Thanks to Hilary who chose ‘42’ from my posts list. Sadly this isn’t one about the meaning of life, the universe and everything, but hopefully you’ll enjoy the tale just the same.
I think I was probably about 3 or 4 years old when this happened and although I remember it quite well, I suspect the memory of what happened is a little fuzzy around the edges. (I’ve since found some old slides from that night and they’re date stamped June 1976, so I would have been 4)
I was young enough that I still went to bed early, probably not all that long after having my ‘tea’ but on this particular night I can’t have been in bed all that long when my Mum came and woke me. “Come and have a look at what’s outside.”
It was a warm summer evening and still plenty light enough and as we went into the back garden I could hear a roaring noise. At the end of our garden and seemingly descending into it was a hot-air balloon.
It was so low in the sky that it appeared vast to my little eyes, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Thinking back on it now I suspect that the pilot was in quite a bit of trouble and was trying to gain height before he ran into the row of trees between our neighbour and next-door but one neighbours gardens, or worse the Portsmouth to London railway line. He was very low, and applying a lot of burner to try and provide lift to the ballon. Of course I was oblivious to this and thought for a while that the balloon was trying to land in our garden.
The commotion had bought most of the neighbors out into their gardens, as this was not something that was seen everyday and probably better than whatever was on telly.
Almost imperceptibly to start with, the balloon did gain height, and with the prevailing breeze missed the trees. One of the neighbors convinced my Dad (I suspect he didn’t need much convincing really) that they should follow the ballon and see where it came down. The two of them set off in his car with my Dad bringing along his camera. I managed to find the box of slides that he took that night and have added them throughout this post.
After the ballon was out of sight I was tucked back into bed, but the following morning I was asking a lot of questions of my Dad about what happened. They had followed the balloon a few miles and it hadn’t been able to gain much height and came down in a field not all that far away and in the next but one village. Thinking about it now I suspect that probably the pilot was trying for the fields not far from our house and had misjudged it a bit and had to gain some height and ultimately skipped over those fields before coming down a few miles further on.
The landing of the balloon had drawn quite a crowd, again probably because it wasn’t that common a sight.
For my young mind it was all very exciting, and not something you see everyday or that close up. I don’t think I’ve been that close to a hot air balloon since to be honest.
They still fascinate me to this day, the thought of riding on nothing but a sack of hot air, at the whim of the weather and prevailing wind in particular. I can’t say that I’m particularly keen to ride in one though, I think I prefer watching them rather than being an active participant!
Thanks for reading.
Love the fact you dug out and shared the slides. Weirdly we were booked for a flight this week but the weather turned bad :-)
What a great experience! No wonder it stuck in your memory. And, maybe all these memories and experiences do go some way to explaining the meaning of life. 😉