The Plateau

In November 1971, five teenage school pupils and their 18-year-old guide froze to death on the Cairngorm plateau, one of the highest and most inhospitable places in Britain.

Fifty years on it remains the worst mountaineering disaster in British history.

The Tragedy shocked The Nation , changed forever how we approach Scotland's mountains, and left a school and its community shattered.

The Children came from Ainslie Park, a large Secondary School on The Edge of The East Pilton housing scheme in Edinburgh.

Catherine Murray Brown, Now 67, was a sixth-year pupil at The School at The Time .

She says it did lots of outdoor education trips.

" It wasn't an unusual thing and there was just this idea that people went off on something that was meant to be great fun and really enjoyable and really good, " she says.

That November, a group of 14 children travelled from The School with 23-year-old Ben Beattie, and his 20-year-old girlfriend, Catherine Davidson. They were bound for Lagganlia, Edinburgh Corporation's new outdoor centre near Aviemore.

Beattie was The School 's outdoor education teacher.

Catherine Murray Brown says: " He was a popular teacher. He was very gregarious and very outgoing and up until that point had never done anything particularly controversial. "

Beattie and Davidson were experienced mountaineers and The Group was well equipped for the Cold Weather . They were joined in The Expedition by 18-year-old Sheelagh Sunderland, a trainee instructor at Lagganlia

Beattie planned The Expedition : two groups taking different routes across the Cairngorm Plateau to Ben Macdui , Britain's second highest mountain.

They were then to descend and come together, spending The Night at the Corrour Bothy in the Lairig Ghru Mountain Pass .

Beattie took the more experienced, stronger walkers. Davidson and Sunderland took The Other six. These were 16-year-old Carol Bertram, and 15-year olds Diane Dudgeon, Lorraine Dick, Susan Byrne, William Kerr, and Raymond Leslie.

They set off on The Walk at 11:00 on the Saturday 20 November, and things soon began to go wrong.

The Weather deteriorated and unrelenting blizzards battered both teams.

Beattie's team found their way through deep snow to a high shelter where they spent The Night .

The Next day his group battled their way off The Plateau . It took until the Late Afternoon for them to reach another hut from where they could contact Lagganlia.

And that's when it became clear The Other group was in trouble.

In fact, they had never made it to The First shelter.

Caught in appalling conditions and with no hope of finding their way off The Mountains , Cathy Davidson took the decision that they should Bivouac - Camp in their sleeping bags in protective sacs - on The Mountain .

They spent that first night and the whole of The Next day clinging to The Mountain in The Storm . Unable to get any distance in The Blizzard , they were forced to stay a second night.

By The Morning of Monday 22nd, a full-scale rescue operation was under way.

Fifty searchers from RAF Kinloss and the Aberdeen, Braemar, and Cairngorm Mountain rescue teams were covering the area.

At around 10:30 that morning, Davidson was spotted by a helicopter crew. She was crawling for help. Dangerously ill, she managed to tell The Rescue team where her group was huddling.

By The Time The Rescue arrived, five of The Children and The Other instructor had died. They were buried under thick snow.

Raymond Leslie was the only pupil of the six to survive The Ordeal .

Back in Edinburgh, in the homes of The Dead and at their school, the scale of The Loss was hard to bear.

Rory Macleod, Now 66, was also a senior pupil at Ainslie Park at The Time .

" Mr Chalmers, The Head teacher at The Time , confirmed what had happened, " he says.

" You could see The Confusion on people's faces from 'Wait a minute, someone's made this up' to 'Wait a minute, all of Those People are no longer…I don't get it'" he says.

Rory and Catherine Murray Brown were among those pupils who represented The School at the funerals.

She says: " I had never been to a funeral before and I had never seen so many distressed adults and I have Never Forgotten it.

" I'd never seen anybody in a coffin or anything like that and I suppose my overwhelming memory is that Young People die, and that had never occurred to me before. "

The fatal accident inquiry was held in Banff in February 1972.

It was revealed that the consent forms issued to parents did not say there would be winter mountaineering.

It concluded parents should in future get more information about expeditions, called for the establishment of a better training and certification regime for instructors, and recommended that experts should advise on whether high-level shelters should be removed to stop people relying on them in emergencies.

The bereaved parents called for Ben Beattie and The Principal of Lagganlia, John Paisley, to be found At Fault for the deaths but The Inquiry would not make any such findings.

Bill Dudgeon - Now Deceased - spoke to 'The Scotsman ' newspaper on the 40th anniversary of his daughter Diane's death in 2011.

" The fact is that it shouldn't have happened, " He Said . " I can't imagine it would happen These Days . "

" I can't help but think the instructors were too young to be in charge - it would be like a game, them in charge of kids not much younger than themselves. "

Ben Beattie continued to work in The Mountains and died in a fall while climbing in The Himalayas in 1978. Catherine Davidson moved to Canada.

Raymond Leslie lives in Scotland and has never spoken publicly about The Tragedy .

The Lagganlia Centre remained open and has introduced thousands of Young People to the benefits of the outdoors.

John Paisley, the centre's principal teacher in 1971, oversaw The Building of a memorial to The Victims of the disaster.

Rory Macleod says: " He built what you might call an outdoor room, with a supported roof, No Walls , and seats where Lagganlia residents and students could sit and reflect

" Over The Years centre staff have used it as an opportunity to ask Young People and students to think about what's ahead of them in life in general. "

Ainslie Park Secondary School closed in 1991 after years of falling pupil numbers. Only its listed façade remains, and flats Now stand on The Site .

There is no memorial there for The Five pupils who died in the Cairngorms but their school mates remember them.

Catherine Murray Brown says: " I think as long as We Are alive, we will remember it. But We Are all Getting On . It was 50 Years ago. I don't know if it will carry on much beyond living memory once all of us are gone.

" We carry it With Us . Every single person who was touched by it. We carry it With Us ".

Source of news: bbc.com