Celebrity status has come late and a bit reluctantly for 75-year-old potholer Brian Varley.

The unassuming retired college lecturer from Cottingley isn't one to blow his own trumpet, and it has taken him 55 years to receive the public's praise.

He has just returned from Ireland, where he was invited to visit the showcave he discovered in 1952 and which contains one of the most spectacular stalactites in the world.

The formation, once regarded as the world's biggest, was discovered by Brian and his pal, the late Mike Dickinson, but until this recent visit - encouraged by cave owners John and Helen Browne - he has never been back.

In the same year Queen Elizabeth ascended to the throne and Everest was conquered, the two youngsters, dressed only in old clothes and using simple electric torches and carbide lamps, scrambled and squeezed into the cave where no-one had ever been before.

And the pair, both members of Skipton-based Craven Pothole Club, emerged into a cavern to cast their flickering lamplight on a stunning stalactite which hung down more than 25 feet by a thread of rock.

The formation is now the major feature of the Doolin Showcave, in County Clare, which has been open to the public for only a year.

Brian said: "It was absolutely stunning, far more spectacular than when I first saw it all those years ago.

"I remember being staggered by the sight. More than anything I was amazed by how it seemed to just hang by a thread and I thought if we raised our voices above a whisper it would crash down.

"But seeing it now lit up in all its glory in the showcave it is tremendous.'' His wife, Molly, who accompanied him, said: "It was really beautiful, so much so that I was in tears. I think it was the emotion of being with Brian - he has never spoken about it much - and of seeing something so wonderful."

The couple were given a special trip into the cave down a stepped shaft, which has been dug specifically to allow public access.

He recounted how at Whitsuntide in 1952 he and Mike, who were with a party of 12, went off together to do some exploration at a cliff face they had seen the previous day. He said: "We dug for about two hours and then got fed up - we were getting nowhere.

"We then tried a small entrance nearby and crawled in - it was a struggle but I was as thin as a set of braces then.

"We reached a small chamber and noticed a gap in the roof, pulled some boulders away and got through into another area where we started digging.

"After about two hours we came through to another area. It was very muddy but we could hear water, which is a big sign that there is a passage ahead.

"It was very low and of solid rock but we were really fired up and carried on.

"We eventually wormed our way through and suddenly we knew we had found a huge chamber. There was an echo and a different feeling in the air, and it felt like we had broken into nothingness. Squeezing through more rocks we looked around and saw the stalactite."

Brian recalls how for a joke he and Mike had intended to tell the others they had found nothing. "But as soon as we met them we couldn't hold it in and jumped in the air shaking our fists and spilling it all out. We just couldn't shut up," he said.

A spokesman for Doolin Cave said: "As part of the information by the guides we tell people about Brian and Mike's fantastic achievement."