Peter Rhodes on the benefits enigma, the horror of caves - and why didn't Gran keep a diary?

There are adventurers whose courage is inspirational, whose doggedness is dazzling and whose stirring example cries out to us to follow in their footsteps. And then there are potholers...

A groups of cavers beneath the Forest of Dean have broken through from a known cave to discover an unknown string of caves the size of churches littered with boulders as big as houses. The complex is six miles long, given cheerful names such as Westway Choke, Howling Hole and Mindless Optimism. The explorers have spent hours squeezing through narrow shafts in what they call the plank position and live in fear of flash floods and rock collapses. The team have just reached the edge of a sheer drop “and we don't know what's down there.” Something hideous, I dare say.

The historical author Philippa Gregory says we could learn a lot about history by having a look at our grandmothers' diaries. It's a good idea, assuming your gran ever kept a diary. Mine didn't, probably because, like hundreds of thousands of her generation, she was in service. In a back-breaking day of sweeping, washing, ironing and polishing, domestic staff barely had time to eat, let alone write a diary. Nothing tells us more about the lives of ordinary working women 100 years ago than the absence of diaries.

South Western Railway, the first private rail company to be nationalised, has kicked off its service with a replacement bus, owing to engineering work. It is a timely reminder that not everything ran perfectly in the days when the railways were state-owned. First, a replacement bus. Is somebody working on the curly sandwiches?