The Tratman Award is presented annually to the best caving-related, paper-based publication in memory of UBSS member Professor E.K. ‘Trat’ Tratman.

The award recognises excellence in writing and presentation, encompassing aspects such as the subject’s importance, readability, the quality of the photographs and surveys, the printing and binding and – in short – any aspect that the judges consider applicable. This also includes ‘improvement’ where, for example, long-established journals that have already received a commendation for their standard in previous years would need to show a higher standard again to attain a mention.

The judging team for 2022 and 2023 (these two years allowing the award to catch up to the present) comprised Joe Duxbury, Chris Howes, Alan Jeffreys, Martin Mills and Linda Wilson, who make their decision independently of BCRA, the award’s sponsor. The judges all read widely within caving literature and therefore form a shortlist before winnowing this to a shorter set of titles that finally produces the commendations and a winner. Coming to a decision across these two years was especially challenging because several judges were involved with different publications in some way or other, and recused themselves from different parts of the process to leave the remaining judges to come to a decision. Finding a consensus was difficult given the high-quality found across the board.

It should also be noted that under the Tratman rules, the judges may consider publications that perhaps were published late in the preceding year and thus escaped immediate attention, which applies to two of the following commendations for 2022:

Journal of York CC and North York Moors CC (3) edited by Gary Douthwaite and Matt Ewles

Caves of Assynt edited by Tim Lawson and Peter Dowswell

Caves of Southern Ireland compiled and edited by Graham Mullan

Digging Bath Stone by David Pollard

Hidden Worlds by Robbie Shone

Somerset Underground Vol 3, Central and South Mendip, by Rob Taviner

MSG 14 by multiple Moldywarps SG authors

We also have two fine articles published in Descent:

‘The Smithy Rescue’ by multiple authors concerning the major rescue in Ogof Ffynnon Ddu in issue (284), and ‘Into Dante’s Inferno’ by Tanguy Racine about exploration by Imperial College CC in Slovenia’s Sistem Migovec in issue (286)

For 2023 a similar pattern emerged – the judges faced huge difficulties in whittling down a longer list to the final commendations:

Exploring the Karst and Caves of the Gower Peninsula edited by John S. Cooper

Hidden Realms by Martyn Farr

Hidden Inside the Highlands by Alan L. Jeffreys

Scotland Beneath the Surface by L. Bruce Keith

Aberllefeni Slate Quarry by Jon Knowles

Weekend Explorers by Harry Long

Pioneers Beneath the Peak by Martin Wright

Plus, again, articles from Descent: ‘A Return to the Deepest Cave in Thailand’ in issue (292) and ‘The Aquamole is Back’ in issue (294), having four and three authors respectively

Any author or publisher should be proud to have gained a commendation and appear here. From within the listings, the judges’ discussions were lengthy and while there had to be a single winner for each year, it was a close call.

In the end, for 2022 both the Journal of York CC and North York Moors CC (3) and Caves of Assynt are Highly Commended while Digging Bath Stone by David Pollard published by Lightmoor Press gains the year’s Tratman Award. This immensely well-researched work is richly illustrated with historical images and, though the author made no such claims, it will be treated as the definitive history for the area. Sadly, David died in 2017 before the book was published.

For 2023 the judges were presented with so much fine work there was much dissent over which title should gain the final accolade. As one of the judges commented of the winner: ‘this is an excellent book, informative, lively, well-presented, thoroughly engrossing and extremely enjoyable, with a commendable layout, production values and image reproduction.’ The accolade goes to Pioneers Beneath the Peak by Martin Wright.

Any caver or mining enthusiast who is not familiar with any of these titles is encouraged to seek them out. The award itself is a fine, specially crafted sculpture representing the winning title that is created by Ceris Jones and retained by the author. Congratulations to those gaining the awards and indeed to all those with Highly Commended and Commended notations.

Correspondent: Chris Howes, for the judges