FIFTY years ago next month, a terrible tragedy on the remote high fells of west Durham led directly to the formation of what is now the Teesdale and Weardale Search and Mountain Rescue Team.

A group of members and friends from St John’s Youth Club in Shildon had set out to walk from Dufton Fell, in what then was Westmoreland, eastwards to High Force.

It was March 23, 1968, and I should have been with them, plans rather reluctantly changed the day previously when a girlfriend – the station master’s daughter – announced a surprise weekend home from university.

So 22 set out, doubtless full of the joys of youth and of springtime. Soon, however, the weather worsened dramatically – freezing fog, torrential rain, patches of deep snow and a swollen, swirling river to cross.

At Maize Beck, above High Force, nine of the group joined arms in a human chain. Barely a quarter of the way across they decided that it was impossible and made to turn back.

Ken Brown, Shildon lad and post-graduate science student at Newcastle University, lost his footing – as did the Rev Vincent Ashwin, a curate at St John’s.

Ken, 23, was carried helplessly away in the torrent – propelled, the curate recalled, as fast as a man could run. His body was found the following day, eight miles away at Middleton-in-Teesdale.

Vincent was swept for around 250 yards – “maybe half a minute, but it seemed like a great deal more” – before finding himself on the bank,

In shock, the party decided to return whence they’d come to raise the alarm at the nearest house – an estimated three-and-a-half hours' walk. Back across the Westmoreland border, 18-year-old David Vaughan was unable to continue and died from exposure.

He, too, was found the following day. Three others were taken to hospital in Carlisle.

At 2pm on Saturday, March 24, a service will be held at St John’s to mark the rescue team’s 50th anniversary and to remember David and Ken, both of whom I knew. The mountain rescue team is their legacy.

TO mark its 40th anniversary, the team had published a history. The first page recalled that bleak, black day in 1968.

“Many locals agreed that the treacherous conditions were exceptional. The River Tees had risen faster than anyone had ever witnessed and the speed at which it flowed was incredible.

“The other participants in the outing were alive, but suffering from exposure, still experiencing cramping and undoubtedly frightened.

“The walkers were in an extreme situation and because there was no locally organised group to help more quickly, a specialist force from outside Durham had to be called in to help find them.”

If church the next morning was difficult, Monday proved equally challenging. I was a young reporter on The Northern Despatch, the Echo’s sister evening paper, in Bishop Auckland. The awful story fell to me.

Vincent, a friend then as now, was indescribably devastated, but characteristically kind. The snow, he said, had been three feet deep in places; the smaller streams were frozen over.

Though neither leader nor organiser of the walk, he’d offered to be the first link in the chain. "Ken said he would, so we joined arms. Ken couldn’t swim and had a big back pack. He had no hope.”

At Ken’s inquest, just five days later, the coroner urged walkers not to stay away from the moors because of what had happened – but to be prepared.

Three others who had been with David Vaughan were ultimately obliged to abandon him after he died. “We honestly thought,” said Vincent, “that none of us would get back alive.”

DISCUSSIONS about forming what initially became the Fell Rescue Association began that summer, meetings usually held in the High Force Hotel. Among the founder members was George Hulatt, whose son Edgar had been one of the Shildon walk leaders.

Their patch was the catchment area of the Wear and Tees – “to some an adventure playground and to others just a home, but a challenging environment with more than enough opportunity for folk to find themselves in trouble,” writes County Durham lad Matt Baker, he of BBC's Countryfile, in the 40th anniversary book.

At first they were equipped with little more than local knowledge, basic survival skills, boots, waterproofs and determination. They became highly professional.

On one occasion their Land Rover was stolen from outside a house in Shildon. Several months later the police rang to report that it had been found – in Africa. “So far as I know,” says Steve Owers, the present team leader, “it’s still there.”

STEVE’S a Bishop Auckland lad, retired former senior officer with Durham and Darlington fire and rescue service, leads an organisation which now covers all of County Durham, sometimes beyond, but which is still manned entirely by volunteers and funded largely through public donations.

The team’s constitution sums the reason for its existence: “To relieve suffering and distress among persons endangered by accident or natural hazards in County Durham or any other place if requested.”

Requests have included to help search for evidence after the Lockerbie air disaster.

All are on call 24/7 and meet most of their own expenses. The team now has two bases, the £3.4m emergency services quad hub in Barnard Castle, visited last week by the Prince of Wales, and next to Durham fire station – named after Chris Scott, a founder member who died in 2014.

His widow still rattles a tin for the team. Teesdale GP Margaret Bradshaw, another founder, completed the Great North Run for them when in her 80s.

“People compare us to the RNLI, but it’s not really accurate,” says Steve. “The RNLI gets millions every year.”

They have two Land Rovers, one almost ten years old, a £73,000 control vehicle, a swift water rescue team and a search and rescue dog unit. They train regularly and intensively, use police radio equipment.

Last year the team responded to 46 calls, many of them to search urban areas for missing people sometimes described as vulnerable and often, in the rescue team log, as despondent.

On one occasion in the Crook area they found not only the person they’d been charged with seeking, but a particularly distressed gentleman who hadn’t been reported missing in the first place.

Several calls were to Hamsterley Forest, often to injured mountain bikers. “They come off in very remote areas, the paramedics struggle to get to them,” says Steve.

That the number of “mountain” rescues is relatively low may partly be because walkers are better equipped. “Sometimes it’s not like people think, but we have the skills and equipment to tackle anything,” says Steve. “We can turn out very quickly.

“You can’t put a figure on the number of lives we’ve saved, but there’ve been a lot. It’s just such a sadness that we weren’t around for Kenneth Brown and David Vaughan.”

All are welcome at the service at St John’s Church, Shildon, on May 24, not least youth club members from 1968. The team is in contact with Ken Brown’s family, but has not yet traced David Vaughan’s. Steve Owers is on 07876-132030, email leader@twsmrt.org.uk