nigelslee

Some great pics in this thread. Here's an old one, my friend Trevor Yates off a UK A in '84. Nigel BASE 28

Hi fergs, Yes that's BASE 14 earning his number in December '81 on TT. View looking East towards centre of London with the canal below. Nigel BASE 28

Interest noted. Nigel BASE 28

I've thought about it, especially seeing the vintage story thread. Tall Stories was a 60 minute audio tape of jump stories from Bridge Day '88. I interviewed all my heroes plus friends standing on the wall waiting to jump. The idea was to make an inspiring tape to play on those long drives to the object or back home when not jumping. There's also a sadness hearing some of our missing friends; Brad Smith, John Mjoen and Lukas Knutsson. I have considered putting it online but have reservations that some of the stories on it shouldn't be in the public domain (knowing how we are frequently reminded that these forums are visited by those without our best interests at heart). Nothing radical, just guys talking about named places, what we do and how we go about it. I suppose if there was enough interest I could produce a new edition on CD, perhaps cdrom with the back issues, historical video clips and a few pictures and offer package via mail order. I'll look into it. Thanks for the reminder Nick. Nigel BASE 28

I'll never forget watching Kevin freefall 140' (over water) in October 84 from a bridge in WV. He and Phil came up with the set-up of 16' pulled down apex round in a freebag, Para Innovators 52" pilotchute, Velcro rig. + hand-held 8' reserve canopy. Total jump time 5 1/2 seconds. Full canopy in under 2 seconds with a delay of around 8 feet. Rock drop time was a fraction over three seconds. (Page 13 in Jump 85 with photo sequence)

Actually, I'm pretty sure 02 is me not Frank. 03 You can see the gaffa tape and padding on the edge of the roof we hoped would protect our polypropellene (?) s/l. I took this pic and Al's avatar with camera on a pole to get the off building angle. (Al took my avatar shot on my first jump) Nigel BASE 28

To avoid confusion - Al's thread title should read British BASE Magazine No 1. I wasn't very original with the title for my first magazine having taken same title as Carl and Jean Boenish's original BASE Magazine. Back then 'BASE' was a powerful word that provoked extreme reactions from the skydiving status quo. It seemed the perfect choice for our magazine. I took a stack of our magazine to my first Bridge Day a few days after Al delivered them to me. I remember feeling like school boy with the headmaster when I gave him a copy each to Carl and Jean to check out. By that time I'd realised it wasn't such a smart idea and I'd used his picture for the cover without asking permission first. Carl was silent as he studied it intently for a while and then was really generous and supportive of my first publishing attempt. By the next year / issue I changed to 'Jump' which really anoyed some skydivers I knew. They felt the word 'jump' belonged exclusively to skydiving. I know I have said this before but you guys in this age of instant web publishing just cannot start to imagine the impact of Carl and Jean's magazine in '81. We were inspired to risk everything from just reading those magazines! If you meet someone from my era see if they'll let you look at their collection. p.s. Thanks to NickDG for starting the thread that put me and Al back in contact after 20+ years. Nigel BASE 28

I supplied the pic to Nick for The List. It shows Frank sitting on the platform level we exited from the antenna - minutes before the jump, as described by Alan. I cropped out the other jumper. The expression on his face is pure Frank. I think the name location of the antenna should be removed from Alan's otherwise excellent post. I'm long off the scene but I imagine that place is still one of our 'low' scene's cherished high place and it can't be good to have it displayed here. Nice one Alan. Another Frank story. Before he bounced he'd get hold of friends log books when they weren't looking and sign off future blank jumps. After he was gone these pages became very special. Nigel BASE 28

from what I hear from some of the old school jumpers, the UK were certainly up there in the progression of BASE in the early days, especially for the lower end stuff.............. perhaps a certain Mr N.S would like to pipe up and give some nice stories in NDG style?? That would be cool.............

Doh! Yes, lol. To be fair some of the delay was due to my 'exit point paranoia'. Remember that mysterious car that chose to park alongside our van in the otherwise empty car park / LZ? I thought it was the police. When you finally left, me and the other fellow (anon) followed pretty sharpish and we all landed within seconds of each other in front of the vehicles. A shock for the mystery car guy (and gal - when her head popped up into view).

Like Nick said, it was somewhat scary being 'instructors' back in those early days. I'll never forget the time when one of the 'Dangerous Sports Club' bungee jumpers (Mark Chamberlin?) asked if he could make his first free fall off the bridge. He had made a previous BASE jump s/l a round from a small crane (over hard ground) but had no skydives or square experience. What made me laugh was the other staff passed the buck onto me as a fellow Brit to say yes or no. With the long delay bungee jumps he was making I knew could fall flat and stable. His companion 'Conrad Freeman' was a skydiver / BASE jumper and was lending him his rig. After talking with them I gave him the OK. After some kerb hops, briefing (flight plan for a water landing) he was ready. Mark was really fired up for it. I missed the jump but it went fine. When I caught up with him he still had eyes like saucers (but that might not have just been the jump). lol ( in earlier post tried to do an inline img. It worked on preview but seems to have failed. Any tips via PM?) Nigel BASE 28

Further to Rick's post. Here's a picture of some of the staff wearing Jean's staff shirts after Bridge Day 85 (?). The previous year Jean had given us all yellow bandanas to wear so we could be identified by jumpers needing help and advice. They were cool shirts. [inline staff85.jpg] (back l-r) Libby and Greg Gates, Jean Boenish, J.D. Walker, Robin Heid, Kevin Venell (front l-r) (Phil?), Phil Smith, Phil Mayfield, Nigel Slee. Pic by Chris Ivin.

Some good alternatives posted. Like NickDG I'm not keen on 'Old Timer' as I'm only in the youth of my old age (mid 40s). In marketing speak we were 'early adopters' on the leading edge of the bell curve of the history of BASE. Like Jon Stark said we were young and 'hard core'. We were fired up by the thought of getting our BASE numbers. I seem to recall that on my first jump I put the slider on my Unit half-way-up being undecided on whether to try slider up or down! My avatar records that head down plummet. As a 'retired OB' lurker on this forum I'm constantly amazed by the new stuff I see. (That "F*** Y**" track blew me away!). I like 'Old School' (class of '81). Nigel BASE 28

Carl and Jean Boenish's BASE magazine has a very special place in our history. Today it is hard to imagine how sensational this magazine was. For many of us it was the first time we'd heard the word BASE. Here in the UK It's arrival into the hands of Frank Donellan (BASE 12) , turned a group of skydiving friends into hardcore would-be BASE jumpers. It became our manifesto, handbook and bible. It was the BASE forum of the day. You'd write a letter about your BASE exploits and see it in the next issue a few months later. We were sorry when it finished at no. 6. In '83 I started a UK BASE magazine jump as a way to share information about the sport following Frank Donellan's fatality. This mag was directly inspired by BASE magazine. Carl set a high standard to follow. I managed one copy a year for the next 5 or 6 years which I took to Bridge Day. They were exciting times. Jumpers would send me letters and pictures telling jump stories which I'd use for the next issue. I agree with Tom that all these early magazines are valuable historical documents and they should be preserved. I have pdf'd most of mine now and they can be downloaded from: http://magazine.jump.co.uk/ Nigel BASE 28 Nigel BASE 28

I'm not sure it must be really high. My previous bass was Crane Bass No.1 though. [inline crane_bass.jpg] Nigel BASE 28