The network of civilian volunteer teams that respond to the bulk of mountain accidents and emergencies today did not exist at the time. Rescue was an ad hoc, chancy affair where a fallen climber’s life might depend on a comrade dashing to hostel, hut or hotel bar in the hope there would be climbers or farmers ready to rush up the hill. Lees and similarly motivated servicemen and civilians helped improve the odds.
Though he was born in Chingford, John Rodney Lees’s childhood in Essex was brief and he became by character much more the brusque northerner. Family moves meant he was educated at Hexham Grammar School, Northumberland. He later developed his craft as a rock climber at Almscliff, near Otley This is Yorkshire gritstone.

The outcrop’s brutish routes require muscle or technique and Lees developed both. “Climbing, he was superlatively neat,” wrote his first wife, the mountaineer and novelist Gwen Moffat His movements were smooth and deliberate. “You never felt, watching him, that he was going to come off.”Lees joined the RAF as the Second World War ended, thwarting his hopes of flying as aircrew and he settled for PTI – physical training instructor. Posted to the south of England he pioneered new routes on the sandstone of Harrisons Rocks, near Tunbridge Wells, in Kent and by 1950 was regarded as a “tiger” of the crags – a compliment indeed. He tackled some of the hardest lines up the cliffs of North Wales and, with a couple of trips to the Alps under his belt, became one of the best performers in the RAF Mountaineering Association (RAFMA).In March 1951 a serious accident in the Scottish Highlands drew attention to inadequacies in the RAF Mountain Rescue Service, formed in 1943 to cope with wartime crashes. A Lancaster bomber ploughed into Ben Eighe, killing five crewmen.

The Air Ministry recognised a need for experienced mountaineers in the rescue teams and asked the RAFMA to help reorganise the service.Sgt Lees instructed on the first training course in 1951 and next year, aged just 24, was appointed team leader at RAF Valley on Anglesey. He arrived a couple of days after an Aer Lingus Dakota crashed on the mountain Moel Siabod in Snowdownia killing all 23 people on board – his introduction to the service was in helping recover the bodies.For the next 10 years, Lees was one of the most instrumental figures in mountain rescue, introducing new equipment and techniques, organising courses in rock climbing and winter navigation, driving up standards and berating the stupid or incompetent. In the mid-1950s, he qualified as one of the few mountain and rock climbing guides in Britain at the time and took part in the first RAFMA expedition to the Himalayas. The team reached eight summits between 18,000 and 21,000ft in the Kulti Himal, north India, seven of them first ascents.Lees is best remembered for his action as Valley Mountain Rescue Team (MRT) leader on the night of 3 January 1958. Major Hugh Robertson had fallen on Amphitheatre Buttress, a narrowing staircase of steep pitches on Craig yr Ysfa, snow-covered at the time. Robertson had plunged 30 feet, suffered a fractured skull and was delirious.

His companion, Lt Roger Eagle, was stranded on the stance with him while other members of the Army party were unable to reach them.Lees led his team up the mountain in the dark, then descended, fixing ropes, over and around ice-covered rock and pinnacles until they reached the ledge where the victims had been stuck for seven hours in the tightening cold Lees feared the major would not survive much longer. Lowering a stretcher would be awkward and time- consuming, and would require more rope than was available.He told the others to lash Robertson onto his back in a rope cradle and after being helped to his feet contemplated again the 200ft drop below, overhanging in places. The nightmare exercise was now made worse by Robertson struggling in his delirium to get free. The major and Lees were both six footers weighing about 14 stone each. Lees was uncomfortably aware of the strain on the nylon rope – the thread on which their lives depended – but even more he was conscious of the need for speed. He was lowered with his thrashing burden into the darkness of the amphitheatre.It was recognised that Lees’s bold action probably saved Robertson’s life and he was awarded the George Medal, though typically he deflected the credit to his team.