Brian was born in Preston in 1948 and first encountered the Lake District as a young boy when his father took him fishing there. Brian volunteered as a mountain rescuer at the age of 18 while serving an apprenticeship with British Aerospace. The quote from their internal paper, ‘Airframe’ states that he’d approached a mentor and told him that he’d “like to do something useful with my spare time”. He joined the South Ribble MRT, which became Bowland Pennine MRT. At that point, I doubt he had ANY idea what he was letting himself in for!
Having moved to Ambleside and marrying Miriam in 1974, Brian joined Langdale Ambleside MRT, and had two children Graham and Gill.
Brian’s knowledge of the hills became legendary. On one occasion he was able to identify the location of a casualty by the description they provided of the rocks around them. Walking with friends in the hills, he often navigated without a map, from memory alone.
Brian’s gregarious personality meant that he was always first to welcome visiting mountain rescue teams, whether they were visiting for social reasons or to assist on a rescue. This approach made him many friends from other teams, in particular from RAF teams. On many weekends, Brian would often catch up with friends and grab an early ascent of a peak before lunch, thereby making himself available for the inevitable rescue in the afternoon.
Brian was also keen to extend his enjoyment of the fells to others and would often take out groups for walks in the fells in his spare time. He hosted countless slideshow presentations at the rescue base, and spent many weekends on the team stall with his best mate Dave in Ambleside raising donations for, and promoting, the Langdale Ambleside MRT.
Brian was a great proponent of the idiom that if you could make someone laugh, the pain would lessen... and became well known for joking with casualties and gently buoying them up. Rumours that the drugs they’d been given were to lessen the pain of these, often terrible jokes, remain unconfirmed.
Brian would often attend nearly every call out, year in, year out, and in 2006, Brian was presented with a long-service award by the Mountain Rescue Association of England and Wales for 40 years outstanding service as a mountain rescue volunteer. Brian attended well in excess of 1500 rescues.
Miriam passed away in 2007 and Brian became re-married to Margaret in 2012. Although he retired from the team in 2010, he remained an avid supporter, often stopping to chat and catch up on the latest news.
If Brian was a stick of rock, he’d have ‘Mountain Rescue’ written right through him!
Brian passed away in hospital in his home town of Preston on 3rd April.
He will be missed by many, many people.
Nick Owen, Team Leader, Langdale Ambleside MRT, 2005 to present.
