Fred’s Run
Fred Rogerson was one of the founder members
of the Bob Graham 24 Hour club and
although he never attempted the round he was an inspiration to many members
over the years. It was not unusual for
runners making an attempt to be encouraged by Fred and his wife Margaret at one of the road crossings
at any time of day or night. I was lucky
enough to be one of the new members who had their certificate presented by Fred at the 2009 Bob Graham Round Dinner.
Fred passed away in October 2010 at the age of 89 and his
family thought that it might be a nice idea if as a tribute he finally got the
opportunity to complete the Bob Graham. The date was set for a Clockwise round with a 10pm start on Friday 15th July 2011; a portion of Fred’s ashes would be carried by a relay of runners. The ashes were going to be carried in a
pocket watch case presented by Bob
Graham to his pacer Phil Davison.
That was how I came to be standing at the Moot Hall in the centre of Keswick together with quite a large
group of people counting down to 10pm, eight runners, including me set off to applause from the
rest of the group.
The pace as usual seemed too fast as we ran
off the main street down one of the little alleys, across the car park and the
road heading for the darkness of Fitz
park. As we started the climb of Skiddaw we settled down to a fast walk
and introduced ourselves to each other, I already knew Steve Cliff who was navigating this leg, Steve has assisted in over 100 Bob
Graham rounds, his wife Wynn was
made an associate member of the BG club
for providing road support on a similar number of rounds. Also in the group was Gary Thorpe part of the winning pair of the 37 mile Old County Tops fell race this year and another well known
name, previous women’s Champion Fell
runner Angela Brand-Barker. You
could tell that this round was going to be a ‘Who’s Who’ of fell running!
During the run Fred’s ashes were passed among us so that everyone had the
opportunity to carry him for part of the route.
As we climbed, the mist thickened and the wind picked up, the forecast
was for heavy rain but it hadn’t hit us yet.
The top of Skiddaw was not a
place to hang about tonight, a quick count of head torches to check that there
were still 8 of us and Steve guided
us exactly to the point where we crossed the fence for the descent to Hare Crag. Quite a trod has developed down here; we were
soon into the boggy section before the climb to Great Calva. Second top
completed and we followed the fence steeply down to the point where we crossed
the river Caldew, not too deep, only somewhere around my knees but the rocks
are slippery and I wouldn’t like to fall in.
We then began what always feels like a long plod over Mungrisedale Common before the ascent
of Blencathra. The mist made navigation difficult here and
we spread out to find the right path to the top of Blencathra. Stood around the small circle of concrete
that marks the summit we made what turned out to be a bad decision, we decided
to descend to the end of Leg 1 at Threlkeld via the aptly named ‘Parachute Descent’. This descent goes directly and VERY steeply down from the summit
picking a reasonable path over some very rough ground. However on this dark misty night we missed
the right line and ended up floundering around on some uncomfortably steep
ground losing a lot of time until we eventually dropped into the stream called Gategill which led us down to the road
at the end of the leg.
A small group of people including Wynn Cliff and Ian Roberts, another stalwart supporter, were waiting for us at Threlkeld with tea and cakes. We were about half an hour down on the
scheduled time of 2am so we didn’t hang about for long, Gary and I carried on through from Leg 1 onto Leg 2 as
planned and we teamed up with a couple of blokes from Wigton.
We set off at a good pace being led by one
of the Wigton lads, by the time we
reached the Old Coach Road at the
base of Clough Head I asked if
anyone thought we were going a bit fast and thankfully they all agreed only
nobody had wanted to say anything! I
suffered on the climb up Clough Head
and as we started running off the top I was feeling quite sick but that soon
settled down again as we alternated the running and walking along the Dodds towards Helvellyn and beyond.
On this section the rain had got a lot
heavier and was driven by quite a strong wind, navigation was not too
difficult, there was low cloud but not very thick and daylight was arriving,
such as it was on this murky day. This
leg was still very familiar to me from my own Bob Graham round which was just over 2 years ago and I recognised
each top and remembered the directions to the next.
By the time we reached Dollywagon Pike it was 05:30, Gary
and I had completed 13 tops of the 42 on the round, I was soaked through and
feeling a bit cold. I made the decision
to miss out
I had done enough for today, 24 miles and
10,000 ft of ascent in about 8 hours so I was pleased to get warm and dry and
leave Leg 3 to someone else. Leg 3
is the longest on the round, taking the route from Dunmail Raise towards Langdale
and then on via Bowfell, Esk Pike
and Great End over Scafell Pike the highest point in England and Scafell before dropping to
the next road crossing at Wasdale. Two Bowland
Runners, Leigh Warburton and Chris
Reade took over the relay with Fred
for this leg, they set off 30 minutes down on the schedule but we knew they
would soon make that time up.
Fred’s run went on through the day, he
was carried by lots of different runners some ran a leg or two, others just met
up for a few tops before returning to their starting points. The weather was atrocious, with heavy rain,
strong winds, thunder and lightning, after all this was July in the
There is a clip on You Tube of some of the weather at Honister which is the start of Leg
5, find it by following this link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56U3E_90Ahg or by searching for johndavidfleetwood freds run.
When Fred
reached Portinscale a large number
of his friends and family joined the round which continued at walking pace back
to the finish at the Moot Hall in Keswick arriving at about 7:30pm on Saturday.
Selwyn Wright, as the organiser of Fred’s Run, wrote the message below
which appeared on the Fell Runners Forum
and I don’t think he will mind if I use it to complete this report.
“I was just tucking into my first pint
(about 9.20pm Saturday) when Morgan drew my attention to the huge double
rainbow which had settled above Latrigg. The point was not lost on any of us!
This was one of Fred's great big smiles at the end of a hugely satisfying day.
The fact that it followed about three hours after the massive electric storm
which hit Honister and made us scurry for cover was surely significant. I've
listened to Fred's, "The Bob Graham Round shouldn't be easy...."
speech many times. I had to think that the thunder and lightning was just
another way for him to make his point. Maybe Suzanne, Richard, John and Ian,
high on Dalehead, didn't quite see it that way!
Anyway enough of my sentimentality! The fact is that we got him round, and I
think for most of us it certainly wasn't easy. They were pretty miserable
conditions almost from the start: at the same time as my heart went out to
those of you who battled the wind down the Helvellyn Ridge and those who raced
through the deluge to Wasdale, I was dreading the soggy climb up Yewbarrow! And
later on Gable the marrow was thoroughly chilled.
As in most BGRs everybody contributed and I hope everybody has got the same
sense of satisfaction that I'm wallowing in! It was a weekend which I shall
remember always and I want to thank you all for helping to make the vision a
reality.”
The man himself would have been proud.
Selwyn
Written by:
Richard Davies
Submitted: 19th
July 2011
Edited by: Brenda J
Earnshaw WRR Editor