In the early days, gates were used as stretchers and fence posts as splints. Four decades on, Will Roberts hears how a tragedy was the catalyst for the formation of the Upper Teesdale and Weardale Fell Rescue Team

IN the early years, they looked like a ramshackle bunch. A colourful mismatch of woolly bobble hats and wellworn waterproofs. But what the Upper Teesdale and Weardale Fell Rescue Team lacked in uniformed, corporate presence, they made up for in determination.

There are tales of team members using gates as makeshift stretchers and fashioning splints for broken legs out of fence posts. “We just had a few bits of old equipment which had seen better days – most of it ex-military stuff,” says Des Toward, a rescue team veteran of nearly 31 years. “It’s unrecognisable now.”

It certainly is. The team, now Teesdale and Weardale Search and Mountain Rescue Team (TWSMRT), is officially a volunteers’ group, but in every other sense it’s truly professional.

The waterproofs and winterwear may have been exchanged for smart-looking branded jackets and top-of-the-range equipment, but the levels of devotion have been the same since the group was set up in the late Sixties.

Back then, fell rescue teams were being established up and down the country, but it took a tragedy to prompt the launch of the team in the south Durham dales.

In March 1968, a group of friends were in Upper Teesdale, fell walking near Cauldron Snout. A deep, thick mist combined with wind, rain and snow, meant they were unable to find their way back to safety.

While trying to cross Maize Beck, one young man slipped and fell, drowning in the high, fast flowing waters.

With the nearest house more than three-and-a-half hours walk away, the group were in big trouble.

A specialist team from Durham was called in to help them out and, after a search of the area, they were eventually found. Sadly, another man who had become separated from the group was found dead the next day.

Three months later, at the High Force Hotel, near Middleton-in-Teesdale, a public meeting about setting up a fell rescue team was held.

Two months after that, the group was officially formed.

TODAY, the group’s name doesn’t do justice to the work the 50 or so volunteers and half-dozen dogs spend many hours a month doing. Their area is no longer limited to Teesdale and Weardale and they help out across the North of England.

This was well illustrated during the recent snowy weather. At its peak, the team had a 4x4 car loaded, with two members ready to deploy 24 hours a day. They helped transfer patients in Teesside, rescued a stranded ambulance in Teesdale and were some of the first on the scene of a fatal accident on the A1, in North Yorkshire. They brought vital supplies to an animal sanctuary and later searched for a missing fisherman of the coast of Blackhall, east Durham.

Gruelling eight-hour shifts were fitted in between the volunteers’ full-time jobs as teachers, carpenters, shop owners and firemen.

While most of us could come back from work and complain about the roads and the weather from the comfort of our warm living rooms, members of TWSMRT had to put their jackets back on and head out again into the cold.

The melting snow signalled the end of the team’s busiest period for years. At the end of last year they had been called out to Cumbria, to assist emergency services cope with the flooding. For many, it was the most challenging call the team had been on, according to member Paul Renwick.

“The situation in Cumbria was unknown in most areas and team members found themselves in the very middle of a major incident dealing with a range of things in a really difficult environment,” he says.

The emergency services rely on the team for their manpower, experience and expertise. “We do everything that the emergency services can’t do,” says Mr Renwick.

The team is often faced with challenges over and above helping a rambler with a sprained ankle. It’s quite often physically and mentally draining. In 2006, for example, as part of the biggest search operation for a decade, team members were the first to come across the body of 40-year-old Michael Bell, who had hanged himself in woods about 15 miles from his Barnard Castle home.

“We tell people from the start that if they are just interested in climbing around on rocks, then this isn’t for them, because at times it can be a really difficult thing to do,” says Chris Roberts, deputy leader of the team.

TWSMRT has produced a book called 40 Years and Counting. The team was 40 in 2008, but you can’t blame them for being two years late, they’ve been fairly busy.

The book is full of history, members’ stories, recommended walks, and hints and tips to help people stay safe in the region’s countryside.

It is hoped that sales will boost funds for running expenses. It costs about £20,000 a year just to keep the team ticking over, but more fundraising is needed to pay for extra training and equipment.

“For everything we do there needs to be even more time spent shaking buckets in supermarkets,” says Mr Roberts. "It’s something we didn’t necessarily join up to do but it is an essential part of keeping the team going."

■ 40 Years and Counting, £9.99, is on sale at Cotswold Outdoor shop, in Durham City, or via the team’s website at twsmrt.org.uk