I suggested he would have trouble finding volunteers from the...

I wondered how many lead miners got lung cancer? And I found this: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/644266/

Regarding Lyme Disease I saw one of the first cases to be reported in the UK. The serological test had only just been invented and the first samples went to Porton Down to a visiting researcher who scooted back to the US without reporting back. It was 18 months before we got the diagnostic...

Have you been to some of caves in Thailand then?

We're doomed, all doomed! In a blatant plug for my new book (see the media forum) I can say this is commented on to quite an extent in it. Histoplasmosi is the cave disease! As for cellulitis I have a huge olecranon bursa secondary to an infected graze on my elbow about 40 years ago.

Agreed, spectacular. There is a nice ice cave in the Myvatn area that is now used for tourist caving and of course there is Grotaja, a thermal spring cave, which was fun to swim in although access restricted now as got too popular due to Game of Thrones.

I originally got some 20 metre rolls from Oscar Mayer a food processing firm in Chard as they had to be discarded if even slightly damaged (at a cost of £900 a roll). They have left Chard but worth considering such locations for reject belt. A lot lighter than quarry belts.

To find out more you need the latest Caves of Assynt!

These are pretty good too. I suspect this is one of the least visited passages in Britain.

I am not surprised about the big pitch. Shahbanou entrance was over 100m

Where is it exactly? Some of the description is reminiscent of the caves we found in my book and there were hard to reach at a similar altitude.