The School is DEAD!

On Sat, before rushing off to attend a retirement party weekend, I ended up at the top of heeley bank, very tired and a little hungover from 'cocktail hour' that had ended up being more like Tequila night. It was the temptation of 'the last session' that had me out of bed so early on a Saturday morning but alas it wasn't to be.
The old school building looked very depressing as I sat there awaiting the other members and I felt almost glad to be removing the boards from our room as I felt sure that they wouldn't last long in there without constant monitoring.
Keith arrived 5 mins or so later, followed by Joe, Nacho and later on Ben P (Other people came and went throughout the morning and afternoon I assume).
After a brief bit of vandalism by Joe we found the bottom door to be open and also found that the caretaker, Darren, has a new image; bleached blond and dubious skin tight black garments, his shakes are less obvious now as well.
Keith and I went up to the boards and gingerly opened the door. I was expecting it to be the same as we'd left it however the council had covered the entire window with wooden boards so the only working (energy saving) light bulb made little inroad on the darkness. The place looked creepy, all that was obvious was the bottom edge of the campus board. I took it upon myself to scrabble up to the top and fiddle with the lights. We got one working and something became very apparent; the council had managed to lock in 4 or so pigeons who had obviously camped out on rung 9 and proceeded to shit absolutely everywhere before very kindly dying. One under each board. The fact that I put my drill case down right next to a carcass shows just how dark it really was at first!


It soon became obvious that the door that was open wasn't going to be enough so Keith and I began work removing the vandal proof doors (these were pretty secure) from the top fire escape. It took a lot of work but eventually after lots of kicking, cutting and drilling it was open and surprisingly two lads with hoodies drilling through doors didn't seem to cause a stir which wasn't the case later on when I was informed that the police were called because of all the comings and goings.
The dismantling began with the Moon board. Everyone got to work shifting things whilst joe went to sort a van and ben went to buy us all of the equipment we'd forgotten. Dust masks were highly welcome but unfortunately i'm still sneezing toxic school dust today, monday.

As the morning progressed, the air quality proceeded to get worse. Just check out Ben's drill after just taking one panel off the moon board!

Everything went smoothly, Moon, Campus, 15 deg, 50 deg 30 I believe. The structural integrity of the boards was pretty horrific, things were tied together and that campus board wasn't attached at the bottom. Only five screws held the campus panels to the frame work.
Above is a picture of the 50 deg board (left), thats not chalk on the lense as you can see by the picture taken minutes below of vic, who got the nasty job of brushing down all of the boards.

I'm obviously not going to try and name everyone that helped out but it was really good to see everyone putting the effort in to save these board. Notably Joe for organising it, Keith for driving such a long way, and Nacho because he's never even climbed there and it was disgusting work for a volunteer.

Angles to remember:
50 = 56 (Thats why it was always so hard!)
30 = 28
15 = 17

Tonight I climbed with Ned at the Foundry but more on that some other time.

Oh, I should also probably add that the School was one of the most structurally unsound boards I have ever had the pleasure of climbing on, however, it was still nowhere near as dangerous as my very own balcony board. I think Bonjoy was accurate with his Asterix comparison however he should have also added, campus board, fingerboards and screws penetrating my feet. Possibly electrocution as well.
The works has none of the above problems. In fact I'd recommend training there.