The morning of Sunday 25 March 1962 dawned bright and breezy. Just the sort of day for a brisk spring walk across the fells. Three teenagers, a girl aged fifteen, and her brothers aged eleven and eighteen, set off from the village of Chipping, over Parlick Hill and the Bleasdale Fells to the Langden Valley. It’s an isolated valley, even by today’s standards, their route a single faint footpath winding its way through the boulders and heather alongside the three mile length of Langden Beck.

Absorbed by each other’s company, and warmed by the exertion of the walk, maybe they failed to notice the subtly changing weather. But, by the time they came to start back home, the sky was overcast, clouds closing in on the surrounding hills and moorland. The fluttering spring breeze had gathered to gale force, driving gentle rain to sleet and snow as temperatures dropped. As an early darkness descended, the three youngsters would doubtless have felt disorientated and frightened. Certainly, they would have begun to suffer from the cold and exhaustion.

Sensibly, they found some rocks to shelter in for the night but, though the morning brought a slight improvement in the weather, the youngest boy was already unconscious with exposure. The other two decided to move on in an effort to get out of the mist and off the fells, and to find help for their brother.

Meanwhile, their failure to return home had been reported to police around midnight. Local farms and roads were checked, but the deteriorating weather and darkness prevented the police and other helpers from venturing onto the hills until morning. Even then, their search had little success. Until at 10.30am, the girl struggled, exhausted and distressed, off the hills into Saddleside Farm, to report having left one brother in the shelter of rocks and the other collapsed en route to find help.

Following her directions, police found the eighteen year old semi-conscious a the bottom of a steep sided gully, but it was too late. Rushed to Preston Royal Infirmary, some twelve miles away, he was dead on arrival. Two hours later, his eleven year old brother was found – he had been dead for some time. The search had involved over eight policemen, dogs and horses, farmers and a helicopter from British Aircraft Corporation in Warton.

The death of two local teenagers hit the press hard. Demands were made for some sort of search and rescue service for the Lancashire area, similar to that in the neighbouring Lake District. By May, the South Ribble Fell Search and Rescue team was formed, swiftly followed by the Northern Rescue Organisation, both based in the Preston area and within easy travelling distance of the Bleasdale fells, scene of the tragedy. The stage was set for a network of teams in an area which many would question the need for ‘mountain’ rescue – even Pendle Hill, rising conspiratorially at the heart of Lancashire’s ‘witch country’ only manages 1831 feet on a good day – 169 feet short of official recognition as a mountain. Team members might exchange lighthearted banter about their surreptitious efforts to tip the tape measure – but that’s an awful lot of soil to carry up your trouser leg. And, truth be told, they love her just the way she is.

Forty five years and counting has brought more than the odd name change – from South Ribble through Rossendale Fell Rescue and Rossendale Search and Rescue to the Rossendale and Pendle Mountain Rescue Team of today – the frequency and nature of incidents, and the consequent demands on both the team resources and its members’ time has changed dramatically. Far more than those early volunteers could have imagined.