Sue Harvey MBE

[DavidJ]

Since the thread appears to be continuing, I thought that I would share my only bit of knowledge on this topic. I helped at the WOC in Scotland in 1976 (on the results team) but did not get to see the competition areas. However I returned in 1977 to the Scottish Champs weekend with the individual in Culbin and the relays in Darnaway. They were certainly the most technical areas and the best maps that I had seen at that time and provided me with a most memorable weekend. The maps were an inspiration. My thanks to the Harveys (and all involved) for leading the way.

[mike g]

If you've ever seen a man orienteering in a boiler suit, it was probably Simon Beck.

[Big Jon]

And wellies - don't forget the wellies. Simon came pretty high up in JK? relays in NE on first leg wearing said boiler suit and wellies - ahead of some damn good orienteers!

[Snail]

I think he came back in the lead on leg 1 of the JK Relay at Devilla (circa 1990?).

Given that he was wearing said boiler suit the commentator missed him completely!

[EddieH]

Simon wasn't the only one to run in wellies.
At a relay in Manchester I once ran first leg for a competitive team and second leg following Mark Elgood for a non-comp team. Mark had been instructed by a doctor not to run too hard and therefore set off in wellies. The first control had no technical element and was straight up a hill - I arrived near the front, but Mark, wellies and all was there first Blisters eventually got the better of him and he did the last half in his socks

[Mrs H]

Well, running in wellies won't have done his feet much good will it? I'm not joking here - if I'm lazy and don't do up my Merrills properly (I'm talking sandals here) I get a shocking ache in my big toe joints which look like what's giving Simon gip

[Big Jon]

A wonderful joining of different threads or even linking a thread to a headline article - well done Mrs H!

[simonbeck8848]

Oh people (at least one) are still pointing out what a good job Harveys did of the WM76 maps.

I built a bit of the moutain bike track in Star Posts that links the visitor centre to the expert MTB area, called Full 9 yards, to what I call "Simon Beck standard". Every curve is bermed, every hollow is drained by a pipe retried from fly tippers or skips, every pipe projects into free air so it can't get blocked by plant growth, treestumps have been hacked away so it's reasonably safe to fall off, and it gets much praised for being swoopy and flowing, by MTBers who like that sort of track (which isnt everyone)

Since that time the local club has upgraded a lot of the remainder of the full 9 yards to a similar standard, but there is no way I would expect to take the credit for what they've done.

Robin did some great maps, nobody's saying he didn't. A lot of people praised my Inshriach map "The consensus among the (national) squad is Inshriach is a mapping tour-de-force" (Martin Hyman) I was being paid to do Inshriach, and I understand Robin was in efect being paid when he was surveying Darnaway, he wasn't doing it in his spare time in addition to having to do a job, so I understand, although I do not know this for a fact.

The reason I started posting to this thread was Graeme's assertion that Harveys raised the standard of mapping. Yes they did set goals for others to aim at, but again I say they did it too soon and caused a lot of problems.

I got some looks from other orienteers in SWOA in the mid 1970s when I produced a map that was just a bit too good, I strongly suspect they were thinking I was getting a bit too keen

[simonbeck8848]

and they were thinking "this is going to cause problems, we don't want to up the ante too much, and set standard that will cause aggro later on when he finally wakes up to the fact that others aren't as fanatical as he is, and are happier with the sort of half-surveyed maps we presently use"

OK I'm guessing at the above but that was what the body langage indicated, and I reckon a few people from that time would be interested to read all this and they would be thinking "I could have told him that 35 years ago"

But about 1980, when it became clear that those who had done the serious mapping up to then were going to be regarded as 'the mappers' for as long as they were involved in orienteering, and they were growing tired and some of them were actually producing maps that were less good than some of their previous offerings, I realised that O was getting locked into a permanent shortage of maps, old maps were revised as it was quicker than mapping a virgin area and running a new area suddenly became unusual. But there were lots of good areas just waiting to be used, at least there were whenre I lived, in Scotland. more....

[Big Jon]

Simon, you might as well say the Yvette hague/Baker raised the standard of British orienteering too soon - she was winning World Cup races several years before any other British orienteers could consider it. Complaining about high standards is somewhat ridiculous - if everyone had that attitude we'd still be in the scribbled over OS maps for orienteering and using "the" and "a" in control descriptions depending on whether a feature was on the map or not.
Harveys set the standard back in the 70's with the WOC maps - a high standard, but one that has benefitted mapping immensely as subsequent mappers had to aim at the same level.

[simonbeck8848]

Oh come on Jon don't talk rubbish, the idea of competing is to win. The idea of making a map is to serve the O community, not to make a map that's better than anyone else's.

Within 2 years of my first near-Harvey standard map being used for the first time, it had been used for 2 badge events, 2 galloppens, and at least 1 'club' score event and people were complaining it had been over-used.

That was when the aggro started, I got shouted at for not mapping 3/4 of another wood by the person who hadn't started the 1/4 he had promised to do

Yes, Robin Harvey WOULD have been a good thing if enough other people had done their bit to help, but it soon became clear they wouldn't

OK I'm starting to repeat myself, and I wonder how much longer it's pointful (if that's a word) to continue this discussion, but the result was that O moved away from the technical areas towards areas easier to map, or that already had a map, and other short-cuts.

But perhaps the majority preferred good maps of simple terrain instead of using good areas and compromising on mapping standards. Gross Asserted in another thread recently that it's the people in a competition that make it what it is, I think the thread was discussing that awful area that was used for last year's compass sport cup final. If one takes Gross's line, then perhaps it was an improvement in some eyes to have Harvey standard maps albeit of easy areas.

Most people can happily disagree with me, then again they haven't been pestered in the way that some (ex) mappers have. "Come one you mappers let's see a bit more activity" that's a quote from the chairman's column from the late 1970s I think, albeit in the most friendly possible way. But that set the scene. Mappers were going to be expected to do all the hard work while everyone else offered constructive criticism. Things were difficult in Scotland in the 1980s, the only way to get more maps was to put on the 6 day event, but it totally dominated the Scottish scene in odd numbered years, and there was an ongoing debate as to whether it should continue.

Anyway, I think most of it's been said now, Harveys deserve praise and thanks, I just think they should have set standards more modestly and waited until more money became available either through grants and sponsorship or orienteers being willing to pay more for maps.

[Wayward-O]

Anyway, I think most of it's been said now ...

Thank goodness.

I've been following this thread, which goes back a long way before I started orienteering a few years ago. I understand the arguments being made but must say that I would find it hard to criticise someone for doing their best, even with hindsight.

[Mrs H]

Simon - I think you are looking at life through the wrong end of the telescope.

As a talented hard working volunteer mapper you held all the aces so I don't understand how you became exploited in the way you describe - people were bound to try it on with you but you only had to smile and say no there were other priorities in your life at that moment (like earning some money). We all have to do that sometimes.

I think you are wrong to say that the Harveys set the standards for mapping, they set the example not the standards, they were set by the standard mappers. The fact that they were above standard is part of the reason Sue got the award and standard mappers should all give a collective sigh of relief that something better than what they have done has been recognised as exceptional - it means their work is not failing.

Miss Rosemary is not scratching away at her violin upstairs in fear and self loathing that she is now and never will be as good as Nigel Kennedy playing in the pub down the road (as he often does) she's doing it because she enjoys the challenge and hopes to improve.

She knows what we know - Good Enough is Good Enough - anything more is exceptional and to be admired.

It's time you let yourself off the hook over this.

[Tatty]

Hear, hear Lynden

[Gross]

Been biting my tongue on this.... but got a grenade to throw in

Big Jon will understand this..... WOC 1999