links to: introduction and index - previous part
In transcribing this saga, I began to wonder what had happened to the people and places I encountered.
Iceland now seems increasingly geared up to the kind of tourist activities that extract money from punters at every twist and turn, such as sitting in warm pools sipping cocktails. And did I mention the penis museum? Staving off boredom! How I detest myself when I do these things. Wild walkers just don’t generate the same revenue.
Despite several distinctive names, there seems to be very little online about the others on the walk. I came across technical publications that may have been written by the landscape architect, one of the chemists and the medical researcher, although they could have been by others of the same name. The index of marriages on Ancestry suggests that the couple on the walk did not stay together, and that they may have married other spouses. That’s about it.
There is, however, quite a bit about the route and the tour organisers.
The Route
In 1977, the walks offered something of the wilderness experience Dick Phillips must have enjoyed in surveying the routes in the nineteen-sixties. Today, there are many more organised trips with motor support. One would have to go to the isolated interior, or to Greenland, to find places where other walkers are rare, where you might be the first to venture as the snow melts. Even so, satnavs and satellite phones remove much of the isolation.
Julia Bradbury’s
hour-long television programme about her 2010 Icelandic adventure (https://youtu.be/YGgWse3iQLA)
illustrates the difference. Caught in bad visibility in the mountains,
she calls in a support vehicle to take her to the next hut, almost a
stately home, and there takes a shower. Neither would not have been possible in 1977.
Most of the huts we used have now been replaced by buildings we would then have considered outrageously luxurious. They have wardens, bunks, showers, chemical toilets, cooking facilities, cutlery and crockery, and are reachable by ordinary car. There are also more of them, although not at Strutslaug where Dick Phillips’ remote hut was swept away by an avalanche around 1999.
Pictures of the Skaelingar hut (the one with the rock pillars) belonging to the Útivist Icelandic travel
association also show the difference (https://www.utivist.is/english/skaelingar-hut).
Below, their new hut is in the background, with one of the two we used
in the foreground. The other we used has gone, with the new hut, car park and
toilet shed in its place. Things can’t possibly be the same
without a shovel outside the door.
The Tour Organisers
Dick Phillips’ tours ran until around 2012, for
fifty-two years in total. I would guess that more than ten thousand
people went on one kind of tour or another over these years. In the
winter Dick lived at Nenthead near Alston in Cumbria, where, known to
all as ‘Icelandic Dick’, he was active in the local community. Among his
many roles he was a Councillor, newsletter editor and helped with the
Nenthead mines group. He was invariably to be seen riding a bicycle in
one of his distinctive Icelandic jumpers, and was buried in one in 2019.
He was in his mid-eighties. There are several tributes on the internet
(e.g. here and here).
Paul Stevens, the walk leader, was invited into partnership soon
after our trip, and remained with the business, leading walks until it
ended. A search reveals that, around 2005, he talked about his
experiences for the BBC Radio Stoke ‘Inside Lives’ project. A brief
synopsis is archived but the link to the recording no longer seems to
work
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/stoke/insidelives/2004/02/paul_stevens.shtml).
Paul and wife Judi are still involved with the Fljótsdalur hostel, which he talks about in a four-minute facebook video (https://fb.watch/8RA4SOHyWO/ - you may need to switch on the sound using the icon in the bottom right of the picture; the spelling in the subtitles is atrocious). It is good to see him looking well. Is that what a lifetime of walking with a heavy rucksack does for you? What a book he could write! The hostel facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/FljotsdalHostel/.
I bet they still have our real names in the visitors’ books. I am half-expecting a letter from their solicitor.
Finally, an elderly Dick Phillips appears at the beginning and end of this fifteen-minute video, not in any way the scary perfectionist I perceived in 1977. The scariness was my own inadequacy.
The main part of the video is about extreme mountain biking in Iceland,
and worth watching if you have fifteen minutes. That really is scary.
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Horace and the Rough Stuff Fellowship: click image to play video |
(The video URL if the link doesn't work is: https://vimeo.com/98904694?fbclid=IwAR0yW2nRSTfiYKJq7rbYlevwi5j9ISS9SSbCOtrvk4wnXYWEmChrUFA3JRA)
The end.
Some names and personal details have been changed. I would be delighted to hear from anyone who was there.
Interesting updates!
ReplyDeleteIt's nice to do a bit of stalking.
DeleteIt is strange how some people with quite distinctive names don't seem to have an internet presence. It is so annoying for stalker types.
ReplyDeleteIt was good that you took notes and photos and so many years later assembled it all into an interesting story.
I enjoyed being able to do the telling after all this time.
DeleteThe lack of internet presence is probably an age related thing. Even the youngest will be over sixty, and most will be over seventy. That's an age group where those who didn't get into the internet earlies are probably unlikely to do so now.
I always regard follow-ups with mixed feelings; they are interesting, but tinged with sadness. In the case of your Iceland saga, I think I would have done the same - researched my tour mates, I mean.
ReplyDeleteI suspect some of them will no longer be with us, which makes you think when we once all carried heavy rucksacks up and down mountains for something like eighty miles. I still hope some of them will find this and comment.
DeleteIt must be quite satisfying to know that you made the trek the "hard" way, without today's soft comforts.
ReplyDeleteI think I would also have attempted to look up my fellow travellers, out of interest. Yours obviously don't want to be found, though.
I know several people in their 70s who want nothing to do with social media, even when they use the internet for other purposes.
DeleteRemember Chris Bonington's - Everest The Hard Way. As if the other ways are easy. This was Iceland The Hard Way (except it wasn't if you watch that 15 minute film at the end).
Thanks for your summation. Looking back at your walk, you must feel immense satisfaction to have been able to make that journey as a young man--hardships and all. As mentioned earlier, you learnt a great deal about yourself on this trip--things that have probably helped you over the years in making decisions or at least in recognizing your strengths and weaknesses.
ReplyDeleteThanks, too, for the video at the end. It made for remarkable viewing. Definitely another way to cross Iceland that was not easy. The scenery is as extraordinary as ever--high tech video making it even more accessible. Have to admit, as I watched it (thinking about how I wouldn't have made it down that first path in one piece, much less through those steep rocky ones), I kept wondering how many tires (and brake parts) he must have gone through over the course of that varied terrain. :) Still, so good to see those vast open spaces that can still capture our imaginations and stir our souls.
For me the walk was at a point of career change, justy before going late to university, and yes I would say it did boost confidence about persistence and that kind of thing. I've often thought there are parallels between walking in the hills and the ups and downs of life.
DeleteThe mountain biking video at the end is indeed remarkable. It looks positively suicidal to me. I'm happy on my bike just pedalling along on roads.
Yes. This postscript blogpost ties everything up nicely. It was good to see Dick Phillips and hear his voice. He must have helped so many people to forge lasting memories of that wild and untamed place - people like you. That must have given him an enormous sense of fulfilment.
ReplyDeleteI suspect he was a bit of a perfectionist in the sense that if something was worth doing it was worth doing well, and from what I know and have read of him, he did do everything well, which would have given him great satisfaction. It must also have been irritating to see the commercial profit-driven operators moving in, which was not his philosophy at all. Someone it would have been a pleasure to be able to call a friend.
DeleteI'm late commenting, but I do want to thank you for this very interesting series of posts! I have enjoyed them all and learned a lot about the beautiful country of Iceland. It was nice to learn more about Dick Phillips too.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading more about him and seeing the video. He was a unique character. We can learn a lot from those who choose their own way to live their lives rather than being pushed around by commercial pressures.
DeleteI wonder if now, years after the fact there are others who reminisce about this and ponder about that Tasker fellow, and whatever became of him?
ReplyDeleteActually, I sometimes wonder myself.
DeleteWhat a wonderful ending to the story. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteIt pulls in some of the loose ends. It's odd to think that similar groups were doing much the same walk for the next 35 years, all presumably with similar tales to tell.
DeleteWell you were of an age when you were fit to do it. I suspect at the time it was more or less taken in the stride of your contemporaries, your friends, whilst some they may have thought you slightly mad, sleeping in huts etc I don't suppose anyone gave your fitness to do it a second thought. Reading it now as OAPs we get our perspectives about it slightly skewed. I thank you for sharing your log of it. Makes totally different reading to my travelogues!
ReplyDeleteIt would be good to think I could still do it, but that would be delusional because I now to be very careful descending any steep slope even without a rucksack. No doubt there will be some in their 70s who still could, especially if they have continued walks like it. You're right that few friends gave it much of a second thought. I do remember one girl at a party, possibly slightly drunk, who became very angry with me because I disagreed with her, as she put it "what an absolutely stupid place to go for a holiday" and "how stupid can you be". I'm pleased you and others seem to have found it worth me posting it.
DeleteYour passing on of the girl at the party's remark sums up well what I was thinking when I made the comment. Nobody would have discussed whether you were physically up for it or not, it would have been all about "what a ridiculous place to be going for a holiday" in the `1970s. I remember going to Romania with three friends, Romania very much behind the Iron Curtain at that time, and being stared at over coffee break at work as if I was out of my mind and nobody knowing quite what to say except "why on earth are you going there?"
DeleteRomania would have been viewed like going on holiday now to Afghanistan or North Korea. It seemed for many a good holiday meant burning on a hot beach all day and being in a noisy club all night getting pissed. I may have said something similarly dismissive. She followed when I walked off trying to turn me round and shout in my face.
DeleteMy mother tried to stop me going less than 24 hours before the flight.
DeleteThe huts look interesting to me. I imagine with those rock walls insulating, the interiors would be quite cosy in winter and cool in summer. Were they roomy inside?
ReplyDeleteAs I remember there was enough room for, say, 15 people to sleep comfortably on the floor, with plenty of space around each in some huts. Others were more cramped. There would rarely have been much problem with being too warm in Iceland, but yes when it was cold they were considerably warmer than outside once you got the stove going. Traditionally the farmers who built the huts would have had livestock or horses inside to keep them warm.
DeleteI came across your blog by accident (well, not exactly - my sister did a Google search for Dick Phillips, and one thing lead to another...) and it brings back wonderful memories. I first stayed at Fljotsdalur in 1968; a friend and I were simply staying at Youth Hostels in Iceland (all three, I think - Reykjavik, Akureyri and Fljotsdalur) and read about Dick Phillips walking tours whilst staying at Fljotsdalur. We decided almost there and then to return. We eventually embarked on one of Dick's walking tours in 1974. Reading your account I regret that I didn't keep a diary, although as I don't seem to be able to lay my hands on the photos I took, I doubt I would find the diary! From your description I think we took the same route as you. Dick was our leader, assisted by Jo Frith, and I can reassure you he wasn't at all scary, despite his outward bound appearance. From memory, our group seemed to get on pretty well and we all met up sometime after our trip at a Youth Hostel in the Peak District, but I didn't keep in touch with any others in the group apart from the friend who encouraged me to go on the Dick Phillips tour in the first place. In fact he is still trying to persuade me to go back to Iceland, but I fear I would be disappointed, not by the country but by its commercialism.
ReplyDeleteWhy was my sister Googling Dick Phillips? By coincidence I had found an 'On Foot in Iceland 1980' brochure whilst she was visiting me a week ago and was showing it to her. She too had stayed at Fljotsdalur (on a university geography trip in the early 1980's) and remembered reading my entry in the visitors' book. She claims I wrote "Next time I'll bring a wetsuit” but couldn't remember whether that was my 1968 or 1974 visit, I suspect the 1968. And why did I have a copy of the 1980 brochure? There's a photo of me and Dick Phillips crossing a river with linked arms (to prevent me being swept away!) on page 3. In hindsight it was a great holiday, although there were times when I was cold and wet when I might have thought otherwise!
Many thanks for finding my blog and commenting. As you will have gathered, that holiday really did make an impression on me. Hope it brought back memories for you. Interesting, only last week I read the obituary in the Guardian of Bernard Heath who with Dick was another founder of the Mountain Bothies Association and the Rough Stuff Fellowship.
DeleteI am delighted to have come across this account of a Dick Phillip’s Icelandic walking tour. I have enjoyed reading it.
ReplyDelete10 months after Tasker Dunham, I did my first Icelandic walking tour, the same tour and route. Some of the details are of course different but so much is the same. I have no diary of my walk, most of my photographs are still slides kept in a draw but those of the various huts have been digitised but I have good memories.
Two months after the trip, I met the girl who two years later became my wife and then the mother of my three sons. In 2006 I repeated the tour with my youngest son, who aged 16 had expressed a wish to do a similar walk (he now has a considerable appetite for worldwide travel). We both enjoyed the trip. The three big differences were:
The huts - bothy-like in 1978, significantly upgraded (as TD notes) in 2006.
The walkers - aged 23 on the 1978 tour, I was not the youngest, the oldest was no more than 10 years older, and there were twelve of us. In 2006, my son apart, I was the youngest, by a few months, the oldest not yet in sight of his pension; and there were just 6 of us plus Paul Stevens (he led both tours) and who had changed little over the years, except that he had learnt that he should treat clients (i.e. us) with respect. My son apart, we all had life experiences as good at his. Paul, to his credit, was aware of and respectful of this.
Fitness - as in other comments, I went in 1978 without any special fitness training, just the fitness from weekends spent in the hills. If memory serves correct, only two of the twelve had made any effort to gain better fitness for the walking tour. By 2006, I cycled regularly in an effort to keep the advancing years at bay, but for the tour, I specifically did some walking trips and climbed 14 flights of stairs at work every day to build up my walking leg muscles. My son depended on natural fitness but the other four all said they too had had made a definite effort to improve their fitness before the walk.
I remember one incident in 1978 that was typical of the many that many participants could tell. One evening, after a shorter day and with an early tea, three of us went up a local hill, about 3,500’ from hut level . On the way down, one of my fellow ‘summiteers’ took a tumble and returned to the hut - carefully and painfully - with an excess of fine gravel embedded in his upper leg and backside. He spent an hour in the remaining daylight draped over a big rock whilst one of the girls in the party gently removed all the gravel, his underwear pulled into what we would now call a thong or ‘wedgie’ for the medical ministrations. My fellow summiteer took it philosophically when his ‘nurse’ declined to rub in the Savlon antiseptic cream that Paul provided; she insisted “for his carelessness”, he must do that himself!
I knew Dick Phillips from 1978 on until he died in 2019 through activities with the Mountain Bothies Association. Despite spending a long summer in Iceland from the late 1950s, Dick made a significant contribution to many organisations in Britain - the MBA, heritage groups around Nenthead and he was a much respected Councillor in Alston from the early 1980s. There is quite a bit about Dick to be read on the internet. For a man who on demobbing (as his walking tours brochure noted) was told that he would never make much of his life, he made an awful lot of his life, most of it for the benefit of others, we have to be grateful for his time on this earth.