On the western flank of Pendle, in a rather peculiar location that I can only surmise was chosen for its spectacular views, is one of the Ribble valley’s most unique and venerable sports venues, Pendle Ski Club.
At the time of this story (1995) we were members and used the facilities quite a lot. (We only heard afterwards that a party of 22 children and 3 adults had been rescued from the Ski club by mountain rescue teams.)
I was obsessed with training to be in the Biathlon after watching the winter olympics and whenever it snowed I used to go out around the woods around the gatehouse we rented at Browsholme.
I would set out a course and ‘train’ on the second-hand Langlauf skis my parents had bought me for my birthday with my .22 Webley Tracker, shooting at pop cans i’d wedged in the trees.
As I was sat in the kitchen there listening to the conversation between my mum and their friends at the farm I put 2 and 2 together and figured out that the reason they had called us is because they wanted us to help find their sheep that had got stuck in snowdrifts, and they wanted us to bring our skis.
So after putting our big coats on (as they say in Lancashire) and attaching the ski rack to the car roof me and my dad set off.
We had snow-chains for the car, an early 90’s Alfa Romeo 75, which we needed to get to the main roads, we’d bought them a couple of years before when we’d driven all the way to Austria for a Christmas holiday. They were rubber coated steel affairs which attached to the wheel itself with plastic clips, this meant they could be quickly taken off when you got to a main road.
I remember the drive down to Clitheroe very well, local farmers, contracted by the council, had kept the road clear but there was still a couple of inches and the occasional drift crossing the road where there was a gap in the hedges.
We got out to clear those with a snow shovel and managed to get to town and then the A59 with little trouble.
It was quite a long drive to get there as we were going a steady pace as you do in snow and although there was barely any traffic except the occasional farmer’s Land-Rover. When we got to the end of the farm track we had to abandon our car in the gateway as they hadn’t been able to clear their track. I was worried about his car but he reassured me that as it was bright red it would be easily seen by any snowploughs!
Then we put on our ski boots and got the skis off the roof to head down the farm track.
To be continued in chapter three……
A B-H
(Jan 2025)
Northwest Nature and History 