Owen Phillips, new team leader with the Holme Valley Mountain Rescue Team, has been helping people for the majority of his 33 years.

And having hung around the team for as long as he can remember, he joined as soon as he became eligible, aged 16, in the summer of 2000.

He’s now following in the footsteps of his father, a retired senior firefighter who worked in Slaithwaite, Holmfirth, Huddersfield, Dewsbury and Cleckheaton, and sister, a nurse.

What’s more he says the team brought him into proximity with the girl who became his wife – and offered support when he lost his mum to cancer.

“My father, Pete, joined Holme Valley MRT in November 1980, nearly four years before I was born,” says Owen.

“I would hang around our old HQ building in Meltham as a child ‘helping’ with things. I remember piles of change been counted out on our kitchen table following street collections. I remember frequent visitors; family friends who were – and many still are – members of the team.”

He also recalls the family pet being trained as a mountain rescue dog, with he and older sister Jen, now a nurse at HRI, assisting by hiding in the woods under a camouflage net or by being ‘buried’ in a snowhole up on the moors in the winter, “only to be found by an excited and boisterous dog, digging through the snow.”

Clearly it’s in his blood, and he loves it.

Owen, who was born in Meltham and now lives in Shepley, became a full member of the Marsden-based team and joined the call-out list following his 18th birthday in June 2002. Over the following 15 years he became more involved in the running of the team, accepted a position on the team council and took on increasingly senior assistant leader roles.

As a self-employed designer, the time he was able to commit became very flexible, enabling him me to be almost always available for call-outs.

And they have been many and varied.

“We have endless streams of motorbikes crashes, paragliders... it keeps us busy. But we get some unusual jobs, too. Three or four years ago we were called out to assist the ambulance service as their vehicles couldn’t get through the snow.

“It was a normal family home where a little girl had taken a bite out of a peanut butter sandwich. She didn’t know she had an allergy so it was quite an alarming situation. We used a 4x4 with chains on the wheels to get to the house, get her out and to an ambulance. That was just a family at home that got into difficulties but it was a rewarding experience personally.”

He remembers another situation that was equally sad and uplifting.

“An elderly man who was a regular hiker had gone out walking but hadn’t come back. His family reported him missing. Sadly he had passed away and his body was spotted by a helicopter. We brought him home. It was a beautiful summer’s evening. The overwhelming feeling for us was that that was the way we’d want to go – doing the thing we loved.”

Then there were the national cases; the searches for April Jones in Wales and Shannon Matthews in Dewsbury. Mountain Rescue specialists were involved in both.

After dad Pete, 62, and sister Jen, 34, Owen is now the third member of the Phillips family to continue the mountain rescue tradition. He may not be the last...

In 2013, Jess Heathcote joined the team as a trainee. It wasn’t long before she and Owen were an item, moving in together within months and marrying in May this year. The wedding overlooked the moors, their transport was a Mountain Rescue Land Rover and they walked through a guard of honour of ice-axes held by members of the team wearing red Mountain Rescue jackets.

“I don’t recommend it as a dating service but it worked for me!” he laughs. “Jess and I look forward to hopefully bringing a third generation of the Phillips family to serve with the team in the future.”

In 2012 Owen’s mum, Su succumbed to cancer aged just 56. The same evening, 37 team members – Owen, Pete and Jen included – were presented with the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal for voluntary service. “The way the entire team rallied round and supported us that evening, and over the difficult days, weeks and months after, will stay with me forever,” he remembers.

Now Owen has been appointed Team Leader, a decade after his father stepped down after 10 years in the role. It means he will carry the service forward, embracing all the changes that have come since it was formed in 1965.

“I always felt that it took a while to break out from under my father’s shadow and to be accepted for my own merits, but I’m sure that wasn’t the intention of anyone involved. The team has changed a lot over those years, but the fundamental values and commitment of those who are members hasn’t.

“The role has changed, and over the last 10 years it’s changed an awful lot. It used to be an enthusiastic and capable bunch of people that went up on the moors and helped people.

“It’s changed now. Nowadays we get far more calls to assist the police.

“I’m committed to looking to the future – taking the team forward, working with a dedicated and highly skilled group of volunteers who are ‘professionals in all but pay’, and enabling them to help more people.

“As other services have been stretched the role of MR has expanded, and I think those who founded our team back in 1965 would be astounded at what we are, and what we have achieved, today.”

Holme Valley Mountain Rescue Team is comprised of volunteers and is charity-based. People can find out about it and donate at www.holmevalleymrt.org.uk