How temptingly close the argumentative duo came to jettisoning each other mid-Channel is regrettably unrecorded by Jefferies.
Matching the trajectory of a Dambuster bouncing bomb for most of their Channel crossing, it looked likely that the attempt would end wetly. Jefferies later described planning to jump into the sea, resigned to a watery fate. Then, four miles from the coast, the pair suddenly soared upwards, regaining height when they encountered a different air temperature. At exactly 3pm they crossed the French shoreline equidistant between Calais and Cap Blanc Nez. Jefferies noted: “The balloon rose rapidly in a great arc.” Encountering an intensifying wind, the balloon then ironically gained height and speed at the very time they needed to land.
They soon found themselves at a greater elevation than at any part of their course.
Once unsafely over land, they tangled with a high tree twelve miles from the coast. Their cart became embedded in a branch, making an impromptu tree house from which the bruised, scratched and intrepid aeronauts emerged to French acclaim (the locals were, of course, anxious to downplay Jefferies’ part, given the fact he was an English-dwelling American). Pursuing horsemen had followed the balloon once it crossed into French airspace, and were quickly at the crash site. A day after the historic flight, the two aeronauts were rushed by the same horsemen back to Calais to attend a fete in their honour, where Blanchard was presented with the freedom of the town in a gold box. Jefferies received nothing. The town’s municipal body purchased Blanchard’s balloon and put it on display.
Yet Blanchard was only the winner by default. For a long time it looked likely that he would only claim the bronze medal in the cross-Channel race.
The most likely claimant to the title, even ahead of Sadler whose purpose-built balloon had been scuppered by the harsh winter, had been another French aeronaut: none other than our old friend Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier, the very first human ever to fly.
Rozier should have been a shoe-in for the title, a favourite hotter than a stolen hot cake. In receipt of 40,000 crowns from the King of France and his backers the Académie des Sciences, Rozier had ample funding for the job. A special hangar was erected in Boulogne in November 1784 to house the monster globe. With a launch site already selected it looked like all other bets were off. But the hare became distracted, allowing the two tortoises Sadler and Blanchard to catch up then overtake Rozier in the race.
In Boulogne Rozier had met an English former convent girl, Susan Dyer, described as “the prettiest of English roses”, and spent the next few months shacked up with her, repeatedly plucking his English rose. The couple quickly became engaged. His balloon neglected, it started to be eaten by rats. His funds were also being eaten away, and his Parisian backers were becoming increasingly impatient at the lack of news. This meant that Rozier willingly surrendered pole position and his place in history to Blanchard and Sadler, preferring the distractions of a three-month love-in with a pretty girl - which is satisfyingly national-stereotype-bullseye French.
With Sadler’s attempt falling at the last hurdle, it was left to Blanchard to canter home alone towards to the winning post unchallenged.
Author Fulgence Marion’s 1870 book Wonderful Balloon Ascents or the Conquest of the Skies has an interesting anecdote about Blanchard being rewarded by the Queen of France for being the first to cross the Channel: “Some days afterwards Blanchard was summoned before the king, who conferred upon him an annual pension of 1200 livres. The queen, who was at play at the gambling table, placed a sum for him upon a card, and presented him with the purse which she won.”
Media reaction to the Channel crossing cannot accurately be described as undersold: “Enthusiasm about aerial voyages is now at its climax; the most wonderful deeds were spoken of as commonplace, and the word ‘impossible’ was erased from the language.”
The petulant pair had succeeded in becoming the first to traverse the Channel by flight. And it was left to Dr. Jeffries to extract the scientific accomplishments from the historic ascent, when he later addressed the Royal Society - part of his strategy to counteract Blanchard’s crude attempts to monopolise the credit.
Jean-Pierre Blanchard may have beaten Sadler across the Channel, but he also beat Sadler to the grave by several decades, falling from his balloon basket above The Hague in an unwise ascent during poor weather in Holland. Remarkably his widow Sophie Blanchard took up her deceased husband’s profession, and became the first professional female balloonist. She was decorated by both sides in the French Revolution, firstly appointed “Official Aeronaut of the Festivals” by Napoleon. With the later restoration of the monarchy came her next official appointment in 1814, when she was granted the title “Official Aeronaut of the Restoration” by King Louis XVIII.
Unfortunately, she also became the first female casualty of aviation. Above Tivoli Gardens in Paris in 1819 she unwisely conducted a fireworks display directly underneath her hydrogen balloon. Regrettably, you can probably guess how that party ended - with a bang.
Castle Coward: Childhood Traumas
My very first meaningful counselling session is with a lady called Kate. She doesn’t feel that I am a client who fits her model of counselling, so we do not continue with my treatment after a preliminary session. Which is odd, as I didn’t know it was possible to get dumped by your counsellor, particularly if, like me, you are displaying clear self-esteem issues. Nevertheless, the very first advice I receive from my counsellor when I announce that I intend to take a balloon flight with chronic acrophobia is: “You just need a will to do it.” Following her advice to the letter, I start positively by making a will.
Consistent with all the pioneering aeronauts, Sadler was used to his passengers making wills before going on a flight - a practice continued today for Ryanair flights. (Note to Ryanair’s litigious supporters: that was a joke.) Well, at least balloon flight purveyors don’t say: “And will you be requiring a basket with your balloon flight, Sir? You will? That’ll be an expensive surcharge.”
If I am going to face the biggest challenge of my life, then I need to plan. Therefore I take a bus into town to make a will. This turns out to include a sales pitch from a financial services expert, who at one stage genuinely utters the line, “because here at Bastard Bank we like to think that our customers’ deaths are important to us.” I really should have taped that. How typical that the financial services industry, not content with screwing us throughout our mortal lifetime, has now moved into securing the afterlife market too. Much pontificating then occurs on how my death can benefit people who are left behind when I’m gone - though mainly, I observe, shareholders of Bastard Bank.
So I make a will, guided through the process by a professional. Unsurprisingly this process does not fill me with confidence for my approaching balloon flight, but I have at least acted on my counsellor’s advice - albeit with a stubborn literalness.
It is also worth observing that “counsellor” is not a protected job title in law. Although it is illegal to call oneself an architect or actuary without appropriate qualifications, bizarrely this is not the case for a counsellor, who, seemingly unregulated, can inflict damage on vulnerable people. All an architect can do, on the other hand, is design an ugly building somewhere (thank goodness there aren’t any of those anywhere), and an actuary can devise some mis-sold insurance policy or modelling projections that end up ruining the economy and closing libraries to bail out bankers (likewise, thank goodness the current law protects us from that ever happening).
Kate wanted to steer me along the psychoanalytical route. Psychological archaeology was causing me some discomfort. All those deep digging excavations into my past and consciousness risked bursting a water pipe, and I genuinely felt hot tears flowing down my cheeks. Are women biologically more predisposed to crying, or is it just a cultural behaviour thing? Ask a woman and she’ll inform you that it’s because men give them more to cry about then they give
men. In reality, males cry just as much as females throughout childhood right up until puberty. So The Cure were wrong about that too: Boys Do Cry. Only after puberty, women are biologically more predisposed to tears due to the twin reasons of having considerably larger tear ducts than men, and also possessing over 50% more prolactin - the hormone prevalent in teardrops - than men. Oh, and also because all men are arseholes. My wife has just reminded me.
So I decide to find another counsellor, and act on recommendations to test Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. Kate doesn’t think I should be booking a balloon flight if I am this terrified of heights, a view fortified by my admissions of surging neurosis, and reinforced by my friends.
Yet I am galvanised into doing it, motivated by my desire to tell people about James Sadler. I want to restore his status as a household name.
***
I am eight years old and love castles. Two of the greatest things when you are eight come in castle format: sand castles and proper battle castles. So it is off-the-scale excitement today as we are going on a primary school trip to Tattershall Castle in Lincolnshire.
I can verify the exact date of my affection for castles, since I still have my school notebook: “I like castles. I love castles. Castles are nice. The End.” Looking back it must have been obvious to all the teachers even then that I was destined to become a professional writer.
Everyone arrives, packed lunches predictably eaten by 9.30am en route, and we are paired into twos for the crocodile formation by a stressed teacher who, although I was understandably unaware at the time, was clearly going through relationship issues in public. Oh I can see that now. “If the girls could ensure they hold hands with a boy,” hollered Miss Harrison before lowering her voice to near inaudibility, “you might as well enjoy their company before the crushing realisation of untrustworthiness inherent in their soulless beings emerges”. That and her black panda eyes from running mascara, and the other teachers constantly comforting her with, “I know, they’re all scumbags, he’s just not worth it, you’re better off without him”.
I am paired with Caroline Hayes. This was not good. Another teacher continues to console Miss Harrison with, “they’re all sexist pigs, dear.” “We’re not sexist or chauvinistic at all,” I thought, somewhat precociously for an eight-year-old, and besides that’s a remark typical of a sissy girl.
Caroline was a sissy girl, obviously. She also emitted the recalcitrant air of effortless superiority, being abnormally clever. She would probably have preferred to be reading poetry or Chekhov in Russian while the rest of us ran around then swung in tyres like primates. I sometimes wonder what became of Caroline. I’m sure she married beneath herself, as everyone seemed to occupy that position in her self-perception even back then - and often with some justification.
Paired off, and chattering at an even higher decibel level than Miss Harrison’s sobbing, we move like a Chinese human dragon towards the castle. Hopefully they will be serving lunch soon, as we’ve already eaten ours.
Whereas the castle has seen off many marauding armies and foreign invaders, it is vulnerable to attack by noise and crisp crumbs from primary school kids. Whatever medieval armies or Civil War conscripts it repelled in history, a bunch of loud primary school kids are not going to be held back, even if they attempt to raise the drawbridge.
“Welcome to Tattershall Castle,” announces the guide, realising that this audience are prepared to give him their attention for five seconds - eight seconds tops. So he moves quickly to the gory stuff. “This was a dungeon where lots of men had horrible things done to them.” “Good,” confirms Miss Harrison, “I hope they all died in agony,” she concludes. Another teacher places a sympathetic arm around her.
“The castle was built by Cromwell in the fifteenth century,” the guide continues, ignoring Miss Harrison’s public breakdown.
“Surely,” interrupts Caroline, “Cromwell was around in the mid-seventeenth century, not the fifteenth.” Told you she was clever. “Very good,” says the tour guide in a timbre that translates the uttered words into their actual meaning: “There’s always some bloody precious precocious know-it-all brat determined to expose the fact I only got the guiding notes last night, and there was too much to read let alone learn what with the bloody cat being sick everywhere again.”
Later it transpired the castle was indeed built by Cromwell, albeit Ralph Cromwell. Ralph, not Oliver, was a Privy Councillor, then Treasurer of England between 1433 and 1443, serving under Henry VI where he held the title of Chamberlain of the Royal Household. Earlier he had accompanied the king’s predecessor Henry V at his victorious battle at Agincourt in 1415. This is generally a good thing to remember as it annoys the French.
Not content with designing the castle and its battlements, Cromwell also landscaped the grounds, planned the moat and built the nearby church - leaving me with the impression that Cromwell was evidently a bit of a control freak. Tattershall Castle boasts both an inner and outer moat, but this fortification still ignores a common oversight in castle defences: the weakest point of any castle, where it is least defended and thus most vulnerable to attack, is always the gift shop. Although, admittedly, I am not a military historian.
“Any questions?” asks the guide. “No,” he answers patiently, “there were no landing docks designed for rocket ships.” Then Caroline asks a question: “Why are the inscriptions in pseudo-medieval French misspelt?” “Um... so, where would you all put landing docks for rocket ships, eh children?” the guide responds. Caroline sighs the sigh of those destined to be permanently disappointed by the level of idiocy surrounding them, and totters off to the gift shop in presumable hope of sourcing a decent Medieval French Dictionary.
Ralph Oliver died shortly after the castle was finished. Soon afterwards government autocrats arrived to inform his grieving widow Lady Joan that the castle would now be confiscated, women having no property ownership rights in law back then. It’s quite difficult to comprehend such insensitivity.
The Great Tower of Tattershall Castle, with its illustrious red bricks - a rare and expensive material for castle construction in the era - stands an impressive 130 feet tall. Therein lies a major problem for me. Reaching the promised panoramic vista on top necessitates negotiating exactly 150 steps on a dark, twisting and seemingly continuous spiral staircase, corkscrewing its way to the flattish roof behind the battlements.
Others kids are running up the stairs. A teacher calls out, “stop running on the castle stairs!” Great, that’s yet another place we can’t run - along with corridors. Miss Harrison doesn’t care if we run or not; instead she optimistically asks the guide: “Don’t suppose you have an alcohol licence for the tea rooms?”
I am not running. Instead I am actually pleased the teacher has decreed there is to be no running on the stairs. I clutch the handrail. And then I stop. My feet are locked. My tongue is frozen. I am unable to move or communicate. Both reactions are shockingly involuntarily. Even at eight years old, I know this is something I should definitely be worrying about. I feel sick. There is a real risk of vomiting. The teacher at the rear asks me why I have stopped. I cannot tell her or, it appears, speak at all. Craftily, the teacher tells me she can hear the sound of the children on the roof already, encouraging me to conform to peer pressure and follow the other kids.
When I do not move, she asks me again why I have stopped. Then she asks me if I am scared of heights. “I don’t know,” I manage to answer truthfully. “I think you may be,” she counsels. I nod, shameful and truthful tears cascading done my cheeks. The tears flood out, though still not approaching the level of Miss Harrison’s, who belatedly realises she should probably hold it together as an adult role model when in charge of impressionable young children. She holds my hand and leads me carefully back down the stairs. “Come on,” she says, we’ll get a milkshake from the café,” before adding, “it’s not just the moats in this place that are dry.
”
What I really don’t like about myself is that I was angry with Miss Harrison, because my anger displacement transferred onto her because I was unable to reach the top of the castle - a rare chance to say “I’m the King of the Castle” in situ. It was not her fault. She was the one being kind to me.
As promised, she sympathetically gets me a drink - not a milkshake but a foamy, frothy Cresta (there was an advertising jingle in the 1970s, “It’s frothy, man”). I pour the suspiciously bright fuchsia liquid into a glass. Miss Harrison orders herself a substandard 1970s coffee. This was the pre-cappuccino age when coffee only came in a jar and shared the colour, properties and taste of river silt. I surmised the reason it was called “ground coffee” back then was because it tasted like it was made from the actual ground - an insipid frothy mud.
Then a castle estate worker enters the café. A ludicrously handsome man just exiting his twenties, his natural rugged outdoor good looks garnished with a tan and muscles. He stares at Miss Harrison like a man who has just noticed the sky for the first time - and Miss Harrison must have appeared as a glorious sky, worthy of J.M.W. Turner reaching for his easel. She appears equally transfixed, suddenly unable to hear the question I am asking her.
Miss Harrison quickly positions, primes, loads and fires her big guns - not the cannons on the castle battlements, but her more destructive big guns. She treats him to the full flirtatious hair flick and that pretend I’m-adjusting-my-hair-in-an-imaginary-mirror thing followed by an unnecessary reapplying of a scrunchie that women sometimes manipulatively do because they know it makes them look good. With all that hair tossing, body shimmer, raking fingers through her silky mane the handyman views her like a salivating lion watching a gazelle supping demurely at the watering hole while winking at him.
The Man With His Head in the Clouds Page 7