Mike Boon
When I learned that Mike had died I was filled with a deep personal sadness. The two of us had become close friends during his time in Yorkshire, often in the company of Pete Livesey and Bill Frakes.
When he first moved to Yorkshire sometime in 1963, Mike lodged with Bob Leaky for a number of months, during which time he introduced Bob?s children to caving, especially his son Julian.
It was around this time that Mike joined the Bradford Pothole Club and became acquainted with Livesey. A strong partnership quickly formed between them, and being like minded ,they formed a formidable team that pushed back the boundaries of the possible, culminating in the early descent of Mossdale Pot.
It wasn't long before Pete suggested to Mike that he should move to Huddersfield.
As a result, he stayed in Lindley with the Livesey family for a month, during which time he wrote himself a reference for a job at a local school. This application also included his version of Mrs Liveseys signature as she was a well known head teacher. He got the job and held it for three months.
Pete knew that I had a spare room in Golcar, Huddersfield, so he came round one night to see if I would take a lodger. I agreed to meet Mike and discuss arrangements. He stayed for more than three years. It turned out to be one long roller-coaster ride from start to finish, climbing, caving and endless parties with femail students from the Oastler Teacher Training College.
This was about the time arrangements were being made for the 1965 Jamaica expedition with Pete, Tich Morris and Ray Stoyles. The house would often be full of expedition chatter, especially when Tich was there to discuss progress as the departure date drew close, also to deal with the sponsorship materials which were stored in Livesey?s barn.
When the team returned from Jamaica, Mike had to find work. He tried a number of jobs, the longest of which was a spell with Huddersfield Corporation as a bus conductor. Not that they would make much money from Mike, as he granted free passage to the elderly, anyone looking poor, and pretty young ladies.
Mike was always thinking of ways to earn a crust, that would also give him the freedom to do the things he most wanted to do. His next move was to enrol as a student teacher in General Studies at a Technical Teacher Training College in Huddersfield. During that time, I already had a steady job. But, in the days following his acceptance on the course, Mike convinced me to pack my job in and enrol on a course at the same college, which I did.
Somehow we both ended up having teaching practice at Wakefield Technical College, and Mike found out that Leakey?s daughter Benita worked at Wakefield central Library, so we went round one day and took her out for a surprise lunch, needless to say, we met again.
Down to a Sunless Sea was written around this time after spending countless hours in the library, there also was a resurgence in his poetry, with one poem relating to a "Walnut Faced College Principal"
It was whilst at college that Mike consolidated his reputation as one of the leading cavers of his generation with an exploration of an extension to Marble Arch Cave in Northern Ireland. This was some years after his now famous dive in Swildens Severn.
During the Christmas-New Year 1966/67 he and I stayed on for another week or two after all the other group members had returned home. It was then we discovered and explored extensions to the Screen Hill Passage of Marble Arch Cave, which included the largest section of cave passage in the system.
One day in between our caving trips to Screen Hill, Mike suggested that we should visit a farmer friend on the Marlbank Rd. Mike has had a long association with the McGovern family and this related to his stay a few years earlier after problems with his tent. When the door opened, Mike was welcomed as a long lost member of the family by Mrs McGovern who ordered us to stay for lunch where she promptly set about making a fresh loaf of bread for our forthcoming meal.
The following Easter a diving trip to Marble Arch Cave would be the last time we would be away from Yorkshire, caving with our three friends Bill Frakes, Colin Vickers , and John Ogden. All three were to perish in Mossdale, a tragedy that left Mike visibly shaken, and as far as I can remember , for some reason, he didn?t go underground on the rescue, but there again, I could be mistaken.
A short time later Mike investigated the possibility of taking a degree at McMaster University in Canada. He could then combine his studies with his literary and caving ambitions. At that time there was a fairly strong caving club at the University, which included Charlie Brown, who Mike had caved with in Jamaica. After Mike left for Canada we had very little contact.
Occasionally my farming neighbour would knock on the door and tell my wife, that a strange man had been hanging around the house, of course that was Mike who had come over to see his mother but was also searching out old friends. Interestingly, on that first occasion Mike "hitchhiked" from Canada! He managed to attach himself to a large party of children, and by helping out with the administration like collecting all of the tickets to hand in for processing, he became included in the group. As a result he got a free flight to France. Search as they might, the flight attendants could not find that extra passenger. He then hitch hiked to the French coast where after a lot of enquires with the owners of the moored yachts in the harbour, got a lift across the channel to England. Boon was the only person I knew , who had the persuasive personality to get away with that kind of manoeuvre.
In the mid seventies, Sue and I made our first visit to the States. But first we visited Calgary where we stayed with Mike. The accommodation was a dark, dingy boiler room in the basement of a small block of flats, very basic as one could imagine, it was typical for Mike in his later years.
We lost contact when he went to live in Mexico.
I must end this short memorial by saying:-
To be a person who new Mike was a privilege.
To be someone who caved with Mike was a privilege.
To be one of a group which included Boon, Livesey and Bill Frakes, sharing all of the good times we had together, was a privilege.
Mike was a very talented individual. Although he lived many miles away in Calgary and when neither of us were in contact with each other, he will be missed, left with memories that took place only yesterday.