Being Editor in the NPC used to be like being a vicar in a brothel, or a heating engineer in an ice-cream factory - there wasn't a lot to do. But something seems to have gone wrong with my calculations, suddenly it seems everyone - except Thorpe the Thug who breaks teachers' arms - has learned to write. I have even found out to my total amazement, that Millington, of Millington Enterprises, once had an education and has discovered the pointed end of a pen ...

With several major English Cave discoveries and expedition reports from Mexico to Greece, this journal is a far cry from the first one I did a few years ago when I wrote every article under false names and it is a great achievement for a club that, as our retiring President anounced, is becoming fragmented.

In the caving scene of the 80's the club concept does come in for a lot of criticism. As the scope for individualism is extended by the use of modern caving methods, some may ask is the club necessary at all?

The club, however, is an integral part of the British caving scene, and no matter how many fragments exist in the form of 'secret societies', individuals, or others with a mutual interest outside the club, sooner or later they all return to the fold.

Perhaps it's the need of a good booze-up, a sort of Goon group therapy, perhaps assistance in some project that has suddenly got too large to handle (exploration or a survey); or merely a market for 'sherpas'; or someone to share the cost of a journal. I almost mentioned somewhere to have a nice quiet night's sleep, but with a refugee from Standard Fireworks on the loose this is ludicrous.

Fragmentation is good when it produces results from which club members can benefit as a whole and this journal is a good example. But it becomes totally counter-productive when it reaches the stage whereby some club members have to learn what is going on from outsiders. This is probably what Buzzer was referring to at the A.G.M. and is indeed a word of caution from the wise, as a club within a club can only exist when a free exchange of information is available. If inforamtion is withheld, then this infers a lack of trust, and if we can't trust our own members then our method of selection and recruitment is wrong.

J.Eyre