12 NOVEMBER 1784: SECOND MANNED FLIGHT
Sadler’s second manned flight took off in insanely dangerous conditions that nearly killed him. Still, a huge crowd jostling for vantage-points had swelled around the Physic Garden (later Botanic Garden) at the end of Oxford’s High Street. Flight preparations began “in the presence of a surprising concourse of people of all ranks. The Roads, streets, fields, trees, buildings and towers of the parts adjacent being crowded beyond description,” reported a newspaper correspondent.
Centre stage in the Botanic Garden was Sadler’s balloon. Surrounding it lay the apparatus necessary for pumping the envelope full of hydrogen, described by press reports at the time as “materials for exciting the inflammable gas which was conducted to the machine by several large tin tubes”.
Commencing the hydrogen inflation at 11am, two hours later Sadler was ready for his second air voyage. He was backed by a mighty roar from the assembled throngs of Town and Gown - Sadler had chosen a University term time for his assent, so undergraduates would have been present (although his take-off time of 1pm might have been impractically early for most students).
Disappointingly for the crowd, though, he was enveloped by low cloud after only three minutes, but did fleetingly re-appear on four or five occasions through hazy cloud breaks. Journalists noted that “he moved with great rapidity”, and we know why from another observed detail in contemporary reports: “before the wind which blew pretty fresh from the south west”. It then started to rain, and Sadler later recalled that his balloon boat became flooded during the flight. These, then, were anything but safe conditions for flying a balloon. But since only three people had flown a balloon in England by this stage, these were lessons that evidently had to be learnt the hard way.
This horrid reality must have dawned upon Sadler during the flight, as he attempted to change altitude frequently in order to find less prevailing currents. Soon he was over the empty expanse of Otmoor, then heading towards Thame. In a desperate attempt to control altitude he started to jettison objects indiscriminately out of his boat. “He was not more than 17 minutes in his passage but found it necessary to divest himself of his whole apparatus and therefore had thrown out his ballast, provisions and instruments of every kind,” observed one witness. His “provisions” included a bottle of decent brandy, Sadler’s preferred method of staving off the cold, and a regular on his future trips. But it was looking likely that there would not necessarily be any future trips, as he struggled to contain the balloon while desperately attempting a safe reunion with terra firma.
Approaching Thame he crashed violently into a tree “and rebounded to a considerable distance”. Spotting a hedge below, Sadler threw out his grappling hook. This partially anchored the balloon, but the wind’s velocity dragged him along the ground, and shook him from the wooden boat. He was thrown to the ground but survived. His first hydrogen balloon did not survive and was “ribboned” - destroyed - in the landing.
Picked up from the grounds of an estate belonging to William Lee, twelve miles east of Oxford, Sadler was fit enough to be taken into Thame. After taking celebratory refreshments he returned to Oxford by post-chaise that evening. When he reached the outskirts of the city at 7pm, a waiting crowd unpinned the horses from his carriage, and then paraded him through the city. They “dragged the carriage through several of the principal streets of the city and were not content until they had compelled the inhabitants to illuminate their houses.”
Newspapers of the age rushed to praise Sadler’s achievements. But behind the gushing descriptions, they had a fundamental point to make: “Our English adventurer is the first person who has been his own architect, chemist, engineer and projector; that he exhibited a wonderful share of genius, intrepidity and cool resolution.” Furthermore, he had accomplished the feat twice, with two different models of balloon and, crucially, fuel: his “rarefied air” (hot air) and now his “inflammable air” (hydrogen).
Particularly significant was the inflation time taken to ensure the balloon was filled with hydrogen. Listed in accounts of the time as being only two hours, this supports a contemporary source claiming that Sadler the engineer was the first to design and involve a cistern, rather than wooden casks, in the gas making apparatus.
The most remarkable aspect of Sadler’s first hydrogen flight adventure, however, was that he merely shook off this near-death trauma and planned another flight almost straight away.
13 NOVEMBER 1784: POEM ON SECOND MANNED FLIGHT
We’ve all done it. Usually starting when we begin adolescence, perhaps upon entering the emotional turbulence of those early teenage years. We emit a scary strangeness to our parents, as we struggle to shed the skin of our childhood selves; our physical and emotional beings unrecognisable from our pasts as we emerge from the chrysalis of childhood into our teenage personae.
Usually we do it under the bedclothes, always in lonely isolation, shameful of discovery. Boys nearly always indulge in the activity whist thinking intently about girls. Likewise girls frequently harbour a deep longing for boys when they do it. We all do it, but no one would ever admit to it in public. It’s what the lonely do. And even sometimes the not so lonely too.
That’s right. We have all, at some time, done it. Yes, let’s say it out loud. Let’s embrace a new honesty, a glasnost of collective admission. Let’s all admit to such a common, and defining teenage activity. My name is... And I once wrote poetry. (Sorry, did you say “poetry”? Sounded a bit different? Oh, you did say “poetry”. You’re sure about that? OK, just checking.)
Despite the fear of terrible reprisals if the activity was ever discovered, we have been moved to compose stanzas and misuse iambic pentameter reflecting on why nice boys/girls don’t like us. Or to compare the girl who works at the garage forecourt shop to a summer’s day, usually by perennially rhyming “blue”, “true” and “you”. Even in the fully exposed knowledge that should these poems ever be discovered in a drawer and circulated at school then you would have to lie about your age and fill in an on-line application form to join the French Foreign Legion. Illustrating this very point, the poet Alan Seeger - uncle of musician Pete Seeger and author of JFK’s favourite poem “I Have A Rendezvous With Death” (you know... “I have a rendezvous with God, at some disputed barricade”... OK, perhaps not then) - ran off to join the Foreign Legion, presumably when it was discovered he wrote poetry. And he was actually quite good.
Henry James Pye wrote poetry. He was quite successful at it, so much so that he was honoured with the Poet Laureateship from 1790 until his death in 1813 - or so you would have reasonably concluded on that evidence alone. Until you actually read any of Pye’s efforts.
Pye was almost certainly rewarded with the Poet Laureate tag for his obsequious support given to the Prime Minister of the day, William Pitt the Younger. Even that excellent public servant Wikipedia, although usually bland and neutral in prose style, permits itself a pop at Pye: “Although he had no command of language and was destitute of poetic feeling, his ambition was to obtain recognition as a poet, and he published many volumes of verse.”
But the appointment was looked on as ridiculous, and his birthday odes were a continual source of contempt. Critical knives were further sharpened for Pye’s back when Lord Blake declared: “Pye is undoubtedly the worst Poet Laureate in the English history.” The Lakeland poet and nitrous oxide tripping bad boy Robert Southey quipped in 1814: “I have been rhyming as doggedly and dully as if my name had been Henry James Pye.”
Today’s Poet Laureates still receive the same salary: a barrel of sherry. Pye received this too, although he negotiated an actual monetary income to accompany it, securing the heady sum of £27 a year - which, based on my experience of poets, he probably spent buying more sherry. Poets tend to like a drink or five, though anyone reading Pye’s poetry would be properly advised to consume a barrel of sherry first.
According to app
reciators of Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, inhabitants of the planet Vogon are often named as the worst poets in the known universes. They’re not. In fact, Adams merely awarded them runner-up status as the second worst poets in the universes, after unwisely listing a real person and real poet, a former school friend and Cambridge University contemporary from Redbridge, Essex - complete with his full name and address - as the very worst poet in all the known (and probably unknown) universes. Allegedly. This was supposedly not laughed-off as a joke and subsequent reprints after Pan’s first edition in 1979 ensured the name was modified and became the fictionalised Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings of Greenbridge, Essex.
Herewith expressing a personal view, I would now like to propose that the status of the Vogons is bumped down a further place to only third worse. In my, admittedly inexpert, opinion, I classify Henry James Pye as the worst poet in the known - and probably unknown - universes.
Pye reoccurs (like the 4 in his namesake 3.14 - come on, arithmetic joke!) in late eighteenth-century Oxford history, and was a regular visitor to his old college Magdalen, ideally situated just across the road from the Physic Garden where Sadler undertook his first flight. Magdalen Tower, in an Oxford of fewer buildings than today, would have provided splendid views of the landmark ascent. Pye’s epic poem about the ascent was published in the unimaginatively titled collection Poems on Various Subjects which stretches to two volumes produced in 1787. He prefixes Aerophorion: A Poem with the confirmation: “This poem was written on seeing the first English aeronaut James Sadler ascend in his balloon from the Physic Garden, Oxford in November 1784.” Hence it was almost certainly composed upon witnessing Sadler’s second, not first, ascent.
Aerophorion: A Poem displays an instant lack of confidence in his abilities relayed via his choice of title i.e. he felt compelled to clarify to the reader that it was a poem. Tunesmiths don’t tend to title their songs “Strawberry Fields Forever: A Song” thus enabling confused listeners to remark “oh, that’s what it is - it’s supposed to be a song.”
To be fair to Pye, it starts well with an excellent opening couplet that does justice to Sadler’s ferocious ambitions. Then the poet’s meaning quickly disappears like Sadler into the clouds, and remains obscured from view for several long lines, before re-emerging back into the bright sunlight with a couple of lines towards the end of a long and arduous flight of fancy. Then it disappears for ever - before inevitably crashing badly.
Anyway... time for some poetry. (Don’t feel bad if you start to skip the poem after a while - it doesn’t make you a bad person. Or someone without taste.)
When bold Ambition tempts the ingenuous mind
To leave the beaten paths of life behind,
Sublime on Glory’s pinions to arise,
Urged by the love of manly enterprise;
Swol’n Indolence and Fear, with envious view
The radiant track incessant will pursue,
The sneer of Malice to the crowd will teach,
And mock those labours they despair to reach.
Nor does the bold Adventurer dread alone
The poisoned shafts by scowling Envy thrown;
For decked in Wisdom’s garb pedantic Pride,
And pompous Dulness constant to her side,
Shall try with looks profound each new design
By the strict rules of Compass and of Line,
And damn the Scheme, whose Author can’t produce
The exact returns of profit and of use.
That’s quite enough of that. I’ll spare you further pages of dreadful stanzas and confused meanings. It reads like one man’s war on talent.
On one poetry-hosting website, readers’ comments are invited underneath. One “reader” has taken advantage of this, and simply critiqued the poem by adding the lone comment beneath this Georgian masterpiece: “This sucks - Dave from Swindon.” Dave from Swindon should edit the Times Literary Supplement.
The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, published in 1921 in eighteen sturdy volumes, relishes in taking a big critical stick to the belittled bard Pye and bashes him repeatedly, and deservedly, with it: “Pye, though a convenient butt for the usual anti-laureate jokes, was in fact not so much a bad poet as no poet at all.” Ouch.
Pye was saddled with enormous debt by his father’s premature death. Soon afterwards the family home was burnt down in mysterious circumstances. It is unclear whether this was an attempt to destroy his poems. Or whether it was the worst insurance fraud ever: “Oh, we were supposed to insure the property first, then burn it down - not the other way around?”
Since no date exists for the authorship of his poem about Sadler - it was published in 1787 - it must have been finished within an hour or so of seeing Sadler fly. It really can’t have taken longer.
Inverting Vertigo: My Fear of Heights
Let’s start with a question. Go on, it’ll be fun. Ready? What do you call the condition experienced by sufferers who don’t like heights, triggered by altitude exposure and often resulting in dizziness? “Oh,” you’re probably thinking, “I know the answer to this one.”
To my knowledge, QI has yet to include this question. But I can imagine the scenario if they did, “So...anyone?” begins Stephen Fry, attempting to lure a professional panellist into a disguised trap so badly camouflaged you expect approach signs declaring “Trap Ahead” and “Last Service Station Before Trap”. “I definitely know this one,” thinks whatever established comedian has failed to learn from watching the programme’s premise before. You don’t get to be a professional comedian without an abnormally large showing-off gene, so the urge to press and gain a point for “Vertigo” is too much. “Vertigo,” says an established comedian. Told you they’d do that.
“Oh dearie me no... no, no, no. So wrong it’s the county town of Wrongshire, capital of Wrongland” Fry might exclaim (well he would if I was scripting the show), demonstrating his uncanny ability to be a reconstituted and unreformed luvvie and yet irresistibly endearing at the same time. Flashing lights and a klaxon exclaim that general ignorance has been exposed.
Because no matter how many people incorrectly purport it to be the case, the condition of height anxiety either inducing or triggering dizziness is not vertigo. Vertigo is a separate medical condition completely unrelated to heights. Really. This is not a medical fact I got off some bloke at a bus stop - nor did I research it solely on Wikipedia. Such is the misnomer’s level of ubiquity it is fairly described as approaching totality. Yeah, it was news to me for decades too. Vertigo is a symptom rather than a condition.
True vertigo sufferers experience a spinning sensation, but it is triggered by an imbalance often caused by the ears or a particular series of head movements. One cause of vertigo is the rare disorder Ménière’s Disease, where pressure on the inner ear results in a sense of disorientated dizziness amongst some patients. There are more causes of vertigo, but height exposure is not one of them. I, and what most of my fellow misinformed others, actually suffer from is a condition called acrophobia.
Although if you admit to “acrophobia”, people might invariably reply, “I can sympathise - I don’t like spiders either.” Others will confess that they don’t like open spaces, to which I softly point out their mistake. Agoraphobia in the original Greek literally means “fear of the market place”, as opposed to equinagrophobia, which is fear of being in a market and encountering an unexpected item in the packing area (usually - if you buy ready meals - a horse). There is also the fact that I might have made one of those phobias up - I think you can guess which one.
Yet “I suffer from acrophobia” sounds somehow cooler, a more sophisticated ailment, plus you gain additional respect once an ailment is given its clinical title. Oh come on, people often gain a sense of importance and defining identity from ailments (see men).
Fear
of heights is sometimes diagnosed as a fear of falling. Sufferers know this, but often pretend not to; we prefer a deeper psychological evaluation, i.e. it’s symptomatic of high IQ and empathy. That would be a nicer explanation, but profoundly untrue. The condition manifests itself by displaying a noticeable tendency to avoid high places, edges and approaching drops. I’m so terrified of drops I’m not even keen on drop scones.
Acrophobia stems from our primitive ancestral selves. My mammalian brain hates dangers, but likes food and girls. That’s about it. Oh, and the novels of Elizabeth Gaskell. OK, not the last bit - but apparently that last detail endorses the possibility that there’s still some hope left in me for girls. Unfortunately my sophisticated, urbane, Radio 4-liking brain is a bit of a wimp and allows the primitive brain to push him around and do what it says. He’s the bully in the limbic system.
For those of us whose happiness is restrained by ancient anxieties no longer relevant to a modern world, such illogical phobias and default antithetical thinking can rather suck all the flavour out of life. And we do not appreciate others being comfortable with heights.
The person who devised the transparent glass floor is our Lord Voldemort. When we acrophobes rule the world, he will be brought to justice, albeit on the ground floor somewhere. People who design glass-walled lifts, we will come for you too (though only when the lift is on the ground floor, obviously). The person who installed that transparent glass floor on top of the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth, you are the Dark One who moves amongst us. We will come for you in the night (if you live in a bungalow).
We are secretly very ashamed and rarely reveal our condition. Being afraid of heights does, you may notice, immediately rule us out from all categories of superhero. “Hey, Superman, can you save this distressed damsel from the bridge?” “Er... I would if there was an enclosed lift, but that one’s glass panelled and I don’t really do stairs. Besides, there are loads more other damsels out there anyway.”
The Man With His Head in the Clouds Page 4