Contents

In Sight of Light
Caving on a Roll
The Rift Traverse
Speleo-genesis
Fading Light
Ogof Daren Cilau
The Squeeze
Bubbles on the Roof
Plastic, Steel and Rock
Rediscovered
The Brickyard
The Newcomer in Shooter's Cottage
Awakenings
Zlomisk: Conservation
The Journey into Daren Cilau
The Allotment: the Trudge to Juniper Gulf
The Ballad of Ecton Hill
The First Free Dive
Crossover
Matienzo: 25 Years
Lancaster Hole: The Minarets
LNRC – In Control
Follow that Draught
I'm Sorry
Wetsuit Histories
Juniper Gulf
Expedition Rights
Water Passages
Black and Light

Non-UK orders

If stock is available for all post destinations, selecting any set of options will allow you to place your order immediately.

If stock is limited, for example with a single copy of a second-hand book, it will be assigned to UK stock. If you require posting to an address outside the UK, selecting your options may not allow an order to be placed, even though stock is available. If this is the case, please contact us to enable the options you require.

Please see our FAQs relating to deliveries, and the Delivery page linked from the bottom of each page, before placing your order if time is an important element for your order.

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR ALL DESCENT SUBSCRIBERS OUTSIDE THE UK

We regret that due to the volatility of Royal Mail postage charges, we have been forced to remove the option for two-year subscriptions. We have also been forced to remove the option for economy mail to the EU, given indications that Royal Mail intends to remove this service.

All international mail is now being despatched in paper wrapping using Royal Mail customs and address labels mandated by them. We also regret this means we can no longer indicate the last issue of your subscription on the mailing sheet or supply a reminder to renew with the final edition. Please track your own subscription ending or check with us at any time. Subscriptions begun since September 2021 have a comment added in your account (under the tab for the order) which records the final issue to be supplied.

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR EU CUSTOMERS

On 1 July 2021 the EU removed all exemptions for tax and customs duty on low value items posted from the UK to the EU, meaning that although VAT is 0% on books and magazines in the UK, it is charged within the EU and the VAT (potentially plus a handling fee) now apply to all orders to the EU.

Ideally, the VAT should be paid at the point of posting, but doing so requires registration with an agent to handle the payments, and this is incredibly expensive and not financially viable. To be clear, all small publishers in the UK are in the same position and we are unable to post any items to the EU with VAT or other duties paid.

Ordering any item from Wild Places, including a Descent subscription, requires that you accept responsibility of paying the VAT and any other local charges on delivery.

To be clear: Wild Places will NOT cover any charges levied by your country; it is your responsibility to accept these when placing an order.

We apologise for the situation, but it is outside our control. We will maintain a link from the left-hand column on the home page with the latest updates. If you are an existing subscriber to Descent and have not replied yet to our enquiries concerning your deliveries, please make contact.

NOTE: Subscribers in Norway or Switzerland (which are outside the EU) should place your order on the Subscription International page or contact us first.

Descent (145), December 1998, p28, by Chris Fry

TO adequately put into words the many and varied thoughts, observations and actions experienced during the course of a caving trip is difficult enough. To compose poetry that can capture and convey those experiences must be a great deal more difficult. And yet that is exactly what Ellis (Ian Chandler), a member of the International Society for Spelaeological Art (ISSA), has managed to do in this intriguing volume.

Drawing upon his long and varied caving career, the author carries the reader through sections of popular UK caves while also calling upon his experience of foreign expeditions for inspiration. This is not a book that is easily read from cover to cover in one sitting. The topics and styles are sufficiently varied that, as a minimum, a pause for contemplation is needed before the next episode of adventure.

Many of the poems or stories deal with discrete aspects of caving, such as a caver’s reliance on his lamp, the varied techniques of moving through different passages, passing a squeeze, traversing, free-diving a sump, and so on. Others lead you to consider aspects of speleogenesis or conservation. Yet more describe feelings at the point of breakthrough following a dig or visiting a caving club hut for the first time. There is even one piece which describes the actions of donning and removing an old caving wetsuit!

In all there are 29 poems and sections of prose, all of a different length and flavour, and these are punctuated by more than a dozen of the author’s photographs in an attractive layout. Some of the pieces are simply fun; others are written in a style that requires careful and considered digestion – sometimes having to chew over individual phrases or choice of words in order to gain the full flavour of the situation.

What is perhaps most appealing about this volume is that it utilises an alternative medium to express very personal caving experiences, in a manner that allows the reader to align his or her own thoughts with those of the author. This will therefore, in all likelihood, result in as many different perspectives as there are readers. I often found myself pausing for reflection as faint memories of near-forgotten trips and situations were awakened.

While not providing an ‘easy read’, this book certainly rewards the effort of taking up the challenge of devouring the text and thinking about its meanings, and it will not be out of place on any caver’s bookshelf or in a club library. It would make an ideal inexpensive gift for friends at Christmas and I, for one, hope that the author continues to find inspiration for his work; perhaps this will encourage others to publish similar material.