3:25am the B*st**D rang me, absolutely wasted, "I'm out celebrating a charity parachute drop" he said.
"Bloody fantastic he said, I'm going to live and breathe this sport from now on".
The last thing I heard was the telephone receiver slamming against the kiosk and one of his pals shouting "carrot river".
I rang Rupert the following day he was still a little worse for wear.
Asked him if he was qualified after one jump to do a tandem with me, I explained to him that I had dabbled in the sport.
We agreed to give it a go. Talked to one of his pilot friends to take us up to 7000ft.
He said I would have to go on the belly sling as he was the experienced instructor. He had one more jump than me, his total being one mine being zero, (successful jumps that is)
"No problem" I said gave it the thumbs up and installed my goggles.
1500ft into the free fall, I noticed Rupert was not wearing a rig no main chute, no reserve, f**k all. Not a real problem in a Tandem jump, if I had been wearing my rig that is.
4000ft to go and we are calling each other everything from a ***t to a ***t.
As the fire brigade pulled
us out of the Humber bank mud flats Rupert was waffling on about the Tandem
pre flight checks, the fireman told him not to worry about his push bike as
he was lucky to be alive.