INTRODUCTION TO WESSEX CAVE CLUB CAVING LOGBOOKS DVD by Phil Hendy
The 45 logbooks recording the activities of the Wessex Cave Club span the 72 years between 1946 and 2017. There are two gaps, where the logbooks are presumably lost. The books were written at the various headquarters: Eastwater, Hillgrove and Upper Pitts. The originals are held in the Fire Safe at Upper Pitts, but these scans allow a general readership without the chance of accidental damage or loss.
They were scanned or photographed by the late Dave Irwin and myself, and subsequently modified to enhance legibility, and saved as JPG files. Each page, on the original and on the scan, has been numbered. Words made illegible by being written into the centre spine of the book have been inserted, but nothing has been redacted. Some editor’s notes have been inserted where for example a sketch survey has not been given a title. Each scan is labelled with its page number, and a date, eg. 001 2.1.08. This date is the first dated entry on the page, and will help to locate entries, together with the folder index. Asterisks and other marks on the original usually denote the point to where a Journal editor has extracted entries for inclusion in the ‘From the Log’ section of the Wessex Journal.
The main Index has the following columns summarising individual logbooks:
(Sequential) Number, (Library) Acquisition Number, Period (Year(s), Dates (first to last entry), Notes, Box File No. (in Fire Safe), CD-ROM. Some scans were copied onto discs, but these may not be readable, and may contain unenhanced versions. These discs are in the Club Library.
Each logbook has its own folder, with the individual page scans, and an Index. In the Index, the caving entries are listed under:
(Library) Acquisition Number, Entry Number, Date, Cave, Location (Region, County or Country), Notes, Survey and Significant. Pages with a survey, or significant events, are shown in the relevant column with a P.
As well as recording tourist, exploratory and digging caving trips, the logbooks record much of the social life of the Club, and it is well worth reading the scans. Some of the comments may not be PC by today’s standards, and the opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by the Committee or the general membership.
WCC Librarian January 2018
NOTE FROM WEB MASTER
1 Using the base data from the DVD the information has been restructured for the web site. The Main Index is as above. The index for each logbook has been put onto the Individual Indexes Page. The images for each logbook have been merged into a single pdf to match the original logbook and is listed on the Individual Logbooks Page. (The 2018, 2018-2019 and 2019-2022 Logbooks added post Librarian’s note above).