early days two

Just a few weeks after our flight, the printing company I worked for were printing some leaflets which advertised a small balloon meet at Thornbury to the north of Bristol. I just had to tell Sonia, and ask if she'd like to go. The answer was as expected and she almost jumped at the idea. We both waited and hoped for good weather - we were in luck the weekend of the meet was fine and dry with very high whispy clouds and very light winds. Whether our sweatshirts we wore (Sue Sheppard Balloons) purchased just after our flight in the balloon helped, but we soon got chatting to some of the pilots and crew at Thornbury and one pilot in particular Tony Jones who agreed to let us help out on retrieve for the evening flight. We'd made it! We were actually getting involved with ballooning, our dream had come true. We had a lot to learn, but it was fun learning and Tony's wife Margaret (who incidentally worked for Cameron Balloons at the time) was a great help and really let us get hands on experience with the inflate, launch and retrieve. It all went without a hitch and we soon became regular crew members for him not only in Bristol but at other meets - perhaps the most noteable being The Icicle Meet which at the time was held at Marsh Benham (just outside Newbury) each January.

Because Tony didn't get to fly that frequently, Sonia and I began crewing for a couple of other Bristol based pilots as well. One of whom was Brian Smallwood (and Joy - his wife), and we did several retrieves for them and at many different fiestas and meets. One which stands out was at Llandovery (Wales), and that was spectacular mainly because of the scenery; but also because at this meet we got chatting to the pilot and crew of the 'Concorde' balloon, and were invited to join them on retrieve of their attempt at flying over one of the big dams. I'd never seen a balloon launched from the middle of a road before, but this one was. Thankfully not much traffic used the road and we only held up two or three cars in the process. The occupants didn't seem to mind and apparently enjoyed watching the somewhat precarious launch.

We also crewed for a short time for one of Bristol's commercial pilots Mike Moore who at the time had the largest passenger carrying balloon around which was a Cameron balloon of 310,000 cubic feet.

Because of me wanting to see and do more with balloons and knew that there was always a Fiesta at Southampton (at the time - no longer held there), it didn't take long to see if my cousins husband (Jon Francis) would like to see the balloons if I went down to visit them for the weekend. I think he became almost as hooked as me on ballooning over the next couple of years, and talk soon started getting around to possibly purchasing a balloon of our own. So I'm fairly sure it was me who was responsible in him ultimately becoming a pilot, and the rest as they say is history!