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Sid Perou - "Discovery" of Ingleborough Cave Inauguration Series

Sid Perou is an award winning adventure cameraman, who was very active in the 1960s through to the 1980s. He started caving as a lad, and after doing his national service became a sound recordist with the BBC, but circumstances led to him taking over the camera when filming a rescue in Sunset Pot, and he never looked back. He has made films all over the world on caving, climbing, microlighting, and ballooning, many of which have become sought after classics. In this recording Sid relates how he started caving and how later, with Norman Hinchcliffe, he broke into the Inauguration Series of Ingleborough Cave only to have the excitement shattered by the discovery of a single footprint. This is one of a series of recordings made in 1983 by Geoff Yeadon and Lindsay Dodd who were researching a book about Gaping Gill, which was to be a follow-up to the link up with Ingleborough Cave. The book was never written, but these valuable records remain.

Interviewee: Sid Perou
Interviewer: Geoff Yeadon
Title: Part 1 - "Discovery" of Ingleborough Cave Inauguration Series
Date of recording: 1983   (published 22 Feb 2009)
Sound recordist: Lindsay Dodd
Copyright details: Geoff Yeadon & Lindsay Dodd
Duration of recording: 5 minutes 52 seconds
Recording details: Sampling frequency: 22,050 Hz;  Channel mode: joint stereo
MP3 file details: File size: 4,161 kB;  Bit rate: 96 kbit/s constant;  Compression: 86%
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Listener comments on this recording

Contributor: John Gardner Date: 4 March 2015 05:46

The time between Bob Leakey's actual discovery of Inauguration Caverns and Sid's "rediscovery" was actually a lot longer than Sid believed at the time. Sid's trip took place in 1959, and Bob Leakey pushed the Near Wallows to reach Inauguration Caverns on a solo trip in October 1953 (ref: Patchett, A.N. (1946), Bradford Pothole Club Journal No. 2, pp. 41-44).