Fear Is The Key

The only person I've ever been frightened of (apart from the man who once chased me down Kensington High Street with a bag of mince) was my parachute instructor. I have always had a fear of heights – I often dream of being stranded on top of a crumbling, teetering needle of rock hundreds of feet above the ground – but I once thought that perhaps I could cure this fear by throwing myself out of a plane. So, many years ago I volunteered to undertake a parachute jump for charity. In those days, there was none of this 'tandem' stuff where you get strapped to a qualified person and where you have nothing to do but enjoy the ride and smile for the camera. No, in those days you were on your own – you had to leap from the plane and control your own descent.

It was a weekend affair - we spent the entire Saturday and half of Sunday practicing jumping off four feet high boxes so that we could get the landing right. I understand that today, the parachutes are sufficiently controllable to be able to land gently, on one's feet – but back then there was no method of slowing the pace and after drifting down from the sky, you hit the ground with a right wallop and a crash, I can tell you. The only way to absorb & diffuse the energy (and thereby avoid splintering every bone in your body) was to bend the knees smartish, and launch yourself into a roll on the ground; head over heels. This manoeuvre was what we had practised over and over again.

Anyway, eventually we were airborne and the tiny plane had climbed to the required 2,000 feet. It doesn't sound very high, does it? However, when you're crouched on the floor of a door-less Cessna, peering out as the colours from the fields drain away into a uniform muddy brown, and the airfield beneath you shrinks to something the size of a postage stamp, two thousand feet seems like an awfully long way to fall. It was at this point when I realized that my fear of heights had not been cured, and that here I was, teetering on the equivalent of the crumbling column of my dreams. One by one, my three fellow jumpees left the plane, screaming - and then it was my turn. I knew in my heart that it was impossible for me to jump, and I no longer cared about the money I wouldn't be raising for charity by not jumping (it was the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and at that point I felt that people could be as cruel to children as they damned well liked, as long as it meant that I didn't have to die). The instructor ordered me to the edge, but all I could think of was an old Charlie Drake song from my childhood: "Please Mr Custer, I don't wanna go...."

And then I realized that I was more frightened of the instructor than I was of dying (his training had been vicious and cruel; army-style). I was terrified of him becoming angry at my failure, of him calling me a sissy, and of his disappointment – so, quietly resolved to the death I was about to face, I edged my legs out, and jumped. And it was beautiful. My parachute opened like a dream and as the noise from the plane's engines disappeared and was replaced by the whistling of the wind, I drifted down towards that ever-growing postage stamp in a state of perfect peace. I hit the ground with a perfectly-practised roll, gathered in the silk of my chute, and walked back to the control tower with a grin that was wider than a Cheshire cat's. Success - I had done it!

I still have a fear of heights though. The next thing I did was to abseil off a two hundred foot high water tower, and that scared me shitless too. Some things are meant to be.