early days one

Living in Bristol and not far from Ashton Court (the home of the Bristol Balloon Fiesta) and on a direct line with a generally Westerly wind from there it's commonplace to see balloons regularly pass the house as they head towards Keynsham and Bath. Until 1987, although I'd always liked to see the balloons drift gracefully across the sky I'd not really considered doing anything. All that was to change about two months prior to the 1987 Fiesta, when my neighbours car broke down and I volunteered to take her to work. As we got held up in traffic on the busy A4 Bath Road a solitary balloon came into view, and my neighbour remarked that she also liked to see the balloons flying across and always wanted a flight, I had to admit that I quite liked the idea of taking a flight in a balloon and the conversation on the rest of the journey to her office was all on balloons.

I suggested to her that we could go to the Fiesta together and possibly try to arrange a flight. At that time I had no real idea of how to go about booking a flight, but she found out and in no time at all we'd phoned Bristol Balloons (one of the major commercial balloon operators in Bristol), and had a flight arranged for each of us which would hopefully be from the Fiesta. Unfortunately due to the weather at the Fiesta being very hot (temperatures in the mid 80's) the pilot was unable to take the full quota of passengers which had been allocated a place in the basket. This meant that Sonia (my neighbour) and I were on stanby for the next available flight after the Fiesta. We received a phone call from Bristol Balloons to say we could fly on the Wednesday evening (weather permitting). Wednesday dawned bright and clear and although it was quite breezy during the day, we received the confirmation phone call from them during the afternoon to say the wind was predicted to slacken off and the flight would definitely go ahead.

I don't think I'd been quite so excited for some time, and our short drive to Aston Court seemed to take ages, although it couldn't have taken much more than 15 - 20 minutes. When we arrived, there was a small group of people waiting but the balloons hadn't turned up yet. A few minutes later the two balloons arrived and we were introduced to our pilots and told which balloon we'd fly in. Sonia and I were in the Sue Sheppard balloon, which was yellow with blue lettering - a balloon which was frequently seen in the skies of Bristol. The other balloon which was used that day was the Park Furnishers balloon which was more or less blue and white - another well known balloon in Bristol at the time.

We weren't able to launch from Ashton Court for our flight because the wind would have taken us into the Bristol ATZ, so we were taken to Saltford (just outside Keynsham) and the wind would bring us back towards Bristol. I remember taking a few photos of the inflation of 'our' balloon, but as was normal the passengers were put to work in helping with the inflation before take off. So the number of photos I managed to get of the inflation were restricted, but I did get some quite good ones.

By the time we took off the wind had dropped almost to nothing, and we hung virtually motionless above the launch site. We did travel but it was probably the slowest flight I've ever been on and an hour later we landed at Keynsham. A distance of no more than two miles - we could have walked it quicker I think. It was a great flight though, and one which still sticks in my mind as if it were yesterday. Both Sonia and myself enjoyed it so much we both said we had to get involved in ballooning, or have another flight somehow.