He flies through the air with the greatest of ease!

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The Master, David Batchelor, and The Clerk, Alex Robertson would like to thank all who helped them raise in excess of £2,500 in aid of youth training in the craft of woodturning.

Watch the video of their skydive LIVE

Here is a report of their skydive:

You may have seen from the Just Giving page that the weather prevented us from jumping on Wednesday 8^th May. Friday 10^th May had always been pencilled in as a fall back and the weather looked far more promising. We set off early on Friday morning to Netheravon in Wiltshire full of nervous anticipation. We arrived at the parachute centre to the encouraging sight of parachutes landing and the sun shining. It was all looking good for the jump. As I am sure you can imagine, there are a number of forms and disclaimers to be completed before embarking on such tomfoolery. That was not the problem. The problem was that by the time we had completed the necessary administration the clouds had built up and jumping had been suspended. There followed two or three anxious hours as we waited to see what the weather would do. It is probably fair to say that our anxiety was not caused by the thought that we would be prevented from jumping but more by the thought that we still might jump!

It was not looking promising. The clouds appeared to be getting darker and thicker rather than lighter. Then, all of a sudden there was a break in the cloud and we were off. We hastily kitted up in our rather natty Army jumpsuits, were installed in our tandem harnesses and given one final reminder of the positions we needed to adopt on exiting, in freefall and most importantly on landing. We “yomped” to the plane and took our seats. When I say seats I actually mean floor. This is a plane built for jumping from, therefore they don’t want to make you too comfortable! I can’t say that I have been on too many flights with a complete stranger sat tightly between my legs and I can assure you, they didn’t remain a stranger for long.

The plane took off and about twenty minutes later we had reached our cruising height of 13,500 feet. The door, if you can call a Perspex roller shutter a door, opened. First the red light illuminated, then the green and then we were off. The benefit of completing a tandem jump is that if the person you are strapped to wants to leave the plane you are going with them! Any last minute nerves and regrets on our part were totally ignored by our tandem instructors. Suddenly we are in mid air looking up at the plane from which, stupidly, we have just exited. Thankfully, the instructors managed to put us in the right position and there was nothing more to do than enjoy the view! It was a truly exhilarating experience. For me, all too soon, the instructor deployed the parachute and the brakes went on. We glided down to the drop zone feeling rather smug. The last thing to do was to lift up the legs as we could before safely sliding to a halt on terra firma.

Our sincere thanks to Freeman of the Company, Lt Col Dan Anders-Brown, and the rest of the REME parachute display team, the Lightning Bolts, for making all this possible and looking after us so well.

Alex Robertson Clerk