It was the biggest, most romantic home-coming Bristol had ever seen and it was witnessed by hundreds of thousands who came not just from Bristol and the West but from all over the country. And that was fitting. She was the s.s. Great Britain, after all, one of Brunel's masterpieces and a national treasure which was returning to her home port at last. The Post had followed the fairy-tale story from the start, from the very first suggestion that the iron ship, the world's first propeller driven ocean liner, should be rescued from the Falkland Islands where she had lain a storm-battered hulk, used for storing wool and coal.
That daring rescue plan had first been put forward in the mid-1930s. It was only in 1970 that the dream came true, thanks to the Bahamas-based millionaire Jack Hayward, a man with a soft spot for Bristol and the Bristol Channel.
First he had given £150,000 to secure Lundy Island for the National Trust. . . and then he had turned his attention to one of the most famous ships to have sailed the Bristol Channel. His donation of £150,000 to the rescue operation made it all possible. The hulk was raised on to a pontoon and on April 24th the mighty ocean-going tug VariusII began the long, long journey to bring back the s.s. Great Britain. The Post's first sight of her came off Cornwall on Saturday June 20th when photographer Eddie Wood joined an RAF Shackleton crew on a search-and-find operation as the tug, pontoon and its rusty cargo reached the last lap of the marathon journey.
The searchers divided their time between watching the radar screen and the sea below. 'It was three hours and several blips on the screen before a crewman called out 'I've got it... this is the one.' 'And it was. Down below, a seemingly empty sea was broken by two small flecks. We had found the Great Britain and the Varius II. 'Small, like toy boats on a pond, they seemed to barely move through the choppy grey-green seas. 'But as we closed in, the huge, red-rusty hull began to loom incredibly high as it rode the pontoon pulled by the tug.' Eddie Wood's excitement was just a tiny taster of what followed as first the s.s. Great Britain came into view along the Bristol Channel shoreline and then arrived triumphantly in Avonmouth on Tuesday June 23rd.
Jack Hayward was there to watch the fun as the s.s. Great Britain was gently eased alongside Avonmouth's North Wall. It was the start of a 12 day repair programme to prepare the great ship for being floated up the Avon to the dock from where she had been launched on July 19th 1843. Jack Hayward said: 'I am very proud indeed. I have achieved the two projects which I felt were important for Britain'. And then the greatest day of all when all the world watched the shabby, rusting remains crawl slowly up-river with its escort of three tugs.
Only 750 people were allowed on the Clifton Suspension Bridge, but it hardly mattered. The Avon Gorge provided spectacular viewpoints for all the huge crowds. The Evening Post's Phil Jones was among the select band allowed on the temporary deck to sail up the Avon on the ship. 'The real moment of history came as the Great Britain sailed majestically under that other of Brunel's masterpieces, the Clifton Suspension Bridge, which had not been built when the ship left Bristol.
'The crowds of cheering well wishers on the bridge rained confetti and flower petals on the convoy. 'Crowds packed both sides of the river and were jammed tight across the whole complex of the Cumberland Basin road bridge. 'People took to the rooftops and river banks to cheer the old lady on the last lap other epic progress 8 miles up the Avon. 'Now she is back, snug in the dock of her birth, after the biggest maritime welcome in Bristol's living history.'
1971 Sunday February 15th - Decimalisation Day
And then came that OTHER D-Day . . . the day that tanners and bobs, pennies and ha'pence, half crowns and ten bob notes were finally consigned to history. D-Day was Decimalisation Day, the Monday that a confused Britain woke up to find that the coinage we'd known for centuries was a thing of the past. New-fangled pounds worth 100 'pee' had replaced the familiar £1 which had been worth 20 shillings. The new 5p had replaced the old shilling which had been worth 12 pence. Sixpence had now become worth 2 & half pence. The old penny wasn't worth anything. Confused? If you are now, it was nothing like the chaos and confusion that came on the dawn of D-Day.
Lord Fiske, chairman of the Decimal Currency Board created to mastermind the change-over, spent the eve of D-Day in Harrods posing with a pair of Decibelles, two pretty girls trained by Harrods to help customers with any troubles during the big day, while the store changed its cash registers. In Bristol it was the same story as shops big and small spent that Sunday changing tills with the old pounds-shillings-and-pence registers to the new pounds-and- pees. A confused public waited with apprehension and nervously clutched con- version tables when Monday came.
The Board reassured shoppers with a list of Do's and Don'ts for D-Day. '. DO help the shopkeeper. If you don't have the right money, do as you've always done—give more and get the change. '. DO keep your decimal and £ s d coppers separate to avoid confusion. Pay decimal prices in decimal shops and £ s d in £ s d shops. '.
DO think decimal. Once you have got the 'feel' of decimal prices, you can forget £sd. '.
DON'T expect all shops to go decimal at once.'
The Post's D-Day team were on the battle front that day. Jeremy Brien gave an up-beat picture of how the city had fared: 'Some grumbled. Some couldn't care less. And some even pretended it wasn't there. 'But for the majority of Bristolians, those 'damned dots' came in smoothly today. 'Newsagents, train booking clerks, shop girls and bank staff were all in the front line of the switch to decimal coinage. 'And although there were minor difficulties and some complaints, the general impression in Bristol was 'What's all the fuss about?'
'The big Bristol stores, which have been preparing the decimalisation path for more than six months, reported no major headaches. 'But there were some moans at neighbourhood shops away from the city centre. Mr Leslie Langdon said at the New Cheltenham post office and supermarket in Kingswood that his customers were calling the new coins 'dismal currency'. 'He added: 'They wanted to know whose idea the whole thing was and many of them said the new halfpenny was very small and would soon go out of circulation.'
' Meanwhile D-Day spawned the Decimal Dodgers, people who tried to use lower value new currency in slot machines. Tough luck, Decimal Dodgers. Machines like parking meters, laundromat washing machines and chocolate and cigarette dispensers quickly found out that the slots willingly accepted the halfpence and 1p coins, but gave nothing in return.
And there was the tweed-suited,furious gent who flourished a tin of chicken curry at a Bristol shop counter as a Decibelle soothingly explained all the changes. He snorted: 'I'm just not interested in all this new-fangled decimal nonsence.Give nonsence. 'Give me the change and forget the explanations.'
1972 Monday July 13th - Bristol Balloons
Up, up and away . . . they could have invented that phrase for the Bristol balloonist Don Cameron. The quietly-spoken Scot had come to Bristol to work in the aircraft industry. He looked much more like a thoughtful school-teacher than one of the world's great aviation pioneers. Though Cameron worked in the fixed wing aviation industry, his heart lay elsewhere. With lighter-than-air balloons. In 1966 he and some pals founded the Hot Air Group which produced its first balloon, The Bristol Belle, in 1967.
There were no licences for hot air balloonists then. Cameron argued that there should be and he won. Licence Number One was issued to one D. Cameron of Bristol. Cameron Balloons began in the cellar of a house in Cotham in 1968 and he didn't do badly selling his products at £1,500 a time to well-off enthusiasts. But Don Cameron had bigger ideas.
He'd seen the crowds which gathered to watch his balloons inflate and rise at summer beanfeasts in and around Bristol and he was convinced that the big money future lay in promoting balloons as gigantic aerial advertising hoardings. But how to make his balloons famous? By going for every record and publicity- seeking exploit he could. And in 1972 the quietly-spoken Cameron stepped on to the world stage. He started the year by soaring over the Sahara in a balloon. That sent the temperature soaring. Then Don went for another big one—the world's duration record. To gain maximum publicity, he set off from the heart of Bristol.
It was one of Cameron's rare but equally headline-making failures. 'Disappointed balloonist Don Cameron (32) vowed this afternoon that he would have another go on the world hot-air balloon duration record. 'He seemed undaunted after an emergency landing on a hill overlooking Hartcliffe Way, Bristol. 'He and his balloon Golden Eagle had been in the air only 2 hours. 'The plan was to 'hang around' over Bristol for a total of nine hours to break the world record. ' 'Of course I am disappointed—but I shall try again in the next couple of weeks' he said. 'I shall now have to wait for the right weather.'
'The emergency landing was made because of a leak in one of the massive balloon's fuel pipes. 'Mr Cameron had hoped to snatch back the accolade from American M.A. Wiederkehr, who recently took to the hot- air for 8 hours 48 minutes, three seconds. 'The dramatic ascent from the College Close at Clifton—in a balloon that cost £1,600 and is larger than the average house—even created a new entry in the cricket record book: Balloon stopped play. 'For even the participants in the annual Clifton College v. MCC match paused to watch the final stages as Mr Cameron heated the air with powerful gas burners'.
A few weeks later Don Cameron won all the publicity he could have dreamt of. He achieved the first-ever crossing of the Alps by hot air balloon after being told it was an impossible journey. Don Cameron and ballooning in Bristol had become world famous.
When the plane took off at about 8.30 a.m. it carried 148 passengers and crew. At 10.10 a.m. Basle air traffic control lost touch with the pilot of the Bristol flight, code named Oscar Papa, on its landing approach. The plane had ploughed into a snowy, forested hillside near Basle, somersaulted and broken up. Some in the rear section of the aircraft survived the crash almost unscathed and two, Bristol headmaster Barry Rogerson and a teenage boy set out to raise the alarm.
By midday news of the disaster had reached Bristol and the Post's air correspondent Malcolm Smith was on his way to Heathrow airport and to Switzerland. By early afternoon it was confirmed that more than 100 had died in the worst loss of life the Bristol area had suffered since the Good Friday blitz 32 years earlier. In one heart-breaking moment fathers had lost their entire families, scores of children their mothers. The presence of so many groups of women friends and neighbours bore down heavily on small towns near Bristol like Axbridge, Cheddar and Congresbury where the day trip to Basle had been such an exciting date on the calendar.
Before that dreadful day was over, arrangements to fly relatives to Basle were already being completed. Within less than two days the heart-breaking task of identifying the victims had begun. Malcolm Smith reported from the village of Dornach, near Basle: 'A boy of 14 from Somerset stood on the steps of the old school house here this afternoon and wept unashamedly, comforted by a woman officer of the Salvation Army. 'Inside the building he had just witnessed the most sobering of all moments—seeing laid in rows the dark-stained coffins of the victims of the Vanguard crash.
'It was the moment when my courage failed. I could not ask his name. 'This was his moment to be alone and the emotion swept through the small gathering of onlookers and the grey uniformed police who cast their gaze away from the pitiful scene. 'This is the darkest hour for the relatives and friends who faced the awful task of identifying their loved ones. It was harrowing to them all and they faced the challenge nobly. 'There was the impassive husband clutching a polythene bag with a coat and a handbag inside. 'There was the family group distressed but calm in the face of failure to find any clue which pointed to what happened to their daughter, an 18-year-old with a love of flying.
'Dornach this afternoon is bathed in sunshine. On the mountainside, still snow- covered a few miles away, lies the wreckage of Oscar Papa'. The final death toll was 108.
Explosions in provincial cities as well as the capital made police take every warning call seriously. On the Avon and Somerset police patch, officers were even more rigorous after the region's first taste of terrorism came with a warning following by the blast of a 51b bomb in The Corridor at Bath. That was just eight days before the Bristol phone call. The pattern was the same as at Bath. The caller with an Irish accent. The lack of a code word. The threat was real enough. Within 10 minutes of the alert 50 police officers were on Park Street, searching litter bins, dustbins, shop doorways and piles of wastepaper awaiting collection.
The search began at the bottom of Park Street and was making its way painstakingly up the hill when, at 7.54, there was the deafening roar and shockwaves of a device exploding outside Dixon's photographic shop further up the road. One man was hurt and taken to hospital. The blast, the biggest bang suffered in the fashionable shopping street since bombs wrecked several shops during the blitzes of World War II, shattered plate glass shopfronts up and down the street.
Within a minute police had resumed their check of dustbins, doorways and other possible bomb hiding places. And then, at 8.03 and without a warning, a second bomb exploded in a dustbin out-side the Kenneth Harris hearing aid shop. The muffled crump of the detonation could be heard two miles away. In Park Street itself the bang was deafening. The second explosion seemed designed to catch police in the mop-up operation. In the event it caught a teenager hurrying to ring his and his girl-friend's parents to tell them they had not been hurt in the first attack.
He suffered nasty burns and glass cuts. She was saved because he fell across her as shopfronts around them exploded in the shockwave. In just eight minutes Bristol's premier shopping street had been reduced to a ghastly mockery of a Christmas attraction. Mercifully no one died, although 15 people were injured. The Post's six-strong team sent to the scene described the aftermath of the terrorist attack: 'A large facia above Kenneth Harris's hangs at a crazy angle. The force of the explosion blasted downwards into a cellar buckling a steel beam. 'The upward force has crumpled brickwork and a major re-building programme will be necessary.
'Across the road more shops ring to the sound of hammers and crowbars as glass clinging to broken frames is cleared for safety. 'A merry Christmas banner and silver tinsel, bathed still in an electric spotlight, looks incongruous flapping in the window of Rayner's Records where the smiling faces of Bob Dylan and Sir John Barbirolli appear on record sleeves—beckoning to the Christmas trade. 'At the Chapter and Verse bookshop, ironically, James Joyce's volume Dubliners stands unscathed and draws the eye from Sir John Betjeman portrayed on his dustcover with a stoic grimace.
'One wonders at the forces of science that in moments of explosion can cause such havoc yet leave seven milk bottles on a doorstep unscathed. 'One marvels at the way vast panes of glass can just disappear and at the force that drives the splinters to destroy furniture in the gaping front of an antique store. 'There is blood still on the pavement. It is a reminder above the clatter of the big clear-up that we are the lucky ones.
'The idiocy of the Park Street bombers has taken its toll in many ways and the faces are grim of those with a devilish task of finding the clues that led to the culprits.'
1975 Sunday July 13th - Rollermania was in town
Hitched-up baggy trousers, basketball boots, tartan scarves, police, shrieking girls and near riots . . . you've guessed it. Rollermania was in town. It came three times to Bristol in the summer of '75. There was the day they opened the box office at the Colston Hall for the forthcoming Bay City Rollers show. Then there was the dress rehearsal on May 29th when the band should have appeared but didn't. And then there was the real thing when the squeaky-clean popsters finally made it to Bristol and brought the house down. The girl at the head of the queue at the Colston Hall when they opened the box office on May 8th was 16-year-old Rosemary Knight from London who'd spent two days there. She'd already queued and bought tickets to see Rollers shows at Wolverhampton, Coventry and London and was going to see the band eight times on their '75 tour.
The queue veteran told the Post:' 'The only trouble was when some silly girl started saying that they were opening the box office early. Everyone started pushing forward and I was pushed into the glass door. ' 'The door broke on my knee but I wasn't hurt. Everyone's been very friendly here. I just wanted to see the Bay City Rollers. I'll go anywhere to see them.'' But she didn't see them on May 29th when they were due. Lead singer Les Mckeown was involved in a fatal car accident in Edinburgh and the gig was postponed at the very last minute. 'News of the cancellation was flashed to the 100-strong police contingent detailed to safeguard possible troublespots.
'Police and ambulancemen at the city hotel where the group was due to stay, and the Colston Hall, relayed the news to fans. 'One officer said: 'They just wouldn't believe us. A few of them were crying and decided to go home but the diehard fans thought it was a ruse'. 'He pointed to one forlorn-looking 10- year-old girl in full tartan and ankle-length Rollers' gear and said: 'Just try to convince her that they aren't in Bristol. She simply won't believe it is true.' ' The show was re-arranged. The night the Rollers came to Bristol seven girls were taken to hospital from the Colston Hall—five were treated for hysteria, two for minor injuries—and another 40 were treated on the spot by the St John Ambulance Brigade while teeny and sub- teeny mayhem ruled.
The Post's Pop reporter, one James Belsey, wrote: 'The Rollers arrived on stage to the strains of the elegant Blue Danube waltz. 'The band smiled, waved, grinned, pranced around like puppets and danced like humans mimicking pogo sticks. 'They sang 'Shang A Lang', 'Be My Baby', 'Shout', 'Keep On Dancing' and, inevitably, finished the chaos with 'Bye Bye Baby'. 'They turned out some respectable guitar breaks, had a tight vocal sound and Les Mckeown radiated their cleaner-than- clean image with superb aplomb.
'Derek and Alan Longmuir, Eric Faulkner and Stuart Wood followed suit. 'The girls sang and screamed and fainted and the harassed, hot ambulance staff were rushed off their feet ferrying limp bodies to the safety of quieter corners. 'Music wasn't the point of the evening —it was a great big shouting, yelling, screaming, fainting thrill for the girls.' Later the final shrieks echoed away, the hall was cleared and it was all over.
And Rollermania was over almost as quickly, as things turned out.
1976 Wednesday April 21st - First Division after 65 years
'They're Up! Bristol City have made it back to the First Division after 65 years. 'The 1-0 win over Portsmouth last night clinched it and ended the nervous anxiety, the heartaches and the worry of the last couple of months. 'Would they fold up at the final hurdle? Would there be a repeat of last season when they were all but there on Good Friday but dropped 3 points out of 4 in the home games against Norwich and Rovers and fluffed it?' No they wouldn't, added Peter Godsiff, the man who'd been reporting City's trials and tribulations over the years.
The Post carried a four-page promotion supplement the morning after that famous Tuesday night as well as an electric match report and front and back page pictures of the aftermath . . . complete with a drenched, fully-clothed City manager Alan Dicks sharing champagne in the communal bath alongside his victorious players.The Post was in no doubt that sporting big time would bring great changes the following season. The editorial celebrating City's success was in breezy mood: 'It has been a long time coming. But perhaps the triumph of Bristol City's promotion to the First Division will taste all the sweeter for it.
'For years the soccer fan in Bristol has been denigrated for his lack of blind support for its teams, for the fact that he will not turn out to watch any opposition. 'But perhaps he has been maligned. Maybe discrimination has been confused with apathy. 'Next season should provide the proof. With Liverpool, Leeds and Manchester United on their guest list, Bristol City can honestly say their supporters won't see any better on the box. 'And maybe they will be in for a surprise. Perhaps this is what the football supporters of Bristol have been waiting for all these years and that closed gates will be the norm next season. 'Of course it could be just a pipe dream.
But now is not the time to contemplate such things. 'Let's bask in the reflected glory of City's proud achievement. Let's cheer them to the echo. Let's give them the Freedom of the City. 'Make no mistake: First Division status means much more than better soccer in the city next season.
'It means the name of Bristol being blazoned further, wider and more often. We shall see more visitors ... we shall do more trade.'
1977 February 4th - The Bristol Bumb
Things that went bump in the night first annoyed then baffled Somerset and Bristol in the winter of 1976/77.
Not just bump. . .but Bump-Bump. On some nights the double detonation was heard from Taunton to Totterdown. What on earth was going on? The story of those funny bumps started in Somerset in November, 1976 when folk living in North Petherton became alarmed by a double detonation that seemed to come shortly after 9 p.m. most evenings. By November 14th they had called in the police, as the Post reported the next day. 'Inspector John Thouless of Sedgemoor police said: 'This is a very puzzling affair. The accuracy of the reports was completely confirmed by the constable we sent out to North Petherton to check.
' 'We too have made widespread inquiries without result. ' 'An extraordinary feature of the matter is that these regular rumbling noises have been reported from the Royal Ordnance factory at Puriton, Yeovilton, Wellington and even as far away as Crediton.' '
Locals had pointed the finger at both the Royal Naval Air Station and the ordnance factory. Not guilty, they said. They'd heard them too. The Post made its own investigation and discovered that some of those mysterious bumps seemed to coincide with incoming transatlantic flights by British Airways Concordes. It didn't explain all the sounds, and anyway, BA said, their Concordes slowed down to subsonic well before reaching the coastline. The Post dug a little deeper and found that some bumps came at about the time Air France Concordes bound for Paris were passing our shores. A Civil Aviation Authority expert was sceptical. 'The usual carpet for hearing sonic booms is about 20 miles. At 30 miles the sound has disappeared or very nearly so. Yet this noise is being heard at far greater distances'.
At which point Bristol University decided to step in to nail the noise once and for all. A group sat in Somerset gardens, recorded the sounds and went to work. On February 4th, 1977, they were ready and they called a press conference. The Bump Boffins pinned the blame for disturbing the peace of the West Country evening firmly on Bristol's wonder plane. 'As Concorde approaches Europe— both Air France flights to Paris and British Airways flights to Heathrow—it flies supersonic until within 40 miles of coastlines. 'But before the plane decelerates to subsonic speeds it is making the typical double bang sonic boom heard from all supersonic planes. 'And that bang bounces—either off the sea and strong upper atmosphere winds or off the strong upper atmosphere winds directly—and comes back to earth giving the typical deep rumble of the Somerset bumps.
'Dr Tom Lawson, reader in industrial aerodynamics said: 'Of 584 reports from the public, only about a dozen people were concerned or worried'. 'He said the pressure of the Somerset Bumps was equivalent to the pressure of an object travelling at 2 mph—and the sound is the equivalent of a car door slamming about 50 yards away.' So now we knew . . .
1978 Monday July 24th - Baby in a tube
On July 24th, shortly before midnight, a daughter was born to John and Lesley Brown of Hassell Drive, Easton, Bristol.
Baby Louise weighed in at 51b 12oz and this time when the Post, like every newspaper in the country, described the new-born infant as a 'miracle' babe, it was hardly less than the truth. She would have been a miracle even a decade before. For the tiny Bristolian was nothing less than the world's first test tube baby. Louise was delivered in hospital at Oldham where the Browns had travelled to be under the care of the famous gynaecologist Mr Patrick Steptoe who had predicted in 1970 that the first test tube baby would be born 'next year'. That announcement was rather over-optimistic, as things turned out.
But for childless Lesley Brown, it was well worth the wait when she became one of his patients. These days the fertilisation technique pioneered by Dr Steptoe and first brought to a successful fruition with little Louise's birth has become an accepted part of medical practice.
In 1978 the story of the Browns was a wonder which brought a sudden ray of hope to countless childless couples. John and Lesley had tried for children for eight years when Dr Steptoe was approached. He found Lesley had a fault in her fallopian tubes. So fertilisation was made in an intricate piece of medical glassware . . . and the fertilised egg successfully re-implanted in the mother-to- be's womb. The experiment had been attempted many times and failed. This time it worked brilliantly.
The next day's Evening Post front page headline summed it up: Mrs Brown You've Got A Lovely Daughter. 'The world's first test tube baby snoozed peacefully in a plastic cot alongside her overjoyed Bristol mum this afternoon. 'Staff at the Lancashire hospital said mum and baby were both 'excellent'. 'One member of the health department crew who filmed the birth said: 'She is a beautiful baby. ' 'She's got a very small amount of hair and she certainly did a lot of bawling and crying as soon as she was born'.
'The baby was just over a week premature and was delivered by caesarean operation by Mr Patrick Steptoe, the gynaecologist behind the epoch-making step in medical history. 'Mrs Brown's husband, Bristol railway worker John (38), was driven to the hospital last night and afterwards held the wonder baby in his arms. 'He said: 'I am so happy I could cry. It was just like a dream'. 'In fact there were plenty of tears from the thrilled father and one hospital worker said: 'I have never seen a man so excited. He was laughing and crying at the same time ... he was choked with joy.
'' John and Lesley Brown's joy didn't end there. Four years later Lesley gave birth to her second test tube daughter and this time the delivery was made at Bristol Maternity Hospital. Delivering test tube tots had already become part of a hospital's routine.
1979 Monday April 2nd - Dangerous Sports Club
T-Day, the day Margaret Thatcher came to power, was only a month away but everyone forgot politics and General Election campaigning the morning Oxford University's Dangerous Sports Club came to town and won themselves a place on front pages across the world. Their plan? The most outrageous, daredevil April Fool's Day stunt of them all. The club's most reckless members were planning to jump off the Clifton Suspension Bridge. And they succeeded. The next day's Post reported: 'Four daredevils jumped off Clifton Suspension Bridge as an April Fool's Day stunt—and lived to drink a champagne toast dangling halfway down the Avon Gorge.
'The four—all members of the exclusive Dangerous Sports Club—took the terrifying 250 ft plunge with only two-inch thick elasticated ropes between them and a sticky end in the murky waters of the River Avon. 'Nothing had been left to chance in planning the carefully-detailed stunt, except whether the 100ft ropes would be strong enough to hold them as they plummeted down at 50 mph.
'The only practice jumps they had done were from a tree in a friend's garden. 'Police and the Bridge authorities had been tipped off earlier that a stunt was planned and security was tight as the jump deadline of 6 a.m. passed without incident. 'Then, shortly before 8.30 a.m., three cars drove on to the bridge from Clifton and the four leapt out. They quickly secured their harnesses and fixed the ropes to the Bridge supports. 'Cheered on by friends from Oxford and Bristol Universities, expedition leader David Kirk, Alan Weston, Simon Keeling and Tim Hunt, younger brother of racing driver James Hunt, dropped the ropes over the side. 'Lecturer Mr Kirk was the first to jump, wearing morning dress with a topper strapped under his chin and clutching a bottle of champagne for luck.
'Simon Keeling (22) another Oxford post-graduate followed with diplomat's son Alan Weston (23) close on his heels. 'Tim Hunt shut his eyes before jumping and then all four dangled patiently waiting to be hauled up as police closed the bridge to traffic for 20 minutes. 'One spectator, Mr Nick Barrett, an Oxford student, said; 'They must have bounced down about 200 feet and then up to 70 feet and then down again.' 'All four were then taken to Southmead police station—Simon nursing a bruised jaw after the rope hit him on his way down.
'Later David said: 'It was a wonderful experience, very exhilarating.' 'The Dangerous Sports Club chose the Clifton Suspension Bridge—Britain's highest suspended span—because nobody had staged a controlled jump there before.'
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