by Tomo Thompson
The annual update ….
Buying
I have warm used notes / vital organs available for
All prior to 1916
1920
Selling
I have these for sale
1932
33
34
35
36
37 x 2
39
40
41
42
43
44
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53 x 2
54
55
56 x 2
57 x 2
58
59
60 x 2
61
62
63
If you’ve absolutely no idea what this post is about perhaps read this
*i can recommend collecting almost anything else on earth rather than the endless, fruitless years of trying to collate a full set of Clarions.
On the 19th of February 1956, Tom Tomlinson, the first full-time head warden of the newly formed Peak District National Park and Fred Heardman, the landlord of The Old Nags Head public house in Edale, organised the first training exercise of Edale Mountain Rescue Team.
In February 2026 the Team held a 70th birthday party at the Old Nags Head with lots of retired team members joining the current team for a night of stories and celebration.
From late 2025 i have been running a project to get a plaque erected to commemorate the teams 70th.
I approached Leander Architectural in Dove Holes, Buxton for their services to design and make a plaque the design for which was a hybrid between a traditional blue heritage plaque and an original red, white and blue Mountain Rescue Committee RESCUE POST sign that were once commonplace in the hills and mountains.
I have to say that i was blown away by the craftsmanship of Leanders. In between visits to check on our plaque i would rummage through their collection of moulds for past projects – including the SBS memorial at Le Verdon-sur-Mer.
After 6 months of work i was relieved to finally get permissiom for the plaque to be mounted on the listed Old Nags Head Inn in Edale. The plaque was mounted yesterday by a team colleague, hidden behind a barmaids apron !! and unveiled today by the Team chairman at a little event.
It celebrates the 70 year connection between everyone that has served in Edale Mountain Rescue Team, the area and The Old Nags Head Inn.
A few days ago we stretchered a casualty off Kinder and popped in to the Nags for a much needed cold drink afterwards, just like Tom and Fred and the first team members did 70 years ago and have done ever since.
Chuffed that i managed to get this sorted and unveiled in the 70th year of the Team.
Give it a nod if you’re passing ….
This hot dry summer has resulted in some enormous insects out on the moors. This Giant Red Striped Whopper Whopper Moth was pestering me on Kinder yesterday.
The buzz from its wings was so loud i had to tuck my ears in !!!
I wrote about this issue in January 2025 here Please read that first.
It’s now ‘come home to roost’ as well as grown a few additional limbs.
As i said back them i am categorically opposed to verge parking – it trashes the landscape, BUT i am equally, if not moreso, opposed to using enforcement to ‘stop’ an issue without the provision of a sustainable affordable public transport alternative to the private car.
As a summary of ‘what’s in store’ for the Hope Valley area of the Peak District National Park …
• The painting of red and yellow lines (limiting and or banning parking) around the Mam Tor, Winnats and Castleton area now complete.
• DEFRA have now sanctioned the verge parking ban from Dennis Knoll to Higger Tor and part of Ringinglow Rd to the gas marker, and part way down The Dale (see earlier article). This will take effect once a comms plan has been expedited to inform locals and visitors alike.
By an admittedly rough estimate i reckon that the spaces a car can park in (even if not legally) under Stanage and Burbage and Higger will reduce by 90%.
Surprise View has capacity for ~80 cars and that is closing for a year.
I’ve (badly) drawn a diagram to try and encapsulate all of this …
Very limited parking Mam Tor / Winnats area
Very limited parking under Stanage and at Burbage and Higger
Traffic lights for a year in the Hope Valley west of Bamford
As mentioned previously, there is no alternative to the private car for accessing thise areas. Where do they all go ?
These restrictions could provide an excellent opportunity for influencing behavioural change via an e-bus service to the crags area. There needs to be some carrot and not just a stick.
For the Stanage, Burbage, Higger, The Dale and Ringinglow Rd area my understanding is that the ‘first offence’ of verge parking will attract a warning sticker. The second offence is a £500 fine.
As someone who spends part of at least 340 days a year in the area i forecast utter chaos.
Quiet night ….
and then a 52 seat coach turns up at 9.50pm and 52 people from Slough get out (aged between 6 and 86) to go stargazing on the first cloudy night round here since the last Ice Age.
They went on a walk up to Millstone and back instead and then Colin McRae drifted his 52 seater Lancia Delta back in to the car park. Then they left.
It needed to be an episode of Phoenix Nights.
Then as we were locking the gate we saw some blue lights driving slowly on the opposite side of the valley. We went for a look see.
‘Hello, we’re the local rangers’, said we. Within the next 45 minutes we had offered our help to the police, deployed a drone, found a deer, found the at risk missing person, driven the police cross country to within 100m of said person, driven everyone back to the road, and offered our phone numbers to the police officers in case they ever need three slightly strange blokes in the dark with a very capable drone and a great deal of local knowledge and an odd sense of humour.
We may well have helped save a life.
Then it was the early minutes of Saturday and we just got back on with doing what we voluntarily do ….
aka Tales from the Eclipse …
We received a report and a photo from a witness of a couple having a BBQ on the moor at Totley Air Shaft. As soon as we arrived, a male (aka the one in the photo) walked straight up nose to nose with me and told me he ‘didn’t have a BBQ’. By his feet were cherry tomatoes and sliced mushrooms. In his hand was a bag with two paper plates stained with bbq residue . When we exited the moor he stood and argued with and filmed three rangers for 20 mins, adamant that he never had a bbq. Had he admitted it and apologised and cleared up and left it would have been a 10 minute issue. But because his partner was there it turned in to some perverse masculinity fuelled denial of fact. We ‘haven’t heard the end of it’, apparently. It was like some sort of Viz ‘barbecue denier’ character.
We reunited an elderly dementia sufferer with her husband. She was found walking up the road with her dog amidst traffic chaos. Kind campervaners loaned them blankets and deckchairs. We updated and then called off the police search and a ranger followed their car home to make sure they got their safely. In a night of hostility and stupidity, that was a gem of human kindness and great work by the ranger team.
Last night was awful. Thousands and thousands of people giving no consideration whatsoever to where they parked, access for public transport, farmers or other visitors, nor the damage to the environment. The crowds from 10pm until nigh on 2am for the meteor shower took those issues to the extreme. Thousands of unthinking, inconsiderate social-media hypnotised lemmings. A large number were also rude and or confrontational. From about 11pm there seemed to be a focussed social media driven stampede with droves of people arriving, abandoning vehicles and following a dot on their phone screens regardless of sense, reason or law.
Probably my least enjoyable volunteer rangering day ever.
Possibly the busiest night in recent history. Didn’t see a single ranger from the National Trust or the National Park 🧐
Partial eclipse night in the Peak District ….
Facebook reckons the fire in the Burbage Valley was started by a barbecue. I was the fourth person there (after Isaac and two firefighters) at what i think was about 40 minutes after it was first reported to the emergency services. I stayed there for 7 hours fighting it and helping co-ordinate the response. I didn’t see anyone called Facebook. Along with experienced colleagues we found no cause of the fire – no barbecue, no glass bottle, no campfire, no natural cause. No fairies.
We believe the fire to have been started deliberately.
Sorry Facebook.
Saturday 8th August
1201hrs – A walker called Isaac was on the flanks of Carl Wark and saw smoke coming from the wood below him.
Not being local he didn’t know if there was a cottage or charcoal burning in there. After a few minutes he set off (through chest high bracken, over a beck, over a fence and through thick woodland) to find out. At speed.
1206hrs – Nick, the local farmer, spoke to walkers at Burbage North that had observed smoke in the valley below. He then rang me. In a typically Nick way he asked me ‘if i knew Burbage was alight’ in the sort of way someone would ask you if you knew there was 20p off a pint of milk in the Co-op. ‘I didn’t’, i replied with fake nonchalance.
1207hrs – I sent this message to the Eastern Moors (EMP) rangers group ….
….. then slid down the pole into the bat mobile.
1214hrs – Isaac got to the fire site. Some fallen trees and the forest floor were alight. He called 999.
For some reason the Fire and Rescue Service (FRS) were, i think, wrongly directed by their Control to Lady Cannnings and then to Higger Tor.
1220hrs – Nick rang me and said FRS were aware but were having trouble getting in to the valley from the south.
I was making my way to the south access to the valley (aka Toads Mouth) at a ‘reasonable speed’.
On my way i rang Phil a colleague ranger and a drone ninja. Situational awareness is a game changer. He got sorted and headed in.
As i arrived i saw a FRS chap literally about to use a grinder to saw off the access barrier. We had a few words conversation and i unlocked and opened the barrier and 2 FRS tenders went up the valley and stopped at the junction above Packhorse Bridge. I hitched a lift up the valley on a passing tractor then ran down to the woodland.
1240 – There was a Scotty Pack (a 20 litre water bladder rucksack used for wildfires) by the gate, i shouldered it and went in to the woodland. I had a brief chat to Nick at the gate who said the FRS were struggling to find the fire – it’s easy on the hillside to see the smoke but less so when fighting through trees looking for it.
1244 – found it and found Isaac. There was a FRS operator just weighing up the fire and giving early reports back to their control.
Location
The fire was started near to an area we know well and call the ‘dog leg’ where the plantation ‘has a chunk missing’. The clearing has the Burbage Beck to the south, tall old conifer to the fringes and north, and then new growth birch around that. The fire was in the old conifers ‘top right’ of the clearing.
Scene
The FRS operator didn’t seem too bothered at that time. There was smoke and flame but nothing too alarming. The fire was up to about head height and going nowhere quickly. The south westerly wind at that time was only reaching the tree tops and not fanning the fire at floor level. It was clearly apparent where the fire had started e.g. the most south westerly burnt bit.
There was an excellent plan – which was hastily put in to place – to pump water from Burbage Brook direct to hoses on the fire. Some hard graft followed as did the delivery of more pumps and hoses and a reservoir, but this early initiative allowed the FRS to get good volumes of water on to the fire and not have to arse around with Scotty Packs. Gamechanger.
1300hrs ish – the wind strengthened and blew through the woodland at floor level. The fire front travelled quicker and pushed the fire towards the last few tall old conifers to the north. And up they went. Like forty foot fireworks.
There was a photo from this time that appeared on the Sheffield Star online. The crown of the trees were alight. Looked quite serious.
At ground level there were some ‘fucking big flames’, but the fire seemed to be going upwards and not outwards.
Up to that point the FRS plan was working well with the available resources. They then requested available crews from other stations.
Two colleagues from EMP were up at Tintwistle helping locate and extinguish residual hotspots from that weeks long fire. At the outbreak of this fire they made best haste back. Other volunteer rangers helped to close the valley to recreational users as additional assets rolled in.
Phil was tasked to fly over the wider woodland with a thermal drone and make sure the wind hadn’t carried anything from the blazing tree crowns out in to the wider area causing multiple ignition points.
Several years ago when many of the conifers were felled and the birch saplings planted somebody somewhere decided not to plant the birch right up to the old conifers. We owe them a cup of tea.
1330hrs ish – a Whatsapp message was received from the local farming community offering their help and also passing the message that the local gamekeeper estates were also asking if they could be of assistance. Although they were asked to remain on ‘standby’ at that time, knowing that the wider land management community had our back and could bring skilled, experienced and equipped wildfire fighters to help was a significant boost. Thank you.
1344hrs ish – by this time a few of the conifers were toast but, miraculously the change in fuel type (from very flammable old conifer to far greener and far more fire resistant birch) effectively closed the door on the fire. A photo at this time shows a markedly different and less alarming scene. A few pockets of low flame and a smoking woodland floor.
The positive impact of the fuel change was further increased by the FRS hosing hundreds and hundreds of litres on to the W, N and E flanks of the fire.
The FRS Polaris and EMP ArgoCat 4×4 vehicles also drove in to the woodland to provide additional support and water volume.
I walked round the site and mapped the area at about 200m circumference. It was mapped later by drone at 0.14 hectares or 1400 square metres.
1430hrs ish – Hotspotting is the term given to using a thermal drone and handheld thermal imagers to inspect the fire site for hotspots. FRS and rangers would then soak the area. This went on for about 2.5hrs. The ability to pump water from the brook and turn the area in to a sodden charred ‘porridge’ was a gamechanger.
One amusing episode here was finding a hotspot of 110c 30ft up a tree. Two FRS hoses made short work of it.
1530hrs ish – a colleague ranger dropped a bag of cola, chocolate and crisps in our Argocat. Having missed lunch this was much appreciated. Cheers Craig.
1800hrs ish – FRS personnel and rangers sat in the fire site and had sandwiches, cakes and drinks that the FRS had purchased. Thank you for sharing.
1900hrs ish – FRS and EMP rangers left the site. We headed back to the ranger base and shovelled chips in to our mouths before heading back out for the evening patrol.
2140hrs – EMP flew a thermal drone over the site. The entire fire surface had cooled to below 17c. Testimony to hotspotting and flooding it for hours to remove any risk whatsoever of residual hotspots ….
2221hrs – Our thermal drone found three males in Burbage woodland within a few hundred metres of the earlier fire. They were observed gathering wood and piling it near their tent.
The drone main beam was turned on them and the Land Manager informed them (through the drone speaker) that their actions were unacceptable and in breach of the Public Space Protection Order and that they were to pack up and leave immediately. They did. They were spoken to (face to face) by rangers at the car park.
Summary
We was lucky.
Graft and teamwork works.
Keep plans simple.
Comms were poor (they always are down there).
Get lots of water fast.
It wasn’t a barbecue.
Thanks everyone.
©️Please don’t rob the content.
Photo 1 – Looking west – Possibly the start of the longest spell of rain in something like 10 weeks. Due to fall until lunchtimeish tomorrow.
Photo 2 – Looking east – A rainbow over the city and smoke visible in several places. South Yorkshire FRS are currently dealing with fires at Wharncliffe Woods, near the old ski slope and on Harthill Rd.
It is undoubtedly the case that most UK wildfires are anthropogenic. Caused either by deliberate malice, unthinking and inappropriate activities or chance. Naturally ignited fires are rare and hard to identify, and ignition sources such as lightning strikes, though well documented in continental Europe and North America, are hard to confirm in the UK.
Excellent article by Keith Challis