Clifford Edge
AN INVITATION TO HOLLAND to lecture on his Fen Climbing technique resulted in
what was possibly his finest hour when he gave an exhibition of abseiling down
a frozen canal, escorted by a crack team of skilled Dutch down-hill skaters.
The banks were lined with excited Dutch enthusiasts all heering and chooting.
Having virtually retired from his intensely active life, he was much in demand as an after-dinner speaker and would regale his audiences with tales of climbs far and wide from his beloved Fens, such as, "The Somerset Levels" or "The Great Plain of Salisbury - Avoiding many an Ancient Ridge" or, closer to home, "Holme Fen" near Peterborough, apart from those already mentioned in his books.
These after-dinner speeches were better attended than the organised circuit type e.g., in halls, as, apart from the food, if there was a stage in the hall Clifford would insist that as many as possible of the audience were on the stage whilst he spoke from the back in the body of the hall. He would usually begin his talks with some quotation, his favourite being, "We are here, as on a Darkling Plain".
Cliff, in these later years, could honestly and proudly claim (and often did), that during his many expeditions in the field, no one fell nor was even slightly hurt - a truly magnificent record. This was due in no small part to the fact that his expeditions were indeed, "in the field" - nothing was attempted that could, by any stretch of the imagination, be deemed too high, nor dangerously steep for his followers to follow. Of course, the team also had the distinct advantage of being unencumbered by heavy breathing (apparatus), though tiny tents were sometimes carried by a small team of short porters.
It was this and his level-headed outlook - he neither looked up to nor down on any one in the team - that ensured success in what was to become the unique form of Extreme Sport that it is today - Fen Climbing.
He would often end his speeches by declaiming one of his verses, written in the style of the great Thomas Hardy, whose works - during his quiet, introspective moments - he readily admitted he had admired since his schooldays. It shows just how much he favoured the Fenland area; I quote:-
"There are some levels in East Anglia,
Shaped by a Kindly Hand
For thinking, walking, and climbing on -
And at crises when I stand
And think say, of Burwell to the eastward,
Or of Bulbeck, to the west;
They're both within my easy reach;
And the climbs I favour --
For they are the very best".
Such a stirring conclusion would inevitably be greeted by loud and prolonged applause, and the odd "Huzzah!" Alas, his speeches escaped the attention of keen recording engineers, so we are left with only the written word, and must imagine the fervour of his delivery. Thus this largely unsung hero passed quietly into history, remembered only by there being somewhere, low down on the wall of his "shack", a green, low isosceles triangular plaque bearing this odd tag along the bottom edge:-
VERT IGO IFYA SCAY LIT