A wonderful speaker who recently visited our club was Steve Owers, Team Leader, of Teesdale and Weardale Search and Mountain Rescue. He gave an amazing presentation on their work and stressed that all funds are raised by them. They have no paid professionals, with all the work, training etc done by volunteers. They are available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and cover a huge area from the fells in the West to the North Sea coast.
The organisation was founded in 1968 because of an incident involving a coach load of young people from Shildon who travelled to Teesdale to walk the Pennine Way and very soon got into difficulties because of bad weather. Sadly, at least one person died. Steve told us, “The curate at St. John’s Church, Shildon was in the party and, 50 years later, a chance encounter meant he travelled back to the area with the team to relive his memory of that day. They located the site and the curate said prayers and left a token of his experiences from the day he will never forget.”
The team get 40 to 50 callouts a year, with 50% being semi-urban and Steve explained that people go missing for all sorts of reasons. They do lots of water searches, have a canoe and are trained in rope work. They may use helicopters with the nearest being in Humberside. They also have 4 dogs trained by the owners in air scent and Steve said, “The dogs and handlers are first class at their job, and we could not work effectively without them.”
It costs £35,00 a year to run the team with 85% of funding coming from the public with extra funds always needed for such as vehicle maintenance etc. The team have books on sale at £10 each entitled ‘40 Years and Counting’ with a foreword by Matt Baker who is very supportive of their work. To buy a book, donate or catch up with their latest news, head to their website at TWSMRT Home page.