I dipped into Ross Davies' fine book Vauxhall - A Little History last night.It reminded me that a curious coda to Vauxhall's illustrious ballooning history came during the late 1990s when a tethered balloon in Spring Gardens offered ascents to sight-seers wanting an aerial view of London. The arrival of the London Eye probably killed it off.
You didn't go anywhere - just up and down. But I do recall that on one occasion a wind tore the balloon from its mooring during a test and was swept away.
Fortunately no-one was on board but that was just the start of the story. The balloon was carried away and the fear was what or who it might fall upon when it eventually fell back to earth. From memory the balloon's weight was something like one ton and I seem to recall that it eventually landed on a car in South East London somewhere (Lewisham?).
I've scoured the Internet but can find no reference so perhaps I imagined it all. Can anyone help?
At least I know that the balloon was real as this picture (more here) testifies.
I'm told that I have conflated two memories here.
ReplyDeleteThe balloon that escaped its moorings and flew away was one based near Tower Bridge. The two were contemporaneous.