Ian Clemmett hands over as team leader to Mike Hill

A veteran of numerous rescues is stepping down as leader of a Lakeland mountain team.

Ian Clemmett will leave the Penrith Mountain Rescue Team after 16 years’ service with the volunteer rescuers, three as team leader.

He is leaving the area because of a change of job. His place as team leader will be taken by Mike Hill, who has been with the team for eight years.

Mr Clemmett has been involved in numerous incidents, including night-time searches, rescues on the Pennines’ highest peak Cross Fell, the 2005 floods and rescues on the 828m (2,717ft) summit plateau of High Street.

He said: “Some of my fondest memories are to do with those occasions when the team has pulled together at times of particular duress and sometimes in quite harrowing and difficult circumstances.

“One particular incident involved a multi-team search for a missing person in the Haweswater area. We found the walker’s body at the summit trig point of High Street and had to wait while a stretcher was brought up so we could carry him down.

“It may have been summer but it was cold, wet and very windy. A tragic outcome, but there was a tremendous sense of camaraderie as members from the different teams all mucked in together.

“The teamwork at times like that is priceless.”

Mike Hill said he is looking forward to maintaining the Penrith team’s already high standards in areas such as casualty care, search management and water rescue.

“The team is a voluntary organisation that survives on the generosity of the general public and fundraising is the key to the ongoing survival of the Team,” he said.

“As mountain rescue becomes more and more professional it is vital that team members train to new levels to ensure we can work alongside neighbouring teams and other emergency organisations.”

Mike Graham, who has been with the Penrith team for 29 years, is also retiring.