UKH

Based on Martin's recent thread on trying to avoid a MR call-out due to his benightment, I'm curious — has anyone actually ever been on the receiving end of a rescue that they didn't need or want?

Ha,

Same actually! It's a really funny story that she tells exceptionally well. I would be ruder but they're my boss and might see this

Not really a rescue but many years ago someone saw lights on the slopes of  Beinn Eighe very early morning while still dark (was January)  from the Torridon road & called the Police/Mountain Rescue. Luckily the rescue team sent someone to the SMC's Ling Hut where he learned from the rest of the group that myself & 2 others had left about 6 to go climbing in Coire Mhic Fhearchair. 

Yep, same here, got interviewed on radio as well - caused by a button on his mobile being pressed repeatedly when it was in his rucksack.

Also not really a rescue but, funnily enough, on the Cioch Nose. When I was a student a friend and I set out to climb it at New Year at 1pm in fairly rubbish weather. Not surprisingly it got dark about half way up, the weather worse, the rock became verglassed and our progress very slow. Some friends saw our headtorches still on the route at about 8pm and became unnecessarily worried and raised the alarm. When we finally got to the road on the pass not long before midnight, a car stopped and asked if we were ok (which we were). It was a local MRT member just checking up on us. He was very friendly and gave us a lift down the road and fed us some sandwiches and tea.

Guilty as charged

Friends recently had MR wake them up at 3am at the Shelterstone bivvy after some concerned walkers had reported them stuck on the climb as it was getting dark after seeing a head torch - they were late rather than stuck but had no way of knowing they were being looked for. 

Roger? If so, very long time no see!

Headtorches aren't the only thing that can trigger false alarms. 

Once had a mountain crag trad session on a windy day. A bit of shouting was needed for communication purposes but a good day all round on single pitch climbs. We were heading down just as it was getting dark and we met a MR team coming up the hill. A walker had phoned to say they had seen climbers on a cliff and heard shouting. That was all the information that had been given to them. The walker had heard this from a trail that passed close to the crag. 

In fairness to the person who called mountain rescue they meant well but if they had walked over to the crag (15 minutes off the path maybe) they could have said hello and found out that we were fine.

The rescue team asked us if there any other climbers on the crag and on learning that we had seen no one else there all day and no one was there when we left (we had a view of the whole cliff) they turned around and headed home.

Looking back we could have used rope pulls or walkies for comms. It never occurred to me that someone might hear me shouting "on belay" and be worried enough to call MR.

-ish. Around 12 years ago we set off to do Dubh Ridge in early April. Unfortunately, when we got 500m up or so we found it quite iced up and didn't have crampons, so we retreated. It got dark as we were navigating the traverse around the steep bit of the coastal path back to Glenbrittle, ended up too low and had to spend the night there until first light. We knew that our group at Glenbrittle would have to call for mountain rescue but there was no signal to do anything about it and we couldn't see enough to safely get back on the path with the experience we had back then. We got up just before first light, got high enough and called the police to call off mountain rescue. After we did, we noticed a boat coming into the bay where the Coruisk Memorial Hut is, turn around and leave. Get walked back to Glenbrittle where we were met by an understandably rather unhappy bloke from the MRT who wanted to know what happened. Upon explaination he basically told us that we did all we could have done at the time, so bollocking was averted.

Friend of a friend has...

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/hill_talk/sos_message_from_mobile_phone_c...

Yes - by the RNLI and Coast Guard.

Group of 5 practicing rescues and rolling in the tide race and big swell at Rhoscolyn. Unfortunately this is just below a coast guard lookout station.

After finishing the session, while paddling back to the beach, we were approached by the Treadur bay lifeboat which insisted on escorting us back to Borth Wen beach, where a coast guard 4x4 was also waiting on the beach with blue lights flashing.

Member of the public has reported that a kayaker was in the water.

I know someone who called MRS somewhere near the vicinity of Curved Ridge in winter (but good enough weather).  They sounded really indignant when they were effectively frog marched down Easy Gully, abandoning a couple of their slings in the process.

I don't think they ever got over the piss takes from that one.

Indeed. In these COVID days I have taken to lurking on UKC again.

I don't recall that we saw your torches, but it was a long time ago. Just that you were late back and well after dark. I called the MRT (directly) for advice on what (if anything) we should do, as wandering off to look for you seemed like an exercise in futility/benightment and we were getting rather bored and cold. The friendly MRT chap said that the MRT would not be able to do anything until morning, but offered to take a drive up the pass. Result - tea and sandwiches!

Friends were on the p*ss and having a fire on a beach and messing around with torches..

Unbeknown to them they had been sending the SOS signal, which the RNLI told them all about when they turned up uninvited at stupid o clock in the morning. Lots of red faces all round!!

Had a similar experience in Kylerhea, even though we'd called the coastguard on vhf and told them what we were doing.  Only 20 minutes later up roars the inshore lifeboat.  The crew were OK about, they just laughed. It was a nice day so they went for a blast around the bay.

I was out for a perfectly ordinary good-weather amble over Ben Ledi with a friend a few years ago, and during the lunch stop the friend realised that his new mobile phone had switched itself on and contrived to press a sequence of buttons that - from what we could tell from the recorded message being relayed - had alerted some kind of Norwegian rescue service. All very odd, and nothing came of it in terms of Norwegian or Scottish rescuers appearing, but it did cast a shadow of anxiety over the second half of the day.

In pre-mobile times, I was in a group of (I think) six who did a night-time Ochils loop in lovely winter conditions - full moon, complete snow cover, bright enough to read a map by and no need for torches although we had them just in case. It was always planned to be a late-evening job, but with it being so nice we sat around up top and got down later than intended, around midnight as I recall. Found a note from the local polis on one of the car windscreens - the wife of one of the party had become concerned (there had been some vagueness in the plans told to her) and in due course had made the call. Again all ended well - the person in question found a phone box, contacted the polis (which is basically all they were asking of him) and after a slight delay everyone went home as planned.

Many years ago a friend and I were climbing the sports routes at Brean Down, taking turns to lead all the routes.  At the end of the session we continued to the top and walked back along the ridge, as the tide had come in, to find a bit of a furore going on down at the bird sanctuary/cafe.  We counted 2 helicopters, 2 ambulances, 4 police cars and 2 coast guard vehicles and everyone had their eyes on us as we approached.  An old dear in the cafe thought we had been cut off by the tide and unable to get out. No further action was taken, other than our details being taken, but we did make the evening news that night. In retrospect I'm not sure why we gave our names, these days I think I would refuse.

Al

Late one midsummer's night when camped in warm tents on top a Munro drinking G&T with a slice of lemon, a walker came to our tents and asked if we were OK.

Pretty funny he was checking up on us but no harm done.

We once emerged from Daren Cilau (huge cave complex in S Wales) to meet South Wales Cave Rescue on the grass outside who declared "they were very happy to see us". Turns out our home contact outside had got drunk and thought our 9pm callout time was a 9am callout time. We had come out another way, so missed the team who'd already squeezed through the 45 minute "vice" and "keyhole" passageway to start looking for us.

It was late in the afternoon about 10 years ago; me and a friend decided to climb a few pitches of the sport climbing on the huge face behind Wadi Rum in Jordan until it got dark.

As we were starting to think about abbing back down there was a convoy of blue flashing lights down in the village, that then proceeded to march up the hill towards us. It was quickly apparent that their intent was on rescuing us. There was about 10 army personnel waiting at the bottom of the cliff without any equipment to do anything. In broken English they shouted instruction, 'don't hurt yourself' and 'woah' upon any movement down the rope. We were very insistent that we were in no danger and a case of mistaken identity. None of them had head torches, and some were not very nimble on their feet. We shepherded them down the steep paths at the bottom of the cliff, providing light and trying to slow some of them down as they were struggling to keep up with the village kids (or guides).

Back in the village we went around the campsite trying to see if all of the climbers had been accounted for. But turns out the distress call from the village was for us. The army personnel very pleased at a job well done!

I remember years ago being told by Phil Thornhill that he had left his rucksack at the top of one of the chalk cliffs and had gone for a wander round to prospect new route possibilities. When he got back to his sack there was quite a crowd of rescuers who thought he had jumped off the cliff. Aparently it was a popular spot for people who committed suicide.

I've had a visit from the RNLI on the water too.  In my case early in the morning in Filey Bay while paddling solo. 

I decided to practice my roll, messed it up and had a swim.  Shortly after I'd sorted myself out and got back in the boat I heard a powerful engine approaching at speed behind me (scary - I thought I was about to get run over by a rib), and it was the inshore boat from the RNLI station all of about 1km away. 

I didn't think there was anybody about, but a dog walker up on the cliffs had seen me and called the Coastguard.  A lot of the volunteers were already at the station getting ready for an open day as it happens and their arrival was incredibly quick.  I had only just, by the absolute skin of my teeth, got back in the boat and started to look like I know what I'm doing again by the time they rocked up.

The crew were extremely gracious, though they'd have been within their rights to give me a bit of a bollocking really.  I just got a mild ribbing - they laughed as they told me they'd had reports of a kayaker who'd fallen out of a boat very much like mine and asked if I'd seen anyone fitting the description.  No escort back to the beach in my case, though no doubt I would have been frogmarched back to the slipway if I'd still been flailing about in the water when they arrived.

They said they'd actually been quite happy to drop their chores and go out for a quick blast around the bay, it was a nice morning shaping up to be a lovely sunny day.  I met them again after I'd rock-hopped my way up to Cayton Bay and back and called in to the open day at the station to drop a few quid in the collecting tin and see my 'incident' written up on the whiteboard of shame.

I'm more careful on that stretch of the Yorkshire coast these days, they seem to get a lot of 'well intentioned false alarms' over there.  There was one last time I was over that way a few weeks ago - the Flamborough South Landing inshore boat was out razzing up and down the coast looking for, I'm fairly sure, a family group I'd seen 'coasteering' quite happily between North Landing and Thornwick Bay an hour or so earlier.  And then another group they ultimately didn't find, reported as having been cut off by the tide the other side of their station back towards Bridlington somewhere.

As a slightly tipsy 19 year old, I was 'rescued' from the attentions of a fascinating older woman by a group of concerned (jealous) friends.

Thirty odd years later and I still bitterly regret being rescued. 

Me too. At Baggy Point. We had a right epic, all over the place, tide rushing in and looking like it was going to get us, us all over the cliff, a rope and gear dropping into the sea. In fact we were OK and got to the top safely - eventually. But to onlookers on the cliff top (it was in summer), it must've looked like we were in trouble, and then they must've phoned for help, because a lifeboat zoomed up below the cliff. However, when the lifeboat crew saw we were OK, they departed

Oh that brings back memories, 18, in uniform, an older woman but I didn't get rescued ))))))))

Cheers

Toby

I was doing something on Idwal, about 15 years ago, in late October with a bunch of freshers.  I think we had three headtorches between four of us, and fully expected to get benighted on the way down.

We got caught up with a group of four from another university - Bangor, possibly?  They were moving very slowly and had zero headtorches.  

The inevitable happened and I shepherded them down along with my group.  As we left the little abseil at around 8pm, OVMR turned up.  The other group's mates had freaked out at sunset and called them in.

They didn't seem to understand - or didn't want to understand - that I wasn't responsible for the whole group, hadn't planned to descend Idwal in the dark with three headtorches between eight of us, and had certainly not arranged for an MR call at sunset!  Looking back I suspect they'd had a busy weekend and we were the last straw.  We did get frogmarched down to the road and it was made very clear that just driving back to the hut was not an option, but instead we had to go sit in the station for 20 minutes and drink sweet tea.  I hate sweet tea...

Just rub it in why don’t you

Yup right in Avon gorge

climbing on sea walls rope gear helmets belays sunshine half way up the cliff a bloke I know as a cliff rescue person pulls up in the car park below and gets out and looks up.  Meanwhile someone is whistling and waving from the railing on the downs . . .

I say to the bloke in the car park . . . “what ?  - you been called out ? “.     

He says “yes” 

more whistles and waves - i recognise it as a fire brigade person. 

I point to myself and the belayer below and mime climbing moves while standing still and pointing to the rope and my helmet. 

Car park bloke says “somebody (member of the public ) called it in as people stuck on cliff -

everyone goes - we carry on in the sunshine.

Does my climbing look that bad ???  

Perhaps worth repeating my admissions from the earlier thread:

The first incident was in the 70's. I was with a young group doing a snow-holing practice overnight just up the hill from Kirkstone Pass. We should probably have let the police/MRT know we were doing it and would be showing lights, but we didn't.

The second was also in winter on Craig Meagaidh in the 90's. Two of us were benighted and our lights were seen. Lochaber MRT turned out in force, accompanied by Channel 4 TV. A moment of uninvited fame ensued. I still have a video of the programme. 

The outcome of the first incident was very friendly. Two MRT members showed up, joined us in the snowhole for a quick brew, congratulated us (all under 25) for our snow-holing skills, and wished us a good night.

The second incident led to significant embarrassment. We had ascended the direct start to Staghorn Gully, ran out of time to complete the route (behind another team in our party), opted to descend the normal Staghorn Gully start but mistook the route and were benighted above an unexpected vertical drop. Around midnight I woke and poked my head out of our bivi sac to see around 40 headtorches coming up the valley. Initially I thought it was a call out for someone else in trouble, but a little later the MRT advance team (it was Roger Wild and Mick Tighe I believe) circumvented the vertical step (under parachute flares) and arrived at our bivi site. They explained they were accompanied by a Channel 4 film crew making a documentary on the mountain rescue service and also members of Turkish Mountain Rescue on an exchange visit. We agreed to be filmed (I presumed Channel 4 were contributing to MRT funds) while we were, unnecessarily, rescued. The programme was broadcast a few weeks later, seen by most of my mountaineering acquaintances, and reshown to embarrass me on suitable occasions for several years afterwards.

On both occasions those reporting our lights had assumed we were signalling for assistance when we were not doing so at all.  Multiple lights moving around can easily be confused for such.

Martin

Hired an open canadian for a few days when in Alconquin, paddled out on first day, camped, up in the morning to find a huge storm brewing so we headed back down stream, got to the lake and tried to paddle along its edge but storm became too big, saw an island so headed there - hauled the boat up, go the tent out, made some grub and settled down to sit it out - a few hours later heard horns etc so went out to find that the canoe hire place had alerted the local rangers and police that we hadnt returned - they had been to our campsite and found we weren't there so were now combing the lake and river for us in rescue boats.

I tried to tell them we were fine, had shelter, camping gear, food etc and would gladly return the boat to them in a few days (when our hire ended) but we were bundled into a rescue boat, our tent/camp dismantled for us, the canoe trailed behind the recue boat and were taken back to the hire station to be ticked off - we didn't take it that well and argued with them, they refunded our hire money but also advised that we were not welcome to hire off them again.

Camping and canoeing in Canada is way more regimented than it is in Scotland.  

I was chatting to some students last year and some of their lot had called the rescue out from the Sheep Pen Boulders the previous day when they'd got confused a good 200m from the A5  

Twice, as a novice windsurfer - in both cases friends on the shore had got concerned. First case, I was quite happy, but had lost track of time and an instructor at the centre came out to ask if they could have their board back for someone else to have a go and the 2nd time I was struggling a bit to get back to shore through the waves and another windsurfer came to give me a hand.

One other occasion I had a minor epic on Tryfan and narrowly avoided having the MR called out after me. Stuck behind a very slow group for ages (who subsequently abandoned), got to the top with a very cold 2nd just as it got dark to find my head torch had turned itself on in my bag and run out of battery! Eventually made it back to the Gwern Gof Isaf campsite about 9pm to find 1 person waiting there and someone else driving up and down the A5 in case we'd made it to the road.

Everyone else was so concerned, they had long since buggered off down the pub and were drawing lots on who got our camping stuff if we didn't return

Many years ago we were climbing something on Daddyhole, it's probably fallen down now, and we were joined at the cliff by the coastguard boat enquiring if we needed rescuing. I was on pitch 1 and said no. They, on their loudhailer, said "OK, we'll just hang around anyway", which they did enquiring every 15 minutes if we were still ok!

We finished the climb and went to LQP so that they couldn't bother us anymore. still not sure if they were genuinely concerned or taking the piss!

Not a rescue as such but when we climbed the Elephant's Trunk at Etretat a coastguard helicopter turned up and was evidently very interested in us but after we completely ignored it, it flew off

When we topped out the approx 200 tourists watching clapped and the 7 gendarmes waiting escorted us to the gendarmerie to pay the fine for "escalade sur un monument national" - luckily I had the old guidebook that showed the old routes. The gendarmes were absolutely gobsmacked and let us go

That’ll be Scranner then - the one I was referring to earlier 😂👍

What a corking thread.  Here's my 'near miss'.

Me and a mate were doing an ascent of Clan Union, below the Suspension Bridge in the Avon Gorge.  It was a 6pm start in September,  so we took headtorches. Which turned out to be a bit crap.

We got to the cave on Hell Gates ok and then the short traverse to the hanging stance.  But then we both tried and failed to lead the main traverse pitch.  We noticed a police car pull into the parking place, watching us.  "Oh no, we're going to be rescued...  do we really look that bad?".

We decide to abb off, re-arrangd the belay,then change our minds and re-arranged the belay again.  We finally succeed in getting across the traverse at 11pm.  By which time said police car had finally buggered off.

We missed the pub (having been 'en route' for 5 hours) but were just thankful that a local hadn't abseiled in to rescue us.  After a proper B-team performance by us, it would have been the final insult.

youtube.com/watch?v=1PYbn5KMYsQ&
starring role starts at 29.49👍

Inevitably, the Coastguard showed up when we were half way up Monster Crack at Beachy Head, but we were able to persuade them we were fine (we were) and they went away.

A lifeguard came out when I was swimming off a beach in New Jersey. She asked if I needed help. I said no (I didn't), but she made it extremely clear that I was going to swim back to the beach with her. To be fair, it was at a family beach town and they were zealous about protecting their reputation for safety. 

Thank you for that (not!). I only have it on VHS. Just watched it again on your link - still embarrassing. I don't recognise your handle, but I presume we know each other. 

Martin

Me and Paul ( Williams?) Made the FFA of the York University Physics building 30 odd years ago...

We were just about to lob the ropes down to absolutely off the roof when we were spotted by a security guard who assumed we were just about to jump ( ropes not visible at that point)

He shouted something soothing and went off to get assistance/ keys.

We loved the ab ropes pronto and git the helm out of there.

In the unlikely event that any York Uni studes are on this thread, is my sock still tied around one of the concrete pillars on the side facing central hall?

nope, and you clearly didn't study English !

Fair point well made.

CHristo what a mess. God I hate this ÷_%$k8ng phone.

Local MRT tied to rescue me from a buttress in the Calder Valley many years ago. We had scrambled up a bit had a chat then I lead steadily but not fast I admit due to it being filthy. Suddenly a  chap pokes head over the top and asks if I'm OK since someone had phone them about stuck climbers. 'Fine thanks' I replied.. He looked disappointed. 'Are you sure?' 'Yes!'  'We've got a rope.' 'I've got 2!' He looked crestfallen , hung about for a while then departed

Yes - very early on in University, I took some freshers out to go up Tryfan. Because the second pairs leader only told me when we got to the start of the route that he wasn't very confident at leading, I decided to take his rack with me and place gear, leaving it for him to clip so all he had to do was climb. It was early November, and it all went OK until his partner decided she was too tired and refused to carry on. This was before mobiles so I was sat on the terrace at the top waiting for a while until I realised it was going dark so abseiled down to be told that they were fine and would continue in the morning. I thought bollocks to that, I'm not going out with three freshers and coming back with one. So I hauled his second up, I'm sure she was terrified but I knew that the weather was due to change the next day (for the worse) so knew it was essential. We then made our way down the South Ridge to Bochllywedd (with some difficulty as we only had one fully functioning head torch) and from there to Ogwyn Cottage. We met MR personnel there who then proceeded to give us a right bollocking, which considering we'd gotten off on our own I thought was a bit OTT. Turns out unbeknownst to me, the fresher who had been sat on the ledge whilst I went and got the others had been flashing her headtorch at the road for the hour I'd been gone someone had reported it and they'd sent a team to the top and a team to the bottom with enough rope to descend the entire route. Retrospectively there were lots of things I could have done better, but we were fine...

Yup....

Back in the 80's, I and ex-wife got "chased" by a MRT from one end of the Brecon Beacons to the other....for four days.... even met and chatted to them....twice....

The police "stole" our car, damaged it in the process....

The punchline ? I was a member of said MRT.....

I remember having this recorded on vhs in the past. What year was it? I had a particular bad experience on the Ben winter 1984 that eventually the Wessex managed to reach us. Was it late 80s the film.

Oh just seen it was 1996. Looks older.

I did a late ascent of Ben Lomond on a clear winter's evening, avoiding the hordes and watching the sunset over the snowy hills. Lovely. Came back down to find a police officer in the carpark at Rowardennan. He said that someone had seen our headtorches high on the mountain's flanks and called in the rescue. At least police/MRT had the sense to send in one cop before the entire cavalry, and that guy had the sense to note that our headtorches were happily bobbing down the trail, so he didn't rush to phone cavalry, either.

A few years ago, 3 of us set off to do the Aonach Eagach ridge in winter. It took us a LOT longer than anticipated, partly due to the fresh snow that had fallen overnight and partly due to us pitching lots of sections that others would no doubt happily solo. 

Despite a relatively early start, it took us all day and all night! We found navigating off in the dark with a blanket of fresh snow on the ground pretty challenging, despite having a map, compass, GPS and headtorches. We did contemplate spending the night in our emergency shelters but all felt strong and confident enough to push on, albeit slowly and steadily.

We descended via The Pap and, as dawn approached, noticed a pair of headtorches bobbing their way up the path towards us from the road head. Approximately 15 mins later we greeted them with a weary “Good morning” but weren’t expecting the man to reply that he was a Police Officer from Fort William Police Station and that they had been watching us slowly making our way down off the hill for several hours! 
 

We didn’t recognise his companion at first, but it soon dawned on us that we had met her in the hostel in Glencoe the night before (we shared a bunk room with her and her family) and had briefly discussed each other’s plans for the following day. She was a German lady who had done the AE ridge in summer conditions and had become concerned about us when we didn’t turn up by 11pm. She expressed her concern to the manager of the hostel who, in turn, notified mountain rescue, after checking that we weren’t still at the Clachaig Inn just up the road. Apparently, MR sent out a member of the team to try to locate us on the ridge, using a thermal imaging camera, but it was unsuccessful.

The police officer escorted us back down the path to the road head, where his colleague was waiting in their police car. After asking a few questions and checking we were ok they gave us some food and water before kindly giving us a lift back to the hostel, which we really appreciated.

We felt really bad that we had inconvenienced other people and ruined their night but the thought that anyone was worried about us never crossed our minds. We were too engrossed in making it across the ridge and back down in one piece. I suppose it’s nice to know that people do care about you, even if they are relative strangers.

I like to think that we learnt some lessons that day (and night!) and, with hindsight, we definitely ought to have phoned the hostel and the police to let them know we were ok, just in case anyone raised the alarm. 
 

Given what happened when Martin (the incident which sparked off this thread) phoned the police, I wonder if phoning the hostel would've been the more useful option. Then again, one couldn't blame her for not being entirely reassured and notifying MR anyway. I expect them being ready to head up in the morning would be the default option if you hadn't shown up or they hadn't been able to contact you. 

If someone is expecting you and might think you're in danger if you don't show, it would make sense to let them know if possible.  And it's only polite to let them know you're ok and set their minds at ease if you can anticipate it, but of course it isn't easy to predict who might be worried about you.

God bless that lovely German lady, but people often do care more than we give them credit for and she wasn't being crazy - she probably got worried about them a bit sooner than really necessary, but then again Cornish boy and his pals easily could have been in serious trouble.  Another time it might have been the people running the hostel themselves who got concerned, or the proprietors of a B&B maybe?  Could be anyone who's expecting you to show up and will notice if you don't.

Having said that, I would argue that Martin made two big mistakes but neither one of them was calling the police.  The first mistake was that the initial call made from up on the hill was to 999 when there was no emergency.  But that would not have been a problem as it turned out, except that he then didn't call the police for a second time - having received a message asking him to get in touch and confirm they were ok he found it difficult to get through on the non-emergency number and eventually gave up.  It was only then that the police 'response' kicked in.

"Other points of view are available". I'm not sure why "deepsoup" has raised the question again here but full a full and reasoned appraisal of the incident please see the earlier thread at https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/rock_talk/police_scotland_-_we_didnt_need...

Martin

What did I say in my post above that you disagree with?

I didn't raise it, I was replying to Michael's post. 

He mentioned it, perfectly reasonably, in the context of wondering whether Cornish boy phoning the hostel to tell them he was fine would have been better than phoning the police.

If you're embarrassed about the whole thing and you would prefer we didn't talk about it, I can certainly sympathise with that.  I'd suggest you google the "Streisand Effect" before you whinge about it further though.

Again, for the benefit of readers who haven't read the original post, please ignore deepsoup's comments here. They represent very much one side of the arguments posted in the original thread which I think overall were very balanced. Yes, on balance, critical of my actions, but a lot more sympathetic than deepsoup's own IMO unnecessarily strident opinion.

Martin

I know this risks resurrecting a debate which has been well rehearsed on here in the past, but it's pertinent I think to note in this context that I started the original thread, and accepted many of the criticisms made, under my real name. I did not have to do that.

Martin

I wrote:

What part of that do you feel is unfair?  Are you claiming that anything I wrote there is factually incorrect?

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/rock_talk/police_scotland_-_we_didnt_need...
The original thread is still open, but if you want to use this one to have a pop at me for being "unnecessarily strident" then I will respond here.  Your choice entirely to take the lid off the can, here are your worms:

Your OP in that thread said "thoughts very welcome".  Clearly you didn't like my initial reply much, but those were my honest thoughts.  If you choose to hold the door open, it's somewhat churlish to complain afterwards about somebody stepping through.

That my thoughts were less than sympathetic was primarily a reaction to the tone of your OP, specifically the bit at the end where you wrote:
"Should I learn to understand broad Glaswegian before venturing north of the border?? Or does the fault lie with Police Scotland with whom I am strongly inclined to raise a complaint?"

I take it from your reaction to what I have written in this thread that you're still not ready to acknowledge that you made mistakes, not really.  But having inadvertently initiated a false alarm and wasted the time of police officers in both Scotland and Suffolk, you felt entitled to 'raise a complaint' with the police over their mistakes!? 

There was arguably poor communication somewhere between the two police forces somewhere along the line, the Suffolk officer who visited your home was not aware of precisely when you had 'gone missing' and your OP was clearly blaming that (and that alone) for your wife's worry.  Not your own decision to call 999 when there was no emergency and not your own failure, for whatever reason, to respond positively to a message from the Scottish police asking you to get in touch and tell them you're ok. 

You expressed no regret in your OP in that thread for having wasted the time of either police force, only annoyance about the distress caused to your wife for which you were blaming them entirely and not yourself.

My reply to that post would have been considerably more sympathetic without the extraordinary sense of entitlement that seemed to me to be written between the lines - that you felt "strongly inclined" to raise an official complaint with Police Scotland as if the whole debacle was entirely their fault, or that piffle about how their switchboard (which is based in Stirling btw, not Glasgow) requires you to deal with an incomprehensibly "broad Glaswegian" accent.

Haven't we done this before? Before completely derailing a mostly unrelated thread, perhaps you might want to rehash it in the original thread where it will both make more sense and have full context for the casual reader?

Some of it, yup, in the other thread.

I'd have been perfectly happy not to rehash it anywhere tbh, but I think it would make less sense if anything to use that other thread to reply to Martin's comments addressed to me here on this one. 

I could have just ignored them of course, probably should have really.  Never been much good at that though.  Sorry about the ranting.

Climbing on Lliwedd in November about 25 years ago.  Think it was horned crag route. Certainly one of the classics.  It was a bit wet and cold and we were overtaken by darkness. Finishing last couple of pitches by head torch. We looked across and saw head torches on Crib Goch as well.  Even later when we got back to car. Instead of returning to hut (where club staying) we decided to go look for food.  Eventually we ended up in a curry house. Possibly as far away as Betys Y Coed.

Meanwhile our club mates had got worried and were heading up the hill to look for us.  We enjoyed our curry and a pint and returned to hut. Just as they were about to call MR.  Words were exchanged despite no agreement about returning to hut after climbing and heading back out to eat.

The phone in hut didn’t work and no mobile signal there. Not that many had mobiles then.  Can’t remember but weren’t mobiles analogue then? No texting.

A nearly MR getting called episode and pissed off club mates whilst we’d enjoyed a post climb curry.

We were on a multi day walk in the pyrenees once and got the bothy / refuse we'd intended to stay in to find it in a shit state (literally) and reeking of rat piss and so decided to keep walking down to the valley (2-3hrs).  We followed a decent path down, but someone in the valley had seen our torches and reported us as coming down erratically and not being on a track.  Luckily we got down into the village just as MR were gearing up to come look for us.  Felt bad as it would have been c.0100 at that point so clearly everyone dragged out of their beds to respond!  

Cheers,

Stu

Just remembered another 'almost rescue'. Many years myself & a friend walked into Lochnagar on a winters day with good weather & although a little late, we set off up the Tough-Brown traverse. Inevitably night fell when we a couple of pitches from the top but no real problem & we go back to the car at maybe 9. Both a bit tired we drove slowly to Braemar where we'd arranged to stay with friends. Somewhere between Ballater & Braemar we were stopped by a police car & were perplexed at what we doing wrong.  Police man was very polite, asking are you Mr Doug & Mr Tim who have been climbing on Lochnagar today? We said yes and we told to drive carefully as the road was a bit icy.

Turned out that my then girlfriend who was already in Braemar had got worried  & wanted to call out the rescue. The friends we were staying with were both members of the team who tried to convince her that it was far too early to do much although eventually she had persuaded them to ask the police if they could check the carpark.

All ended well & we were at the bar after eating well before last orders

A few years ago, the hut-keeper of the Promontoire hut below the south face of the Meije told me an amusing story about a British team that had left to climb the face despite an impending storm. After a couple of days of bad weather and with no sign of the team having reached the hut on the other side, she called the rescue service. The helicopter dropped a couple of gendarmes off at the hut and they somehow managed to traverse the mountain in appalling conditions to the top of the south face, from where they started abseiling down the route. When they got to within shouting distance of the British party they were told that everything was just fine and no rescue was required. So the gendarmes climbed back to the summit where they bivouaced before being helicoptered off the next day while the Brits carried on with what must have been a very epic ascent!