Maaaany years ago, I worked for a few months as a guide
at the Blue John Cavern in Daaarbyshire. The guided tours were meant to be based on the guide book, which was not the most carefully researched and verifiable document in the first place.
To cut a looong story shrt, over a period of time the information from each guide began to diverge from the official party line, until you could have gone down with three consecutive guides and believed that you were in a completely different cavern each time.
We became competitive. We set each other challenges. We had a contest to see who could get one of the punters to ask the ladies in the shop for a copy of 'The Epic of Gilgamesh' (because the Blue John Cavern is, of course, mentioned several times in this antidiluvean masterpiece :p ). We span theories to our hearts' content about Coriolis forces and helical cave markings, polar reversals and whatnot.
Two things of note came from this.
1) Despite occasionally provoking a smirk or conspiratorial grin, at no time was I ever challenged on any of my outrageous lies by any teachers in charge of school field trips.
2) We were all completely outclassed and frankly had to acknowledge one particular guide as 'The Master'. The lowest cavern in the series is a fairly impressive space, and in the artful lighting looks even bigger than it is. It's pretty big by the standards of most natural caves in Britain. Nevertheless it's still a cave, so we were awestruck to hear a middle-aged couple in the shop after a trip with 'The Master' asking in all seriousness for two tickets to the forthcoming 'UK Underground Hang-gliding Championships'.
( blyerkit e k trilby, Sat 15 Jan 2011, 20:45, 2 replies)

I've been trying
to get someone to go down these caverns with me for ages but for various reasons they have always bottled out. I would love to go on the tour but given what you've put is there any particular bullshit i should look for and where can i get the real story of the caverns?
(andythepieman Is surfing the waves of indifference on, Mon 17 Jan 2011, 16:28, closed)

Underground Hanggliding FTW
Now there's something that really should exist.
( Ugi , it's a game of give and cake, Wed 19 Jan 2011, 18:27, closed)