While some of Brian Varley's contemporaries are happy to pick up their pension and enjoy a quiet life, he straps on a safety helmet and heads off into the dark.

Brian, of Cottingley, enjoys nothing more than clambering into potholes.

But after 50 years of exploration underground, Brian, pictured, has decided to call it a day with the annual event to winch excited amateurs down into the gloom of the 340ft Gaping Gill cavern at the side of Ingleborough.

The former Bradford College lecturer admitted he wiped away a tear when he packed up his tent for the last time at Ingleborough - to enable younger members to take over.

Brian was just 18 when he first started potholing and 19 when he first descended into Gaping Gill. He was acting as "sherpa" for one of the leading cave photographers of his generation, Len Cook.

Len's photograph of the cavern, taken on that trip, is reproduced on thousands of postcards of the biggest cave in the UK - it would comfortably enclose St Paul's Cathedral. Brian, of North Bank Road, also cherishes a photograph taken on that trip of him traversing a passage.

And this year Len and Brian, two of the oldest active members of Craven Pothole Club, have reproduced that image. It marks Brian's decision to retire from taking part in the club's annual two-week project, setting up and operating the winch and chair which lowers people into the chamber.

He has been a team member for most of the last 50 years, but time has caught up with him and this August Bank holiday marked his last at Gaping Gill.

"I'll confess that when I came out of the camp I had tears in my eyes," said Brian, whose first trip was down Bull Pot of the Witches in the Yorkshire Dales.

Then in 1952, during a trip to Ireland, he and a colleague were believed to be the first two humans to enter the famous Pol-an-Ionaoin cave.

They dug their way in and discovered one of the biggest stalactites in the British Isles.

Plans are now under way to turn it into a showcave.

Brian still gets a thrill when he recalls first seeing the cavern.

"It was massive but it looked so thin at the top I was afraid the vibration from our voices would make it fall. But it's still there."

Brian, who started caving in the days when potholers wore tweed jackets, corduroy trousers and used rope ladders and carbide lamps, is 70 in November.

But he is determined to carry on - even if it means he needs the occasional leg-up from his younger colleagues.