This page is to help keep the memories alive and, sadly, to record the inevitable deaths of former members.

Many former members keep in contact and a very successful reunion took place in August 2017 (report). We would like to locate more.

Following the demise of WMCEG I understand some former members continue with occasional underground activities.
I’m a member of PDMHS, others were (are?) active with Dudley cavers and doubtless more retain at least an interest in the sport.

The web site is effective, through it we have established links to several more former WMCEG members.  The idea was that some past members may be looking for WMCEG to see if it’s still active (until 2017 it was listed in caver’s magazine, Descent as still active).  Also people do search Google for their own names and sometimes those of people they’ve lost contact with.  The aim is that they will discover this web site and perhaps have something to contribute.
In total the number of names and/or nicknames of former members is now over 60 and still growing.

Want to participate?

• If you aren’t mentioned, please do get in touch.
• Can you add to the list of former members’ names?
• Would you like to share any photos (with names, locations, dates if possible)?
• With your permission, I will post your stories to the reminiscences page
• I could post scans of the newsletters, I have very few, if anyone has a good supply, time, and a scanner I’d be happy to add them here.
• I do have “At last the bloody songbook” but it’s not suitable for publication (let’s say that’s because of possible copyright infringement rather than the unsavoury language of some of the contents!).

This is a list of a few names we can remember and for whom we have no contact details – if one of them is you or someone you know, please get in touch.

No known contact Pete Burns Colin Hayward Roger Solari Peter Shewel Dave Johnson Tom Giles Chris Boxall Ian Johnson Paul Hicks Mick Clarke Dave Bowdley Andy Grimes Jim Durr

I’m (or was) aware of a third party who is in contact with those below but I’d like to hear direct from the individual and add them to the mailing list. Jim Lister Trish Sterling Richard Dearden Rachel Dearden John Kyle Ian Shipley

And then of course there are the nicknames these are some we can recall: Grunt, Pixie, Skippy, Ram, Clint, Petal, Cisco, Anneka, God, Honky, Gadget, Colon, Sloth, Doc, Winnie, Skunk, Silver, Shoves, Knocker, Muffin , White socks, Tom the Bomb, Captain Pugwash, Scooby Doo, Smoothie, celebral palsy, Bob 2, Toffee, Runt, Cherry, Rover, Plastic Bag Jane, Nosher, Six dollar man, Magnus Mastermind, Rover

If you want to contact a former member I can forward your email address to them if I have their address.  I also have phone numbers for a few members.
I cannot disclose the contact details of other members (privacy legislation – and they may not want to hear from you!) and prefer not to list those for whom I do have contact details (privacy).

I am especially glad that we had the big reunion in 2017 to meet up and reminisce before too many more deaths.

Name (Nickname)	Date of death	Comments
Dave Rennison (God)	25/6/19	Died in Malaga of a heart attack
Chris Fuller		Was a trustee of the ODSS
Dave Gough	Dec 1979	Died in a caving accident with another club. (drowning, Ogof Ffynnon Ddu)
Roger Solari	Jun 1974	Briefly a member of WMCEG, later died sump-diving in Ogof Agen Allwedd 1973.  Solari failed to return from dive. This section of cave was later named the “Remembrance Series”.
Jack Fell	1975	One of our founder members
Trevor Pritchard (Muffin)