Bungee-jumping: not as new as you think!

Did you see the latest bombshell confession from popular local man Pete Hacker, from the lovely Worcestershire village of Piddle Brook? in the back pages of the local Onion News? If so, I expect it's got you all "fired up" to do something a bit different this week.

Am I right, or am I right?!!!!

He's an inspiration isn't he, that young scallywag Hacker! And it'll be nice to see in his subsequent, trademark hard-hitting weekly "Commentaries on Worcestershire Life", how he gets on with his bungee-jumping and some of his other daredevil new activities, that's for sure!

But it seems, however, that "bungee-jumping" isn't as new as Hacker, and most of the rest of us, seem to believe, which is astonishing. Today, by coincidence, my wife Lois and I get an unexpected email from Steve, our American brother-in-law, an email which reveals that bungee-jumping was going on as long ago as 1979, in the nearby city of Bristol, so nearly 50 years ago now!

Clifton Suspension Bridge, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel in 1864,

here being showcased by Bristol-born film-star Cary Grant

Yes, back in 1979, after a drunken night of champagne quaffing with his student friends, a certain David Kirke jumped from the Clifton Suspension Bridge  using a rudimentary bungee cord set-up, made with harnesses and buckles from a hang-gliding club.

And according to Per Outdoorasaurus.com: "It was April Fool’s Day in 1979. David Kirke and two friends from Oxford University had spent the previous evening downing champagne and devising the stunt to end all stunts. The plan was to use gear from their local hang-gliding club and see if they could bungee jump from the 75-meter-high (246 feet) Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol … and survive the fall.

"On the morning of the world’s first ever bungee jump, David Kirke decided to go first. At nine thirty in the morning, wearing a smart tuxedo with top hat, and holding a bottle of champagne, he made the leap into the unknown. People who saw him jump initially thought he was attempting suicide. 

"However, the onlookers soon saw the bungee cord trailing from his ankles, as he then stopped before hitting the water and began to bounce back up again – just like a modern-day bungee jumper would do. David Kirke was then followed by his two friends, who can go down in the history of bungee jumping as being the second and third ever leaps recorded.

flashback to 1979: hungover (no pun intended!!!!) student

David Kirke, carrying out the world's first-ever bungee jump,

in top hat and tails, from the Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol

"The Bristol police were soon on the scene, and found the daring trio hanging upside down. They were promptly arrested and taken to the cells. It’s not known If they were charged or not, but reports from the time say that the police were more amused than angry, so I’d like to think they got off without a court summons."

Even our own daughter, Sarah, has done some bungee jumps, which is a mystery to Lois and me. We have never been able to understand how anybody carrying our DNA could possibly contemplate doing a bungee jump, but our mysteriously adventurous daughter Sarah did it in 1995, aged 18, during her gap year, while taking part in an overland truck group holiday in Africa. 

And she didn't do it  in Bristol - and she did it over the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, no less.

What madness !!!!

flashback to 1995: our surprisingly adventurous daughter Sarah (right),

18 years if age, pictured here at the Zambezi River, Zimbabwe.

"Where does 'our little Sarah' get her "daredevil" side from?", we wonder? 

Lois and I have done extensive family history research without finding anybody, who we feel would have been comfortable watching a film like "Kung Fu Panda 4", which Hacker saw recently, for example. My ancestors were teachers, journalists and pub landlords and Lois's were bankers and varied country types, but also included Banbury's first ever Chief Constable, back in early Victorian times.

But is this the complete story? 

I can here and now, in this blog, exclusively reveal that there's an embarrassing "black hole" in my maternal grandmother Kathleen's history. Nobody knows who Kathleen's father was, but he must have been daredevil enough to have had unprotected sex, maybe several times, with an unmarried teenage girl like Kathleen, in Nottingham in the 1880's, of all places, so maybe Mystery Man could have been the "bungee-jumper manqué" in the family, as the French would say.

I wonder......!

Well, we've all had a jolly good laugh over the image of some of mine and Lois's ancestors watching "Kung Fu Panda 4" at the cinema [Speak for yourself! - Ed], but there's a more serious point here also, isn't there.

The realisation that bungee-jumping had its origins as far back as 1979, is a bit of a bombshell, it's true, but how long will it be before archaeologists find cave paintings of prehistoric man experimenting with the sport, say in the aboriginal settlements of Australia, or in the records of the Mayans in Central America, for example.maybe?

a typical Australian aboriginal cave-painting from

Angbangbang Rock Shelter, near Darwin NT

Could this painting be depicting an even earlier bungee-jump than David Kirkes's in 1979. I think we should be told, don't you!

But true or not, it's definitely not something to completely "write off" at this stage, I believe! Let's wait a bit longer, and see !

[No, let's not! - Ed]