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Two and a Half Cats CONTENTS PROLOGUE – Page 2 INTRODUCTION – Page 5 Chapter 1 – Page 6 – Life Changing… The Luckiest Man Alive Chapter 2 – Page 8 – We are Sailing Chapter 3 – Page 14 – The Beginning… Chapter 4 – Page 19 – The End – Almost! Chapter 5 – Page 23 – My Early Years Chapter 6 – Page 26 – Childhood Escapades Chapter 7 – Page 35 – Teenage School Years Chapter 8 – Page 37 – The Real World Chapter 9 – Page 39 – Motorcycles – The Love Affair Begins Chapter 10 – Page 45 – The Love Affair Continues – But Off Road! Chapter 11 – Page 65 – But the Lure of Tarmac is Irresistible Chapter 12 – Page 71 – Four Wheels? Chapter 13 – Page 76 – Changes to My Life Chapter 14 – Page 83 – We are Diving – Under Water Chapter 15 – Page 93 – My NHS ‘Adventure’ Continues Chapter 16 – Page 95 – Bi-Plane Wing Walking, Rafting, Hot Air Ballooning & Paragliding Chapter 17 – Page 99 – Seeking New Adventures – Canoeing Trip, River Spay Scotland Chapter 18 – Page 100 – Pot Holing, Climbing, Abseiling & Canoeing Chapter 19 – Page 102 – Two and a Half Cats! (With Just Giving Link) Chapter 20 – Page 104 – The Final Chapter, Maybe Conclusion – Page 107 Dave Smith Motorcycle Stunt Show – Page 110 Ecuador Motorcycle Adventure – Link in the DropBox Round the World in 67 Days – Part 1 & 2 – Link in the DropBox 2 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats PROLOGUE A Quote from William Wallace. “Every Man Dies...But not Every Man really LIVES” David is now 67 years old and has certainly really “lived” his life to the full. Here is a list of some of his Achievements, Incidents, Adventures and Accomplishments. 1955 Borne with “a hole in the heart” 1958 Contracted Polio mellitus, left with a permanent Limp. 1959 Major heart surgery to repair the heart. 1960 He grew up on a cattle farm and whilst unsupervised, managed to get himself locked into the Milk storage fridge. 1963 Tunneled a den under the haystack, almost suffocated. 1965/6/7 Built bogeys with old pram wheels, raced downhill, Crashed, 1st of many broken bones. Bicycle riding through sections and obstacles. 1968 Underwent corrective surgery on left ankle. Experienced 1st off road ride on a motorcycle, absolutely loved it and was hooked on Bikes for life! 1971 Started a career as a Civil Engineer and started weight training with enthusiasm for the next 14 years. 1973 Passed motorcycle test and got the fastest Superbike. “KING OF THE ROAD” First serious bike crash, from then on had a crash about every year with a fracture, plaster pot and crutches up until 1979 1975 Started “off road”, ACU. Motorcycle Trials competitions On Every Sunday. Since then has competed in most branches of motorcycle sports. Perfected the skills of Wheelies. Went on ocean going sailing adventures. Went to the Isle of Man TT. Races each year. 1977 My fastest bike crash 124 mph. (gave up superbikes) 22nd July 1977 Batins Dam Hill Climb, Fastest time of the day! 3 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats 1st June 1979 My 1st Bungee Jump in the I.O.M. then crashed whilst wheelying on the TT circuit. 19th Aug 1979 My 1st Professional Stunt Bike Show at New York Drag Raceway. 2nd Sept 1979 I passed my I.A.M. Motorcycle test, learnt to predict potential hazards. 1979. I entered the novice section of the Mr. Oldham Body building competition. 79/80/81 I won the Superstar Championship Trophy for the fitness gym competitions. 1980 Bought a Corvette in California, drove it all across America and imported it home. Supped it up and raced it at the Drag Race meetings. 11th Oct 1980 I set The World Record for the longest continuous motorcycle wheelie. 18 miles. 1985 Married 1st wife and started my own Property Renovation business. Gave up weights and started swimming every day. 1989/90 Round the world in 67 days, 32,950 miles, Hong Kong, Bang-Kok, Sydney, Brisbane, Cairns, 1st Scuba dive on “the Great Barrier Reef”, Cambra. 13/12/89 my biggest White Water Rafting through the mountainous Tropical rain forest. Drove 2000mls. across the Australian Outback. Flew a Gypsy Moth airplane. Honolulu, Hawaii. L.A., Mexico, Glamis desert Quad Biking excursions. 1990-2000 Scuba Diving Scenic and Ship Wreck Dives. Canoeing, Climbing, Abseiling, Caving/Pot holing. 1991 My Corvette spectacular Crash. Total disintegration, nothing left! 1992 Back on Superbikes. Met my 2nd wife, we have two sons. 2005/6 Took up Circus Arts, Unicycle and Trapeze! Met my 3rd Wife 2006 Ecuador motorcycle adventure, and trip to the Galapagos islands. 4 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats 2006/7/8 Competed in the World’s Fastest Flying Kilometer Wheelie competitions at Elvington and won my 2nd World Wheelie Record in the 600cc class. 2009 Heart Surgery, Mitral valve repair. 2010 Took up Sky Diving 2011 Heart surgery again, Metallic mitral valve implant. June 2015 Bi Plane Wing Walking with the Bretling Flying Circus 2015 Gaining experience with Skydiving, Joined the “Skydivers Over Sixty” Group and took part in some British and European Big Way Records. The more I did the better it got. 2015/20 Hot Air Ballooning. 5th June 2021 Parachute Crash Landing suffering Extreme Trauma Injuries. 2nd September 2022 Whilst still seriously disabled I was working on a ladder which slipped and I cracked a rib! December 2022. In hospital with endocarditis again. To Date I have lived an Extraordinary and Extremely Lucky Life! I’ve had many experiences. I am sure you will enjoy reading it all and that you will find it interesting and amusing. It is not just my autobiography, but it also includes a lifetimes worth of experience and knowledge. 5 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats TWO AND A HALF CATS An autobiography by David Robert Smith. D.O.B 17/04/1955 INTRODUCTION I’ve always thought that everyone should have a dream, which they should believe in, with passion and with all their heart, so that when they achieve the dream they will feel fulfilled and have a sense of peace of mind. Although my upbringing was no different to most kids, some serious medical issues tempered my early years but I always had a strong compulsion for adventure and adrenaline sports. Life is for living, so try not to waste a single moment of it – even though the mundanities of life – like work – inevitably curb this with most of us. Quote from Rudyard Kipling “Fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth of distance run.” Or Winston Churchill - “Take the risk - if you win you will be happy, if you lose, you will be wiser”. I have always tried to keep myself busy, even as a kid on those long summer days in the school holidays, I was determined to do something constructive every day, so I wrote out what I called “My nothing to do list” so if a time came when I had nothing to do I would get out my list and get busy. You don’t think your life is risky? I will tell you this - you’re not going to get out of it alive! I have had more than my share of ‘near death’ experiences in my lifetimesituations where I was expecting the real possibility of death and now, when I think back to all those times, I am amazed that I am still here and my lengthy hospitalisation as a result of my latest death-defying experience has given me the opportunity to recalling some of these instances for my sons, our future descendants and anyone else who might be interested. Sometimes I have thought that I must have a guardian angel looking over me! I have always believed that if I can conceive it, then I can achieve it! Either way I have lived an amazing life with some unexpected outcomes! I am also using my autobiography to raise funds for the GREAT NORTH AIR AMBULANCE SERVICE which is run entirely on charitable donations and undoubtedly without their services I would not be writing this. 6 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats Chapter 1 – Life Changing… The Luckiest Man Alive I could see the ground coming up frighteningly fast. I knew it was going to be a very hard landing. Feet together, knees bent, try to absorb the impact… It was June 5th, 2021. The drop zones (DZ) had been shut for a while due to Covid, and you can’t social distance when you are all crammed into a small jump plane - so this was my first jump in almost a year. I was first out at 15,000 feet and I was a long way from the DZ. On the approach I had noted the wind direction from my right and was planning the left-hand landing pattern. I didn’t have much altitude left and it’s easy to say now - I should have landed in the field before, but I had never missed the DZ at Black Knights and I thought I could make it. I was wrong. The first part of my left-hand pattern headed me downwind which reduced my airspeed and I was already dropping faster in the turn. The left side of the canopy seemed to fold - I raised both toggles hoping to get a straight and level canopy with lift but it didn’t work, it just spiraled me earthwards. On impact, both my heels hit my buttocks with such force and I felt more pain than I’ve ever experienced. I’m no stranger to broken bones – usually from motorcycle crashes and I knew this was a lot more serious. I crumpled on the ground with both my arms and legs in front of me and my face sideways on the floor - an impossible position - I could not move at all. I know that the worst heavy impact injuries from extremely high G forces can cause multiple fractures and often are fatal - usually from the rupturing of the main arterial feed from the heart to the internal organs and the brain. Death comes in seconds. Miraculously this had not happened to me but then I was aware of was the real possibility of internal bleeding due to my metallic mitral valve implant. (I have to take warfarin blood anticoagulants). Two other skydivers had landed nearby and the DZ controller came over on his quad bike whilst phoning the ambulance. The CCI Paul and his wife Sharon, who was a nurse and the first aid crew all arrived. I couldn’t move or see but we were talking. 7 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats They decided not to move me as I was conscious and talking, I think they were monitoring my blood pressure and pulse. I heard someone say “We’re losing him”. The helicopter was called and arrived within minutes. The paramedics were wonderful considering my extreme situation. I was given all sorts of injections, it took them a long time to stabilize me before they could cut off my rig, jump suite and my clothes. During this time I had some very strange experiences. I saw really bright vivid colors and I could hear deep and powerful sounds like an electronic synthesizer. I could also hear voices - one of them was Sharon’s. “It’s good to hear your voice” I gasped. At one point all the pain just went and I said “Wow, I’ve not felt this good in years”. I had no idea where I was but the strangely, I knew I had been here before and what was even stranger, I knew what sounds I was going to hear next - I could actually predict all the sounds and words a moment before I heard them. I had been here before and I was experiencing all the exact same things again. I was conscious all the time but I couldn’t explain it. I thought this is what it must be like to die. I really thought I was dying and I felt OK with it. I was ready. Then I remember being fastened on the stretcher and being loaded into the helicopter. It felt comfortable and warm. 8 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats Chapter 2 – We are Sailing… I have just remembered a TV documentary I watched a few years ago, interviewing centenarians about their lives and why they thought they had lived so long? I always had the feeling that I would live to 100. One old man said “If I knew I was going to live this long, I would have taken more care of myself when I was younger”. Not that I think I’ve got much chance of reaching his grand old age now, considering all my existing circumstances and throughout my lifetime I’ve certainly had my money’s worth from the NHS. In fact, I sometimes wonder if I could work out all the actual costs - just the helicopter emergency call-out cost are thousands of pounds per flight. I started thinking and recalling some of my experiences during my hospital stay In June, July, August and September 2021 recovering from my life-changing injuries. Some people who have been involved in a serious accident have no recollection of anything, but I was conscious and alert throughout the whole experience, I remember exactly what happened and why it happened. At junior school we were each given a small diary, I was 13 years old and I painstakingly kept that diary up to date and at the yearend l looked back at what I’d written and it fascinated me to read about things I had forgotten about. From then on, I bought my own personal diary every year. It has been a valuable tool, I recorded everything I did - achievements, holidays, hobbies and when I started work at 16 I was expected to keep a diary of my daily tasks, arrangements, meetings etc. When I started my own business I continued the habit, everything was recorded in my diaries for the next 54 years! I can use them to recall where I was, what I did, on every single day of my life since I was 13. One of my first adventures was sailing, in my early years my Dad said he would like to sail round the world. The wind is free, you don’t need fuel, just harness the power of the wind. In 1967 Sir Francis Chichester had just completed the first solo sail around the world, so I went with Mum and Dad on a one-week learning to sail holiday on the Norfolk Broads, sailing our own hired yacht. Of course, we didn’t actually go out to sea but Mum won a dingy sailing course at Hollyhead on Anglesey and she passed! 9 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats Then, in my late teens I heard of the Ocean Youth Club, where young people, under 21 can experience sailing on an ocean-going ketch and learn all about sailing. I joined The Ocean Youth Club and went on various sailing trips on the Taikoo - a 72 foot, two-masted 15 berth ketch from Hollyhead harbor, around Anglesey, over to the Isle of Man and across to Ireland. When I had gained some experience, I went on a six-week sailing trip. It was planned to go round France and Spain, down the coast of Africa then out to the Azores and the Canary Islands. We set off in a very choppy Irish Sea heading South tacking directly into a head wind. After making slow progress we spent the first night sheltering the storm near Cork in the South of Ireland on the anchor. The next day was worse, the waves were easily 15 feet high and spaced just the same as the boat’s length and each time we went over the crest of a wave the hull slammed onto the next rising wave with a right crash. I thought the hull was going to split! I was so seasick I went down to the toilet and as soon as I was below deck I felt a lot more sick. I wretched up the contents of my stomach, it was just like brown water! We took shelter at Brest in northern France. The next day we set off across the Bay of Biscay heading for Spain, progress was slow as we were tacking into wind all the time. I was seasick. Our crew consisted of Fred, the experienced skipper and two First Mates plus the 12 young, inexperienced crew. We were split into the Port watch and the Starboard watch, sailing non-stop, day and night, 4 hours on and 4 hours off for 10 days in a Force 10 storm whilst crossing the Bay of Biscay. I was very ill. It was exhausting as I couldn’t keep any food down but I was starving, we were 300 miles from land but I just wanted to get off! It was the worst experience I had up to that point in my life - worse than any of my broken bones. Everyone was sea-sick except the captain. One poor girl spent the worst part in the captain’s bunk which is at the metacenter of the boat where it is less susceptible to rolling, yawing and rocking. Whilst it was our watch we were on deck wearing full waterproofs, a safety harness with two ropes with clips so when we had to move round the deck we had to be clipped on at all times to prevent ‘man overboard’. Both sails were fully reefed in, the main sail at close hold to port and the jib winched into starboard, which keeps the bow head on into wind. 10 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats The sea wasn’t like waves I’d ever seen - it consisted of random mountains of water and hollows - just about level in height with the 72-foot mast. We seemed to be bobbing about halfway between the peaks and troughs, every few seconds we were near the top, then the ‘mountain’ would drop and the troughs became the mountains so fast that a great amount of sea was left up in the air so the force 10 wind blew it sideways and hit us like the most powerful rain force I’ve ever experienced. It had taken us 10 days to reach our next port, Coruna at the Northwest tip of Spain. We were well behind schedule. I couldn’t wait to get off and on dry land. I was not getting back on the boat for anything! Coruna was an industrial city on the northern coastline of Spain. Not a tourist resort! I couldn’t find anybody who could even speak English. The First Mate on the Taikoo told me there was a ferry called the Patricia from Bilbao 150 miles along the coast to Southampton, England, so that was my plan to get home. Sounds easy! I said goodbye to my fellow shipmates and went. I had developed ‘sea legs’ and I was wobbling all over the place like a drunk. I didn’t have much money, all my kit was in plastic bin liners, I hadn’t washed or shaved in 10 days, I must have looked like a drunken tramp. I found the central railway station and looked at the railway map on the wall showing the route 150 miles away to Bilbao. I had a pen and paper so I drew a diagram of the track route with all the stations so I would know where to eventually get off, then I went to the ticket office. I pointed to my map to indicate where I wanted to go but the ticket master wouldn’t sell me a ticket, I couldn’t understand a word he was saying, so I went out onto the main street to see if I could find anyone who could speak English. Eventually I found someone who was very helpful, he enquired at the ticket office, he told me it was only a goods line so I would have to catch a bus to Bilbao then he took me to the bus station and showed me which bus to get on. The fare was only about £10 and I travelled all day, arriving in Bilbao center at midnight. I had no idea where the docks were so I got in a taxi I told the driver “Ferry Patricia” the driver took me downhill the way I would expect to go to get down to the sea but then we were going up and down hills. The taxi fare for a few miles was more than the bus fare had been for 150 miles. He dropped me off in a deserted dock. There was one streetlamp and beneath it 11 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats was a billboard for the Patricia. It was a three-day sail to Southampton, and it had just left! I went to find a cheap hotel room. There were plenty of signs for accommodation, I knocked on many doors, but they took one look at me and said “No”. I spent the rest of the night on a very uncomfortable park bench, it was not long before daylight and I had not eaten in 10 days, so I was starving. There were no fast-food places in those days, the only places I could see were small Spanish bars which all had plates of nibbles (tapas) on the bar for customers. They were all busy and full of dock workers, so I sneaked in and grabbed a handful of nuts without anyone noticing then found a small supermarket. I bought bread sticks, a large block of cheese and a bottle of orange. The next night I found a derelict building with no window frames, so I climbed in and slept on the floor out of sight in a corner. The next day I walked back down to the docks where the Patricia was due and there was a queue of cars and people. A small cafe was full of people eating so I went in, I pointed to someone with a plate of steak, chips and peas indicating that I wanted the same! They served me! The best meal I had eaten in two weeks. I sat down to eat at the only space available next to a man and we talked. He must have thought I was a tramp but, as we got to know each other, he offered me a seat in his car as a foot passenger’s fare was included on the Patricia ferry. Lucky! Stan was a ship’s captain and he was going home to London for his son’s 18th birthday. He was going to buy his son a car and he showed me a wad of £20 notes in his shirt top pocket. I’d never seen so much cash! I guess a ship’s captain must earn a good wage. The storm in the Bay of Biscay was still pretty rough and on the Patricia, there were lots of people being sick over the side but to me it felt like a mill pond - although the propellers were coming out of the water between waves! I actually enjoyed the sail back, we had a comfy cabin, a restaurant, and an entertainment dance hall with a full-size concert grand piano. It was deserted because almost everyone else was seasick. Playing classical piano has been a passion of mine since I was 10 years old, and I still play today. My teacher said I was a ‘natural’ so it was a pleasure to sit down and recite my 12 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats favorite classical pieces. At 13, I learnt Beethoven’s Fur Elise and I still play it today, but Chopin is my favorite. The first piano I saw was in the Saint Paul’s Church Institute building where we went for dinners whilst at primary school. It was a big church hall and, for some reason, we kids had been left unsupervised and some of the mischievous ones were mucking about. One lad started banging on the keyboard making loud discords, then as if he wanted to make more noise so he climbed up and started jumping on the keys, I was intrigued by the piano but disapproving of his monkey-like behavior. So when mum and dad asked me what I wanted for my 10th birthday I asked for a piano. They said I would have to take lessons and it turned out I was something of a ‘natural’. I took my exams and when I was 13 I played at the school concert in front of an audience of 2000. Everyone was amazed but then I stopped my lessons at 15. I still played at home and when I was about 30 and in a plaster cast for 13 weeks, off work and having had more corrective surgery for my polio I took the opportunity to re-learn all my favorite pieces and some new ones. I played on and off for years until I was in my fifties when I decided to take lessons again. I did all my grades again and played at a monthly concert in a large church In Rochdale on a 12-foot, full-size concert grand piano. The acoustics in the church were fantastic, it was a real privilege to play. The monthly concert was for students to ‘hone their skills’ in front of a packed audience. The church charged £5 per head which included a cup of tea with pie and peas and all the audience were very appreciative of the performances. I was bringing a classical piece up to concert standard each month. This was the pinnacle of my piano skills. I’ve let it slip again since then but now that I’m at home since the parachute accident I’ve started trying to play again. Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, on the Patricia to Southampton! So, I was a foot passenger courteously of Stan the sea captain. He offered me a lift to London in his car, then I went on the Underground to Victoria bus station, when I got my bag open to buy the ticket I realized I had left my passport in Stan’s car so I dashed back there on the underground and the car 13 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats was still parked at Stan’s house and luckily my passport was still there in his car. The coach fare from Victoria was £3.18p to Chorlton Street bus station in Manchester. Then I got the 24 bus (my usual route home from work) and I was walking home from the bus stop in Royton to Thorp farm still carrying my gear in black plastic bin bags when Mum came round the corner in the car. She was very surprised to see me, she thought I was still sailing round the Canaries! She had no idea of the ordeal I had been through and wasn’t expecting me home for a month. There were no such things as mobile phones then and only a few houses had telephones, most people had to use a public telephone - or even post a letter! I’ve found some photos in the attic of this sailing trip and we each took turns at the wheel. The 72ft. mast - about three times as high as the three-story hotel behind was just too much of a temptation – I had to climb it and maybe I might have jumped into the sea but the tide was out and the water was too cold anyway! 14 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats Chapter 3 – The Beginning… Sky diving was something I always wanted to try and but when I was in my thirties I met a skydiver during TT week in the Isle of Man. Apart from the obvious thrill of free-falling she also told me there were many other days when jumping is not possible due to unfavorable weather conditions - many times she had gone to a drop zone (DZ) and wasted the whole day waiting for clear skies. This was similar to my Scuba diving hobby – we would set off at 6.00am, drive to Liverpool having chartered a dive boat to take us out to a wreck, only for the weather to blow up with rough seas and tides, ending up wasting the whole day. I decided not to pursue skydiving any further - I already had my own microlite aircraft and couldn’t fly that as much as I wanted due to poor weather. Eventually I did start sky diving- one month before my 55th birthday. 55 is the cut-off age for a new student skydiver so I only just made it and then it was only because when I asked my son Josh what he wanted for his 17th birthday, he surprised me when he replied “Dad, I want to try a parachute jump”, “Well OK then, I’ll come with you.” I replied, with wide eyes and an exited grin on my face. I booked us both on a Student Static Line Course. This involves a full day in the classroom learning how to pilot and land your own canopy safely. How to recognize and correct nuisances such as line twists, end cell closure, stuck slider and, more importantly, how to recognize a malfunction without time for hesitation and how to carry out the cut away drill. This is to release the risers which puts you back into free fall so the reserve can be safely deployed. It’s called the cut away drill and you are trained in the hanger by exiting a mockup plane, sit in the doorway, face into wind, chin up ready to pull a big arch, then exit with belly to earth. “Check canopy!” Is it big, rectangular, and sound? If the instructor shouts “Malfunction!” Then shout out as loud as you can as you do these six actions “Look, Locate, Peel, Punch, Pull, Arch.” You are wearing a harness with the same handles as a real rig. Repeat until the drill comes instantly without hesitation, a malfunction loses altitude fast - no time for hesitation or panic! 15 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats After completing the classroom and ground training, six of us were loaded into the plane with the dispatch instructor and taken up to 3,500 feet. The exit door opened, I was sat next to Josh, I said to him “Go through your cut away drill one more time”. There was a lot of wind, and the ground looked a long way down! Josh’s face was white as chalk; he mumbled to me in a trembling voice “Dad, Dad, I can’t do it, my mind’s gone blank, I can’t remember it!” The first two students had already gone, they each had a very serious look on their faces as they exited the plane! Josh was number 3 and I was 4. I told the dispatcher Josh didn’t want to go and he said “That’s OK he can go down in the plane” Then it was my turn. I sat on the edge of the airplane door with feet dangling and face into the slipstream for a stable exit, chin up, don’t look down (everybody looks down in terror at the small patchwork quilt of green fields below), you just can’t help looking down and thinking “I don’t really want to do this” then leave in an arched position. The bag with the parachute in is attached to the plane by the static line so the parachute deploys itself as you leave. When the canopy fully opens you are just floating gently, it is amazing, quiet and peaceful with amazing views and it feels so good after the adrenalin rush. Josh then followed me! A radio on your helmet to the ground instructor is telling you which toggle to pull to steer you back to the DZ and when to flare to land into wind. He was giving instructions to all six students by their exit numbers so I was getting Josh’s and he was getting mine, I soon figured this and piloted myself down into wind and landed but Josh landed in the next field. The cutaway drill is rehearsed hundreds of times in the hanger so you do it automatically, every time I drilled it I hoped I would never need it, the last thing I wanted was to have to cut away the canopy and go back into free fall. Statistically only one in every 650 deployments is a malfunction and I was hoping one would never happen to me. As my training progressed and I got my sky dive license, I completed the packing course and I was packing the student rigs - which pay £5 per time, four packs paid for a jump ticket. 16 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats I was on my 43rd jump, at the Black Knights over the salt marshes, a solo exit at 15,000 feet - I pulled at 4,000, looked up to check, is it BIG, RECTANGULAR, SOUND… OH HECK, NO CANOPY! The pilot chute was ok it had pulled the pin, releasing the bag, risers and lines but it was ‘bag locked’. I gave one quick tug on the risers to pull the lines out of the last two bungees, nothing happened so I automatically did the cut away, looking up it seemed like instantly the reserve was out, a big bright white canopy in the bright sunshine against the beautiful blue sky, an absolutely beautiful sight, it looked like a Persil advert for clean white clothes! It was the biggest adrenaline rush ever, my heart was pounding, I felt amazing! I checked my air space, altitude was at 3,000, looked down and I could see the handles, bag with lines and risers floating down under the pilot chute over the marshes, I thought I had better stay to see exactly where it was landing so we could recover it. It landed in the sea water on the second to the last bend after the straight canal bit on an outgoing tide. I had studied the aerial photos, so I knew exactly where it was. I still had plenty of altitude to make the DZ with a safe landing… SOS - Skydivers Over Sixty As my skydiving progressed, I started jumping at Tilstock DZ, one of Britain’s smaller DZ’s with a quieter, friendly atmosphere. I bought my own ‘made to measure’ rig, passed my jump masters, got my ‘B’ License and, when I passed my FS1 and had over 200 jumps, I got my ‘C’ license, which made my experiences much more fun jumping with a camera and other skydivers, making formations and trying out lots of fun things. The more I did, the better it got. I had a mobile home for wild camping trips, I always took my rig and made a point of jumping at many of the 22 DZ’s round Britain. Then I joined the SOS group for sky divers over 60. Most of them had been jumping all their lives and had been Coaches and Tandem Instructors. They all had a vast lifetime of experience with five or ten or twenty thousand jumps, some are over 70 and called the JOS group and there are even some over 80 and called the JOE’s (jumpers over eighty). I was a late starter and was the least experienced with only 300 jumps. They were the best skydivers I’ve ever had the privilege to jump with. Each summer 17 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats they have an attempt to beat the British and European record for the big way formation for skydivers over 60 and the training and drilling is quite intense, I learnt more jumping with them than all my skydiving. Each year they organize a trip to Normandy to celebrate the annual anniversary of the D-Day landings. I had the opportunity to join in with some French skydivers and we jumped from the old war planes onto the beaches in front of thousands of people celebrating the liberation of France from German occupation. The atmosphere was amazing we were treated like heroes and invited for drinks with the mayor. Some of the veterans still go each year in full uniform proudly wearing their medals. The last survivors are approaching 100 years old; many of the hotels offer them free accommodation there each year. Last year a 100-year-old did a tandem jump on to the beach! In the summer of 2020, I was lucky enough to train in the five-day Lesley Gale, Euro Bigway Training Camp at Hibaldstow Drop Zone and about 200 Qualified formation sky divers from Briton and from all over Europe attended. The first day is an extra training session for lesser experienced jumpers like me, we were split up into teams of about 30 and my team had the famous instructor the legendary MILKO. Dirt diving is where you train and drill the dive lying on modified skateboards on the ground. For a big way record it has to be predetermined with all the jumpers in their correct position so it helps if you can remember not only your own position but to be able to recognize the jump suit, helmet and kit colors of all the jumpers on your team so you can identify your quadrant and go to a point to approach the formation on your radial and know where and when to take grips. The formation starts with the Base, which is made up usually of four, the coach and 3 experienced steady jumpers, they set the fall rate, and then everyone approaches in sequence from their correct clock position from what is known as the STADIUM slowly coming down and inwards at a 45-degree angle, flying into their slot, then gently taking grips. When I was getting kitted up for the first jump I had a fault on my AAD computer (automatic activation device) ‘cut failure’. In an emergency when for some reason you can’t deploy your canopy the device monitors your altitude and fall rate, if altitude is below 800 ft. and fall rate is over 80mph, it fires a 18 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats cutter which cuts the closing loop on the reserve canopy, so it is deployed automatically. No one is allowed to jump without it so I had to hire a club rig for the day until mine was fixed. My kit was made to measure for me and I was comfortable and used to it, I was not comfortable in the hired kit and I was also trying to get used to my new jump suit with ‘Bootees. Needless to say, I didn’t do very well the first day. After training, Milko had a quiet word with me - recommending I should leave the team! Next morning the Club chief instructor Knowl had managed to repair my AAD so I asked Milko if I was to wear my old jump suit and jump in my own kit, which I am used to and comfortable with, would he let me back on the team? He gave me another chance. My progress was slow and difficult, but I eventually managed to take grips in my slot and, after the five-day training camp finished, I won the PERSEVERANCE prize! 19 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats Chapter 4 – The End – Almost! My injury diagnosis Spinopelvic dislocation with multiple pelvic-ring fractures and left comminuted proximinal and shaft of femur multiple fracture - this is the biggest bone in the body. My left thigh bone was shattered into twelve pieces. The base of my spine lumber numbers L3, 4 and 5 and my sacrum - which is the hardest bone in the body – were all broken, and all impacted down through the base of my pelvis completely separating my left posterior inferior and superior from my back. My surgeons told me that my spinal cord had been “Squidged, squashed and stretched” but not completely severed. This was the reason why my left leg felt completely paralyzed - there was only a small one-inch area on the top center of my foot with any feelings when tested. I was told the nerves should grow back but it would be twelve months or so before I would be able to walk again. The left head of my femur was completely separated, plus a couple of broken ribs and a lot of internal bleeding. When I’m asked about my injuries I jokingly say, “If I could have stood up then I would have been about a foot shorter!” Or that the bottom of my spine should have been sticking out if my arse hole! Some of my friends suggested that I write a history of all my lifetime’s injuries so that’s what made me decide to make a start by writing this, my autobiography. 20 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats A team of three specialist surgeons were assembled at the Preston Hospital ETU (Extreme Trauma Unit) and given the horrendous task of my reconstruction, beginning with the intmedullary nailing of the femur and combined spinopelvic fixation of the posterior ring with antipelvic plating. At the beginning of the surgery, they asked if I would sign a ‘Do not resuscitate’ form - the fact is I was not expected to survive! I required two sessions of 9 hours on the operating table, later they told me this had stretched their skills to the limits of their capabilities using the latest equipment and facilities and that if my injuries had been any worse there would have been nothing they could have done for me. I had required nine pints of blood, two pints of which had been scraped up off the operating table. And I was lucky that I had been airlifted to the Royal Preston Hospital as it is one of only a few hospitals equipped with this Extreme Trauma Facility. Had the usual 999 ambulance arrived and taken me elsewhere, or to the nearest hospital in Lancaster, I would not have survived. After six weeks in the Preston hospital I was transferred to Oldham hospital for two weeks and then discharged home. I was still very ill and I broke out with a high temperature with cold sweats and extremely violent shivering that was so severe that I was completely out of breath and could not talk or even take a sip of tea! I thought I was dying! 21 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats An emergency ambulance took me to Fairfield hospital in Bury, I had contracted a form of sepsis blood bacterial infection - endocarditis, which attacks the valves of the heart. I was already fitted with a metallic mitral valve implant so this infection developed vegetative growths attached to my metallic mitral valve and the 40mm ring, and the stitching fixing it to the wall of the inside of my left ventricle and on the two semi-circular flaps hinged across the diameter. I could see these growths during a TOE scan very clearly. The consultant told me it is too dangerous to attempt to remove them, if they became detached and if they entered into my blood stream it would most likely be fatal. The treatment for endocarditis is intravenous infusions of various antibacterial treatments including Rifampicin and others, eight times per day. Round the clock, day and night, blood samples were taken so that my CRP levels and my INR were closely monitored every day and the dosages had to be varied each day. Some of the doses took 3 hours to complete - I think I had more quantities of infusions each day than the amount of blood in my body. (I was filling 12-15pee bottles each day and night!) I had some anxious moments during this treatment when the supply of antibacterial fluids ran out and my CRP levels increased. The manufacturing pharmaceutical company had no supplies. Eventually when the treatment was completed and my CRP levels were back to near normal after 53 days of infusions I was safe to be discharged but the consultant told me the vegetative growths on my metallic mitral valve should now be calcified, sterile and should remain attached, (I hope), when I asked if they could be removed or if a new mitral valve be fitted, he told me surgery would be too risky and that if a piece entered my blood stream the consequences would probably be fatal, I’ll just have to live with them! Three months after being discharged, on Boxing Day 2021, I had a very anxious experience whilst relaxing on the settee at home, when for no apparent reason my pulse rate raised to 180 beats per minute! Even when I am swimming each day when I sprint swim for six lengths to maximize my pulse rate, I cannot raise it past 140 beats per minute, so I was most alarmed when it was constantly at 180 whilst relaxed! It felt like my heart was trying to jump out of my chest! 22 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats We called for an ambulance but there was an 11 hour wait, Dawn took me to A and E where there was a 3 hour wait to see the triage nurse, all the time whilst sat in the A and E my pulse was constantly at 180 BPM. I was worried that the vegetative growths might break off my metallic mitral valve or that the stress may cause cardiac arrest! Either way I would be dead! When my name was called it took me 5 minutes to get up and walk with crutches down the corridor and by the time I sat down with the nurse my pulse had returned to 60 BPM. I still have no explanation for this? During my four months in hospital, I had a lot of time for thinking. I always had a positive attitude; I was determined to do whatever it takes to recover. I looked forwards to the physiotherapy treatments and completed all the exercises enthusiastically - they all called me their favorite patient. I could see small improvements week by week. I also spoke with the surgeons and the consultants, I wanted to know and discuss all the details of everything, I also realized how lucky I had been just to still be alive, even though I was permanently in a lot of pain. I have often thought of all the lucky escapes I have had throughout my whole lifetime and wondered, upon reviewing this autobiography, I can count twenty two specific times where I was actually expecting the real possibility of IMMINENT DEATH! 23 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats Chapter 5 – My Early Years During this stay in hospital, I also thought quite a lot about DEATH! Whenever I asked any of the doctors or nurses questions on this subject, I never got a straight answer except for when I asked the Endocarditis Consultant, he just told the simple truth and said it like it was! It soon became clear that the staff are trained to deal with questions on this matter so they always focus on the positive and never say anything which could upset the patients or put them in a state of anxiety, but there were some actual deaths on the wards. Usually when someone comes and draws the curtains round your bed it’s for your own privacy like if you needed a bed pan or a bed wash, or it could be because a doctor is coming to see you to do some examinations. I had been expecting a doctor’s visit so when a nurse drew my curtains round me one evening I took my PJs off ready, then the nurse opened my curtains, when I asked what’s happening she quietly said “There’s been a fatality and the curtains were a matter of respect”. I found it hard to think about death, but it must be something which crosses everyone’s mind at some time, I’ve had a lot of very painful injuries in my lifetime, and I always used to think death would be the most painful of all. Now I realize it depends on the circumstances and it must be different for everyone, some pass away in sleep or an induced state of unconsciousness and bear no pain at all. I think that the anticipation of death is worse than death itself. My first memory of death, when I was very young, I went with mum to visit Great Grandma Persil in a care home. I was a bit shocked because I had not seen anyone looking so old, she smiled at me and gave me two pennies, the next day she died. I’ve still got those pennies. She used to have a toffee shop in a terraced house on County Street where Grandma and Grandad Tomlinson lived, she always gave us sweets. Then I visited my Grandad Smith’s older sister Gerty Downie in hospital. She was our favorite aunt, she didn’t look well and she was complaining that she was uncomfortable with a stiff neck, the next day she passed away, it was a relief because she then looked at peace. My Dad wrote a book on the history of our family and of Thorp Farm so that some of the old tales which were passed down by word of mouth for generations, are not forgotten, it is interesting, informative and amusing to read. (Attached in the appendix). 24 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats This parachute injury is by far the most traumatic experience of my lifetime, the amount of steelwork used to fix my broken bones is more than the total amount of steelwork fixing ALL my previous broken bones. You should see the CT scans before and the X-rays after. I remember counting up the number of my broken bones when I was 22 years old - I had 22 breaks, some from corrective surgery but mostly from motorcycle crashes. I am producing a list of some of the incidents I can remember in approximate date order. My earliest health problem was that I was born with patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) commonly known as a hole in the heart. This is rare, about one in 2000, When baby is in the mother’s womb it’s blood is oxygenated through the mothers lungs through the umbilical cord, at the moment of birth, when baby takes its first breath of air and the umbilical cord is cut there is a connection at the heart which is supposed to close off so the blood can then go through baby’s lungs, mine did not close and it was not diagnosed until I was three years old and only then because I got polio miletus. The polio vaccine immunization had just started to be administered to every child in Briton but starting with the surnames in alphabetical order. As a Smith, my turn was later than most so I probably got polio from another child who had been vaccinated. Unlucky? but as it turned out, I was very lucky, because had the PDA not been found my life expectancy would have been not more than 20 years. At three years old my stay in hospital is one of my earliest memories, I didn’t know why my mum and dad had to leave me there, I remember enjoying dinner which was mince, mash, peas and gravy, then when they left me I was upset, until I found the children’s’ toy box. I was fascinated with a small, handmade wooden pin-ball machine. After my recovery from polio, I had a thorough medical, it was only then that my PDA was discovered. I needed to have open heart surgery. This was a major operation in 1958. It involved removal of the left rib, collapsing the lung just to get to the heart - the PDA was then sealed off. 25 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats I remember being wheeled into the operating theatre on a stretcher looking up and seeing the bright white room with shelving all around the walls filled with bottles and operating tools, then men in white coats put a full size facemask on me which completely covered my face and eyes, I could see up the flexible corrugated rubber tube with a strong draft coming down which seemed to be blowing my eyes shut, I could not keep them open, it was obviously the gas anesthetic. 26 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats Chapter 6 - Childhood Escapades As a young child growing up somewhat isolated on the farm, I suppose I was mollycoddled. I was very close to Mum and Dad and to my grandparents. I did not have the opportunity to play with other children in Royton. After polio I was crippled and I could not run, I started primary school at four, I had no preschool or nursery experiences and my mum told me that I did not take my coat off for the first three days, as if I thought I would not be staying, until I got used to the idea. I went for special physiotherapy classes, I had to wear support calipers to walk, well it was more of a limp and I was excused from all ball games at school. I felt very much loved especially when I look at the old black and white photos of me in my Grandma Smith’s arms and her adoring expression of love! I still feel overwhelmed. Maybe it was because of my heart and disability, I experienced a tremendous amount of love. I accepted it and soaked it up, it made me who I became and who I am today. When I started junior school, I did excel on the climbing frames, the bars and ropes in the gym. My upper body strength overcompensated for my disability. I’ve just remembered another incident which could easily have been fatal when I was 4 or 5 years old, even at such a young age we were often playing out on the farm unsupervised, I remember it was one of those long hot summer days, I was alone and I wandered into the dairy where the milk was bottled and stored ready to be delivered on our local milk round. It was stored in crates stacked up in what seemed like a giant fridge at least 6 ft. high, as I felt all hot and bothered, I still had a wooly jumper on, I decided to open the bottom door where the crates go but it was empty so I stepped inside where it was lovely and cool and pulled the door shut, I was a bit shocked as everything went pitch black and the door wouldn’t push open, there was no lock handle on the inside, I don’t remember anything more until I was in my mum’s arms. When I was older mum told me how she found me. She was in number 9 Thorp where we lived, preparing the tea, when she thought she could hear a very faint screaming. Number 9 is across the road, round the barn, up a hill to the rear of the main farmhouse number 11, from where the dairy is. It is said that a mother has an instinctive ability to hear her own baby’s faint cries! 27 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats She didn’t know where the cry was coming from but she was very worried and went outside but the cry was still too faint. She searched the barn but in there the crying was fainter. From there she thought it was coming from the farm house as she walked over she thought I must have fallen down into the toilet. The toilet is an old brick building down the garden path, through a narrow open doorway, round a narrow bend where there is a wide wooden shelf with two round holes so two people could sit side by side over a deep hole in the ground. But I wasn’t down there. The farmhouse toilet, which I often used - but not with anyone else; actually backed on to the tractor shed which is next door to the diary. She thought my screams were a little louder. There is another deep toilet hole in the tractor shed for the farm workers, so she dashed round but I wasn’t down there either. Eventually she could hear my screams coming from the dairy and she soon rescued me with great relief. Had I not been found soon I could have suffocated or died from hypothermia? I was lucky again. Growing up on the farm, I became an excellent tree climber, building tree houses and ropes with pulleys or zip lines as they are now known. My brother Trevor and I built dens in the hayloft and in the Dutchbarn, the bales of hay were like large building bricks. They were usually stacked in the barn in layers laid in alternate directions so they interlocked forming a secure structure. One year my older brother Trevor and his friend Ken and I decided to dig a tunnel in from the bottom of the stack, Dad and granddad were out at the cattle markets all day whilst we were unsupervised on the farm. Bails are formed in compressed layers tied up with two tough hessian strings. We started by cutting the two strings at the end of the first bail, then pulling out the cakes of hay and getting rid of the evidence by feeding the hay to the cows - they were chained in their stalls in the shippons all winter. When the first bail was removed it left a tunnel about 12 inches high by 15 inches wide, then as I was the smallest, I crawled in the tunnel with a bicycle lamp and cut the next bale strings, squeezing the hay back past my body in the tunnel and pushing it out with my feet. As I progressed bail by bail, the tunnel got longer and Trevor and Ken couldn’t keep up with pulling the hay out. I didn’t realize how far I’d gone and that the tunnel was completely blocked behind me until the lamp battery started diming and I was choking on the dust! It was a long time before I felt a 28 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats bit of fresh air; Trev and Ken were truly panicked. They thought I was lost - lucky again. We dug tunnels in the sand pit on the hillside; Dad went crazy when he found us. He explained how dangerous the sand is, it collapses suddenly without warning, causing suffocation. There was a rope swing from the ridge beam in the barn, I spent hours swinging across from loft to loft like Tarzan, I could climb a rope using my arms only. My childhood was a real exciting adventurous time, I made lots of school friends, they all wanted to come and play on the farm. Dad was visiting the cattle markets most days and Mum had a full-time job so my elder brother Trevor and I were pretty much left unsupervised throughout the school holidays and we got up to all sorts, although it was always Trevor who made all of our plans and I always followed him. Trevor was the tallest boy in our school, he won the athlete of the year because he was top in all sports, particularly swimming. I was proud to have such a brother, I admired him, I looked up to him and I wanted to be like him but I was a polio cripple and I couldn’t take part in sports, I was only a small boy. He was my hero. Because of my disability and limited mobility I was good on anything with wheels, from riding my tricycle round balanced on two wheels, to building and racing down hills on my own bogeys, which I built out of old pram wheels and wood with my own designed braking system. This led to my first serious crash. My bogeys required a hill to roll down, the bigger the hill the faster one went, growing up on our farm all the hills were on bumpy dirt tracks not so fast, but in the late 60’s Thorp Farm Estate was being built, the main access road on the estate was Harewood Drive which came to Thorp up a steep hill and it was tarmacked, the road was built before the houses so there was no traffic, I found this hill irresistible. At 12 years of age I had a need for speed! At the bottom of the hill there was a right-hand bend. Each time I came down I went faster and faster until the solid tires on the pram wheels lost traction and skidded round the bend. Even though I steered away from a parked Transit van, I hit it head on, going under the front bumper, my feet were on the cross bar steering the front wheels when the right wheel hit the van’s front left 29 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats wheel pushing my right foot back which raised my right knee which impacted the van bumper stopping me dead, all the force was all transferred through my right knee which pushed my leg back dissipating all the kinetic energy into my right hip. My hip joint was smashed. The pain was like nothing I had experienced. I screamed and screamed, I could not move, the pain was something I could not have imagined, my intense screaming must have been very alarming and people started coming out of nearby houses, the ambulance soon arrived. I was most insistent the pain was too much and I could not be moved. They must have sedated me before carefully lifting me onto a stretcher and into the ambulance then taking me to Oldham Royal where I had to wait four hours - because I’d eaten before I could be given an anesthetic. When I came round I had a plaster cast on from my right ankle up to my armpits with a hole for my bottom and a cotton wool flap at the front. When mum and dad visited me on the ward I had to ask them to creep in slowly because the vibrations from their footsteps on the floor boards were too painful for me to bear. The use of a bedpan was another issue; I was too shy and embarrassed to let the nurses see my bits and so I would only go with assistance from my mum - not an easy task trying to move onto a bed pan when I was as stiff as a board from ankle to armpits. I’ve mentioned tunneling through the hay bales and digging tunnels in the sand, well I found a readymade big new concrete tunnel running under what was Royton tip. It was about 5ft. diameter. The river Irk valley was being filled in close to its source underneath where the Holly Estate is now built. The tunnel exit was down a dirt track near Royton Cricket Club so my brother and I decided to explore. There were no bars or railings guarding the entrance so we just walked in through a couple of inches of trickling water, it was slippy and slimy and it soon got dark. We came back next day with candles and made it through to the other end, about half a mile, at Albert St. Unfortunately, there were bars fitted at this end. As I was crippled with polio I found it difficult to walk through but I had an idea, I brought my bogey into the tunnel, lit a candle, dripped some wax so it stuck on the front, I sat down with a four-foot piece of wood wedged across the 5ft.concrete pipe, as I raised the wood I could move it forwards then lower it and pull myself forwards along. 30 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats I could reach a considerable speed doing this especially when coming back down the tunnel. This was great fun in the dark with just a candle flickering in the wind. I did not know at the time but there is a very high risk of methane gas under a tip containing all sorts of household waste. Methane Is highly inflammable and I had a candle with a naked flame! Lucky again and I didn’t even know it! When I was eleven, we started gluing match sticks together to make models, my elder brother started building the ambitious task of a matchstick model of Blackpool tower, but it kept collapsing, he gave up and said it couldn’t be done! I watched with interest and could see it had not been properly braced or triangulated. At this point I had a light bulb moment which changed my life. I just knew instinctively how it should be braced. Dad and Granddad saved all their used matchsticks for me and it took me two years to build it, a four foot high model of the tower. I have a vivid memory of going up Blackpool Tower - I must have been about five- with my mum and dad. The first level is enclosed with windows, the next level is surrounded by strong railings and they are G shaped and about 4 inches apart. The G part sticks out over the edge, I didn’t really notice or suspect anything when dad picked me up and lifted me onto the railings on my back until he rolled me over outwards so I was face down staring straight down through the gaps, I JUST FROZE AND STARED. The funny thing is I have never been scared of heights since, however I did not know exactly what the tower looked like from a distance in detail but our neighbor’s family went to Blackpool for their holiday every year so I asked them to send me a post card with a detailed picture of the tower. When the model was completed everyone was amazed, Dad rang the Oldham Chronicle, They sent a photographer and I got my first taste of fame with an article on my achievement. 31 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats This light-bulb moment taught me a very important lesson – if that if I put my mind to it, I can achieve absolutely anything I want to - with perseverance and dedication! I have taken my two sons up the Tower when they were small but they wouldn’t let me near them, they ran around so I could not catch them. Now they are grown up and they are both scared of heights, they won’t even go up a ladder without knees knocking! A particular incident I remember when I took my little boys up Blackpool tower, at the time I was wearing metal support calibers on my boots to enable me to walk, and on the first deck of the tower which is enclosed, there is a piece of toughened glass in the floor which overhangs the edge of the building, this gives views vertically straight down to ground level. A group of vertigo sufferers were hanging around its perimeter hardly daring to look down, all with serious trembling faces, my wife and kids included. It was obvious to me that the glass must have been toughened and unbreakable, I had the idea to 32 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats run up and jump into the middle of the glass with my metal calipers making a right clatter! Well, everybody jumped back and screamed! In fact only last year, whilst attending a five day Euro sky diving training at Bigway Camp for learning free falling skills and making big way formations, I won the prize for PERSEVERANCE. And I have achieved quite a lot of remarkable things with perseverance throughout my lifetime. One of my favorite quotes from Mahatma Gandhi “I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it, even if I may not have it at the beginning”. In my teenage years I made an army-like assault course over the barn roof, up a telegraph pole - which distributes the mains three-phase electric supply. This pole was right up against the gable end of the barn and all the live wires were pulling it away from the barn so there was another pole across to the Dutch barn with two stabilizing cables bracing the electricity pole. I realized that these two cables were not live so I climbed up, being careful not to grab or touch the live cables, onto the bracing cables, feet on bottom cable and holding on to top cable, then shimmed across from pole to pole, there was a tendency for the cables to tilt over backwards when in the center section. The consequences of touching the live cables at 415volts, whilst standing on the earth wire, would have been instant death. As a young teenager I had a good understanding of electrical and practical things, when I was about 10, I had the EE8 electrical educational toy kit which included resistors capacitors, a diode, potentiometers and diagrammatic circuit boards with lots of components to build different circuits. I made a Morse code kit, a radio, an electromagnet, I even made my own electric motor out of a knitting needle as a spindle supported on crossed pins for the bearing, I used two cotton spools on the spindle, one with a horizontal winding connected to brushes on the other spool with varnished insulated fine copper wire which I got out of an old TV. A pivoting electromagnet was between two permanent magnets connected to the second spool so the brushes changed the polarity of the magnet as it spun. It should have been connected to a DC battery but I couldn’t get it started. So I connected it to the 12v battery charger in the farm house kitchen and plugged it in, then it spun like crazy, my grandma was astonished! I also replaced all the old Wylex plug sockets in the farmhouse with the new triangular ones that we have today. 33 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats During the summer haymaking we camped out up the fields, we built a table with bench and a fireplace on a thick stone flag with a brick oven underneath. We camped in a fenced area at the silage pit where the cattle would not trample on the tents. There is an electric pylon there for 132,000-volt CEGB distribution lines, we rigged up a cold shower under the pylon and, from a nearby field drain we used a stirrup pump to fill a milk churn then siphoned the water down through a hose and a watering can sprinkler which was hung under the pylon. We were often tempted to climb it. We could climb through the barbed wire then the corner post had step irons all the way to the top we knew the high voltage was very dangerous, at night when the dew came, we could hear the insulator plates hissing and see a blue plasma glow at the ends of the probes. We didn’t dare climb up because we would be in full view from miles around and someone would surely call the police. When I was 16, the last time I camped up the field, I made a point of getting up about 4.00am, first light, no one about so I climbed right to the top, I didn’t like the look of the six live cables and the blue plasma glowing at the insulators, but I could see the top cable was earthed and was a lightening conductor so I tried swinging out on it, I thought about shinning along to the next pylon but from the top, I could see the amount of sagging in the cable which would be a problem with my extra weight. After I had completed the matchstick model of Blackpool Tower, then I realized I could achieve anything I put my mind to. We had moved into 96 Harewood drive, a large brand-new detached bungalow which was Dad’s dream house, built to Dad’s personal design as part of the deal with Haughton and Kershaw, the builders of Thorp Farm Estate. Before this we lived at 9 Thorp, a two bed very old house with just one coal fire for heating. Bath night was Friday night. Mum had purchased a new washing machine; it was a top loader with an agitator which rotated left and right in a tub. Before this we had a dolly tub and mangle. The new washer had an electric immersion heater which could heat the tub of water, this boiling water was emptied into a stainless-steel bucket from the dairy and Dad carried them upstairs to pour into the bath, we only had cold running water in the house, pumped up from the well. First me 34 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats and Trevor had our bath before bed, then Mum got in the same water and finally Dad had the last bath. We moved into the brand-new bungalow I was 13 years old, and it was like staying in a luxury hotel. One day I was alone at home, Dad had gone to cattle market, Mum had gone to work, and I decided to make my bedroom curtains electric. We had had an old gramophone radio/ record player and we had bought a new one for the new house, I asked if I could have the old one which wasn’t very good, so I took it to pieces for parts. First, I took the speaker out and wired it in parallel with the speaker on the new one so we had sounds from both sides of the lounge. Then I took the electric motor out which I used to operate the curtains, I mounted it on a piece of plywood, then using my dad’s Black and Decker drill, I fitted a masonry bit and drilled holes in my new bedroom wall so I could Rawlplug and screw the motor to the wall with the spindle protruding to the front behind the curtains, then using parts from my Mechano Set I made a bracket to support a spindle with a 4 inch pulley wheel attached to the motor spindle with an elastic band to gear it down. Then with a 1-inch wheel behind the 4 inch on the same spindle, attached to another pair of brackets behind the curtain rail at each side of the window, each with a 1 inch wheel and with loop of chord connecting them so when I attached one curtain to the top loop and the other to the bottom loop it would draw them together. My next problem was that my bedroom had three separate curtains so I neatly tore the middle one in halves, then using mu mum’s new electric sewing machine I sowed the two halves very neatly to the two sides. When mum and dad were home from work a took them to my room and demonstrated my electric curtains, I had thought I could just reverse the polarity of the current to open and close them as I had done with my Mecano motor but then I realized this was an AC, motor and because the current was alternating at 50 Htz, it didn’t make any difference. I had to reverse it by twisting the elastic band from the spindle to the drive wheel into a fig. 8, then it worked, but this was more of a bother than simply drawing the curtains manually! So, a few days later, with a bit of Polly filler and paint I put it all back as it was. 35 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats Chapter 7 – Teenage School Years At school I remember taking the eleven plus exam, the first exam I had ever taken. A pass got you into Grammar School and a fail sent you to the Secondary School. Dad said this exam was very important. I remember being all hot and flustered, I was so embarrassed, I failed miserably, didn’t answer a single question. I didn’t realize at the time that I could not read or write! No one had heard of dyslexia! I wasn’t diagnosed until I was about 45 years old and only then because I was taking my son Joshua to weekly dyslexic classes. In secondary school I had to work extra hard to catch up. I was top of the class in Woodwork, Metalwork, Physics, Mathematics and Technical Drawing and I was promoted from the dunce class to the GCE classes in these subjects, which I passed with top grades. In woodwork at 15 years old, I designed and built a Square Plate glass top coffee table, this was the most difficult piece of carpentry I’ve ever done, in mahogany with four mitered half-tenon joints at the corners; these were the most difficult joints to make, each one individually fitted together with perfection but, when all four were assembled there was always one with a fractional small gap. I spent hours shaving off tiny fractions of a mm. but all eight 45-degree ends had to add up exactly to 360 degrees. I still have this coffee table, it was used in our house, then in 12 Thorp until after I rented it furnished and one tenant accidentally dropped a full pint pot and smashed the plate glass, He threw it out into the firewood shed. After many months of wondering where my table was, I found it under the firewood, in perfect condition, a testament to the precision and strength of my hand made joints; it just needs a new glass. I also made all sorts of things in Metalwork Class at school, steel tools, brass and copper ornaments, a wrought iron scroll work sign still fixed to the wall at the farmhouse, a crossbow from a heavy leaf spring, this shot a bolt straight through the barn door! I also made a primitive musket type gun, without teachers’ knowledge, I drilled the barrel on the lathe with a small hole for a fuse, I loaded it with gun powder from three bangers, made the bullet from a cut down 6 inch nail wound neatly with wax coated chord to make an air tight fit in the bore, I only fired it once, far too dangerous! 36 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats Many years later I was introduced to firearms and joined Tameside Pistol Club, I got my Firearms Certificate and purchased a collection of large caliber hand guns for competitive target shooting. In 1990 I joined Diggle Range - this is the only non-military range in Europe with a 1000-yard facility. All handguns were withdrawn soon after the Dunblane incident so now I only shoot rifles and shotguns. My first competition at Diggle was with a lever-action rifle. The object was to drop two falling-man targets in the shortest time. It was beginners’ luck, but I won and the prize was a Rossi 38 lever-action rifle. I have had a natural affinity with sports shooting all my life, from my first toy bow and arrows with rubber stickers, through to my home-made gun at school and the leaf spring crossbow with a 300lb pull. I have an accurate balanced target longbow with sights and an Exocett compound bow with a 65lb pull. (The exact same one that Rambo used in his films) I’ve taken my boys shooting up the fields when they were old enough to pull back the long bow and scored on targets. When you are in open fields it’s amazing to shoot an arrow up at angles and see just how far it will reach! Or simply aim straight up and watch it against the blue sky until it stops, falls back turning round and lands back in the grass a short distance away or sometimes a bit too close for comfort! Well there was one time with the boys and I shot the compound bow, it was so fast the arrow went straight through the target and the bale of hay behind! Then I shot it straight up in the sky we watched it up and up till we could see it no more. “Come on”I shouted and we dived under the tail-gate of my pick up for cover, it eventually came back down just a few feet away! 37 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats Chapter 8 – The Real World When I left school in 1971 aged 16, I started work in Local Government as a trainee Civil Engineer for Manchester City Engineers & Surveyors. The interviewer said that I also needed to have GCSE English as well but they were so impressed with my grades I got the job anyway, they said I had to go to night school classes to get English which I did - for three consecutive years and failed it three times! By then I had been promoted and progressed at work so I never did tell them. I really enjoyed working in Manchester Town Hall, It is an amazing building, triangular in shape, wonderful architecture, you can easily get lost in all the many corridors, split levels, cross corridors, triangular and spiral staircases, I worked for the first 6 months learning land surveying producing very accurate plans, the surveyors office was up in the attics! Plan filing was up in the rafters, the archives store was up in the rear tower. Two of us were posted up there for 3 months re-categorizing very old obsolete records and glass plate photo negatives which had been up there over 100 years. They were recorded photos of a main drainage new sewer project which could only be constructed through an ancient church graveyard. They had to exhume many graves and the glass plate negatives clearly showed the bodies in the coffins with the lids removed, many were in a perfect state of preservation fully dressed in frilly bonnets. We were unsupervised up there, we played at setting booby traps for each other and climbed right to the top of the tower then crawled out under a leaded trap onto a narrow ledge round the outside for views across all the city center. I worked 8 years for Manchester, and then I worked for Oldham Technical & Public Services until 1992. Whilst I was still in full time employment with Oldham, I started my own house renovation business in 1985 called Thorp Construction, making cash offers to buy run-down, un-mortgageable properties with structural problems, then rebuilding and modernizing them to become the best house on the street. For resale, as a ‘rule of thumb’ the finished value was based on the purchase price plus twice the amount I had spent on renovation works, so the more money I spent on renovation work, the better quality the improvements, more profit was made on the sale! 38 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats I renovated and sold 40 houses up until 2002. Then I started buying run down, large prestigious buildings with quality architectural features and converting them into high quality, luxury residential apartments, getting ‘buy to let’ mortgages on some, which released the capital to buy and renovate more. I had built a 37-property portfolio by 2007. I’ve not renovated any more since 2008 as the demands of a private landlord doing all the maintenance and repairs on my own portfolio is a very demanding and full-time job. 39 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats Chapter 9 – Motorcycles – The Love Affair Begins I mentioned earlier that I was attracted to anything with wheels. Maybe this could be because of my lop-sided ‘gate’ and difficult limp - wheels were of a great benefit to mobility. When I was 13, my school mate ‘Baden Powell’ uncovered an old army motorbike buried in his back yard, it was his dad’s from his wartime military service. A Villiers Excelsior two stroke 98cc so we tried to get it going. Most of the bodywork, fairing and fuel tank had rusted away so we stripped it down making it much lighter and used a Fairy Liquid washing up bottle for the petrol tank. Cleaned it and changed the oil, fitted a new sparkplug and we had a spark! Mixed oil in the petrol and tried to bump start it, we pushed it up and down Oldham Edge. Sometimes if fired intermittently then we realized air had to enter the top of the squeezy bottle to stop a vacuum forming so we pricked some pin holes. We took it in turns trying to bump start it. On my turn it fired up on a small downhill part leading onto the uphill track leading all the way up the back of Oldham edge over the gas works. This was my first ever ride on a motorcycle and I was thrilled, I had peddled up this long grueling hill many times and now I was sat on a foam-covered piece of plywood as the seat and made the same climb without any effort! I was hooked for life. It was a fantastic first bike and we rode it off road everywhere. 40 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats I remember the first day I legally rode a motorbike on the road. At Manchester Town Hall, Tony Reece and I had started work at the same time and were good friends, He had a Honda CB 175 with L plates and when he was going to France to see his fiancé for one week, he hired his bike to me for the week. I signed his hire contract, paid the insurance, then in our lunch break I had a ride down Princess Street. It was very busy with five lanes of heavy traffic, I wasn’t fazed at all, I was weaving through the traffic and couldn’t wait to get going. On the way home I went a ride over the moors, I reached flat out at 85mph. The hooligan boy racer, King of the road, had arrived! I was so excited I forgot to put petrol in and Tony had already put it on reserve so I ran out of petrol and had to push it for miles over the tops then free wheeled all the way down Ripponden Road to a garage. I soon passed my bike test on my own Honda CD175. I was fascinated with the way a motorcycle is banked round corners. The newly built roundabout at the Three Arrows pub near Heaton Park had corners which were banked round like a racetrack, and I wanted to find out what was the greatest angle of lean my bike would go so I went round faster and faster until the tires lost adhesion and I skidded off! It was further than I had thought, I didn’t mind skidding off at all when the tires gave way I just bounced along, got up and got back on. The only damage was a scratched silencer but I just had to know how far I could push it until traction gave way! In those days I was young, strong, agile and felt invincible. I took it to the limit all the time, when I crashed my only concerns were how much it cost me to fix my motorcycle, my body healed itself - for free! I soon passed my bike test and bought a Honda CB 500 four, this was much faster, and I went everywhere on full throttle overtaking everything all the time - King of the road! I didn’t care much for cars, but they kept getting in my way! Like pulling out of side streets saying they didn’t see me coming! Or turning right without indicating whilst I was overtaking them! I remember overtaking a car accelerating from lights when it suddenly forked off right down a small track. I bounced off his driver door three times as I was being forced down the track with him, fell off, skidded to a stop, jumped up and picked up my bike; he got out and asked if I was OK? He was sorry he didn’t see 41 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats me - he heard my accelerating - he thought it was his fault but I thought it was mine for speeding so we both apologized and went on our way. Then I sold the 500Four and got a Honda CB750Four, at 67 BHP it was the most powerful bike available. Now I definitely ‘had the need for speed’. Flat out at 125mph but it didn’t handle too well on corners, a bit of a heavy pig. My First Serious Bike Crash. Coming from Milnrow, round the infamous Jubilee bend (if you were a motorcyclist) into Shaw along the straight approaching the bottom of Buckstones Road at about 100 mph. In the distance I saw a moped followed by a Mini coming towards me. Suddenly the moped turned right into Buckstones Rd – straight across my line and the Mini seemed to be chasing it! In a split second the Mini was directly in front of me, the impact was unavoidable, I locked both brakes trying to reduce impact speed, probably to about 80 mph. The only way I could avoid instant death was to avoid a head-on impact. I pushed down as hard as I could on the foot pegs and handlebars and launched myself into the air in a forward somersault directly over the mini whilst the bike embedded itself in the passenger door causing the mini to bend banana shape. The roof was buckled up and all the windows shattered, it was knocked up the kerb, spun round and ended up against the gable wall of a terraced house. Meanwhile, I was flying through the air in a forward somersault, my rotation caused some centrifugal force which had the tendency to straighten me out, pulling my feet one way and my head the opposite way, so my full face helmet slipped upwards totally obscuring my view, I knew I must still be travelling at 80 mph and the lamp posts were steel reinforced concrete, everything was happening in slow motion, my life was flashing before me, I was just hoping not to be cut in half by a lamp post, it seemed like a long time in the air, I managed to pull my helmet down so I could see, I was still traveling straight along the road having completed a full rotation, somehow I landed on my feet then skidded along on my front. My life was saved by dissipating the kinetic energy gradually over the length of the block of 10 terraced houses! It’s the immense G forces of an impact that are fatal. My bike’s entire front wheel, mudguard, number plate, forks, disk brake and calipers were all squashed completely flat against the engine block. 42 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats Obviously, the bike was a write-off! So was the Mini. I had been lucky again. All my metatarsal bones in both feet were broken, I don’t know if they caught the handlebars on takeoff or if it was on landing on my feet and I had minor abrasions to elbows and knees. After this crash my dad was really worried for me so I agreed to limit the size of my next bike to 250cc. The amazing thing is that in all the countless crashes I’ve had, I’ve not sustained even one scratch on my helmet. The Honda range of models were two cylinders up to 250cc then the bigger 500 and 750 were four cylinders, but they had just bought out a new 500 twin which I thought looked a lot like the 250. I was well known at Robinsons Motorcycles in Rochdale because I had also bought trials bikes from there and I arranged for them to fix Honda 250 side panel badges to the new 500 twin before I bought it! 43 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats The fastest crash I’ve had was at 124mph on the M62. It was a bright sunny day and I was happily speeding along when I noticed a three litre Scimitar GTE in my rear-view mirror. I was on my new Honda CB500T which had only a single down tube in the frame from the headstock and the bike was prone to flex which can cause a ‘tank slapper’. I gave it full throttle, but the car was still right behind, so I moved over, still going flat out, to let it overtake me. I then moved back into the fast lane, hoping to gain speed from his slip stream, but then I experienced the worst tank slapper ever. Even though I was extremely fit and strong I could not stop the handlebars from violently oscillating side to side, there is a force caused by the high-speed wind causing eddies on alternate sides which form a slight vacuum either side which co-insides with the fundamental frequency of vibration of the frame. This force can build up with immense strength and I pushed forwards on the bars as hard as I could, bracing my elbows against my knees with all my strength. I was hanging on and if I tried reducing from full throttle this put more weight on the front wheel and the vibration just got worse so I dare not slow down. The bars were going left to right at about five oscillations per second and rapidly increasing in magnitude until the bars were clunking against the full steering stops - from the left lock to the right lock. I could hear the front tire screeching on the tarmac and my hands were being shaken from the handlebars so I jumped up as hard as I could and leapt off with a backwards somersault at 124 mph in the middle of the fast lane. I did not see the Scimitar again. When I landed on the very hard tarmac I was obviously tumbling over and over rapidly – like a small insect would feel inside a match box, being shaken fast and hitting all six sides inside the box. I didn’t know which way was up or down, but I knew I was still going down the center of the fast lane and all I could think about was another speeding car coming up behind me. A few seconds later I was on my front - sliding along still well over 100mph. I was watching my bike still sliding away in a shower of sparks - getting further away from me. Metal slides a lot faster on hard tarmac than soft human tissue and the amount of breaking force I could now feel was tremendous and I was quickly coming to a stop! All I could think of was getting off the fast lane before I got run over! The last few feet before I stopped, I quickly rolled to my right 44 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats and on to the central reservation. I jumped up and turned round, I was relieved to see nothing was behind me. I looked forwards and my bike was still sliding away with lots of sparks from metal on tarmac, until it came to a stop in the fast lane. All this had happened whilst going under the bridge at Birch services and I was only two or three hundred yards away and it wasn’t till I sat down on the Armco barrier that I felt any pain. Then I could not stand up or walk, as the adrenalin wore off and the intense pain kicked in. I only had one boot on, and my leathers had worn completely through. My belt buckle had caused a deep wound in my tummy. I think someone from the services must have called the ambulance and I was admitted to Rochdale Royal Infirmary for two weeks with severe multiple lacerations but not even one broken bone. I had been lucky again. The week after I was discharged from the hospital, I was sunning myself on the patio, wearing just a pair of trunks, as I went in the house for a glass of water, I caught my foot the doorstep and broke my toe! 45 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats Chapter 10 – The Love Affair Continues – But Off Road! Most of my bike crashes were in my teenage years and usually involved a collision with a car. My Mum and Dad were really worried about me. Every time they came to A&E when I’d had another crash they tried to talk me out of bikes. I said “no” so many times but eventually Dad put his foot down and said “No More”. I managed to convince him that it was the cars on the roads that are dangerous so if I were to get a Trials Bike and ride off-road it will be OK. So, at twenty years old in 1975, I joined Shaw & District Motor bike club and got my ACU competition license. I started Trials riding in 1975. Trials competition takes place off-road but unlike motocross it is not a race, it is a test riding through challenging terrain – or sections - using pure skills of balance and control. If you lose balance and have to put a foot down to steady yourself, you lose a point each time. If you stop, fall off or fail to get through the section you lose the maximum of five points. My control and skills were really progressing. There was a trials competition every Sunday with a lot of time for practice and preparation through the week. I loved it! At the end of one event, I was putting my bike on the trailer and I saw an ‘Expert’ wheelying down the lane into the paddock where vehicles and trailers were parked. He rode around the vehicles, all on his back wheel, right up to his trailer then he neatly dropped the front wheel right into the slot on the trailer! Wow - I was gob-smacked! I had to learn how to do wheelies like that! I rode my trials bikes every day, round the farm and dirt tracks leading for miles past Tandlehills to Chadderton, Middleton and Rochdale. Along the canals and over the moors for miles, occasionally crossing a main road - the moors were mainly unfenced in the 70’s. I taught myself to do wheelies, riding on one wheel is a bit like balancing a broom handle on your hand where when it starts to tilt over you have to move your hand in that direction to correct it. With a bike you start by leaning back, pulling up on the bars as you give it some throttle. A trials bike is the lightest, most agile of bikes to learn on, they are also pretty tough and can survive being thrown down the road when too much throttle is given. 46 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats When you start at low speeds you can usually step off the bike and run alongside whilst keeping hold of the bars until the front wheel comes down. Sometimes you just have to launch it forwards and sometimes you fall flat on your arse but, with persistent practice, once up at the point of balance (when the combined center of gravity is directly above the point of contact of the rear wheel with the ground) then it is a matter of gentle throttle control - like moving the broom handle fore and aft. At low speed the bike will just keel over to left or right but with a little more speed - about 20mph - the gyroscopic forces from the rotating wheels will keep it from keeling sideways. You can even try to turn the handlebars - the front wheel won’t turn but it will bank the bike in the opposite direction so you can steer It round corners. The faster you go the easier it is. Pulling a wheelie is easier when going up a gentle slope because if you apply too much throttle, then the slope slows you faster - bringing the front wheel forwards again but sometimes a slope is not enough so then you need to learn balancing the throttle to raise the front against gentle rear brake control to bring it down again. Once you have mastered throttle and brake control you can control wheelies even down steep hills and round corners. 47 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats I progressed from trials riding to AMCA Motocross which is just a flat-out race from start to finish, multiple laps round a course with hills, jumps, dust, sand, mud, bogs, anything for a challenge and, as per Trials, there is a race on every Sunday. I bought a 1974 Kawasaki KX400 specifically for wheelie displays. After doing a wheelie for a few miles I suffered cramps in my arms and wrists the 48 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats stress of leaning back and holding on, so I made extra foot pegs at the rear of the seat which worked well. I fabricated a link bar from the gear selector to a gear selector on the new foot peg and I fitted a seven-foot-long cable to the rear hub brake-lever with an additional clutch lever on the bars, so now I had full control in a comfortable standing position. 49 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats I was doing regular display rides at a monthly Drag Race meeting, at Road Race events and I even did a charity fund raising school fair - a raffle was organized and the winner - a young schoolgirl - won a pillion ride on my bike whilst I wheelied figure 8 patterns in the tennis courts. She even got her picture in the Oldham Chronicle. Health & Safety didn’t really exist then and no company would insure me anyway. The Kawasaki was registered, taxed and insured for road use and I regularly wheelied it over quiet moorland roads for miles, I got lots of strange looks from the occasional passing cars in the oncoming direction. The Police weren’t keen on this so in busy places I just rode normally. I wheelied my trials bike for about a mile up Middleton Road, Royton once, not knowing the police were following me. They pulled me over and charged me with ‘Riding in a position not being in full control of the motorcycle’. The superbikes at the time didn’t really have the power to pull wheelies so wheelying wasn’t an actual offence. I went to the court hearing to plead “Not Guilty”. My argument was that I was riding my motorcycle with ‘full control’ as this was my field of expertise, but the Judge still gave me endorsements and I was banned for six months and I was also banned from driving my car even though I have not had any offences for cars and it is a different driving test and a different license class. Hardly fair I thought. 50 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats Shaw & District Motorcycle Club were always doing things to attempt to give bikers a better name like fund raising events for charities and at one club meeting someone shouted “I know how we can raise funds for charity, Dave Smith can beat the world record for the longest continuous wheelie.” So that was it! The challenge was set, and I had to do it. In the summer of 1975 Baden and I went to Wembley Stadium in London, along with 100,000 spectators to watch the Evel Knievel motorcycle jump over thirteen London busses and a full circus show. There was a high wire from the football pitch at one end up to the roof of the stands at the other end, wire walkers performed various stunts, and someone pedaled a bicycle up and down on the wire with no tires on the rims so they would sit on the cable. A 70 year old yoga expert climbed a wobbly 40 foot ladder up to a small platform fastened to the top, a children’s inflatable paddling pool was placed on the grass pitch underneath and a hosepipe filled it with water just 10 inches deep, then the man carefully leaned forwards and dove off falling belly first with a big arch, arms and legs spread out wide, he said he had to be totally relaxed and belly flopped displacing nearly all the water outwards from the pool, He stood up unharmed in about 1 inch of water to prove there was no tricks. Evel Knievel was a real original dare devil and professional show man, he took extreme risks, sometimes he wins through his expertise, experience and jumping skills, but sometimes he crashes, I think half the crowd came hoping to see a spectacular crash, he has suffered many broken bones in his career and this time he didn’t disappoint. So after all the circus acts had finished He came out on a very noisy, race tuned 1200cc Harley Davison, he raced it round a bit then pulled some wheelies on plywood sheets up and down the pitch either side of the thirteen busses whilst standing up on the seat which I thought was impressive, then he rode it to the top of the take off ramp looking over the roofs of the busses like a warm up test run. The four-foot-wide run up started right at the top of the stands at one end of the stadium, like coming down a steep hill, it came all the way down on to a four-foot elevated section along the pitch level, then up in a smooth curve to the roof of the first bus. There was a landing ramp over the roof of the last bus which came back down to pitch level just before the end of the pitch and there was an exit tunnel for him to 51 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats decelerate in as he left the stadium. I thought all this looked a bit dodgy, and that maybe Wembley stadium was not really long enough for such a jump. When the time came for the final of the show Evel rode the Harley to the very top of the stands and turned round on a small platform, positioning it lined up for the jump, the crowd was silent in anticipation, You could have heard a pin drop, no one would have wanted to be in his shoes, the only sound was the gentle tick over from the Harley in the distance, everyone waited in complete silence for what seemed like an eternity, then with a great roar from the engine he set off accelerating quickly through the gears down the ramp, along the approach run towards the up ramp, and then throttled off and came to an abrupt stop. It must have been a practice run to get the feel of the elevated plywood sheeting and curvature of the take off ramp, he did two or three practice runs the last one to the top of the take off point, he waved to the crowd to say “this is it!” then went right to the starting point and did the full run, up the take off ramp reaching a fantastic speed and flew dead straight and level over the roofs of the busses, the front wheel landed on the down ramp but the back wheel landed just on the flat part over the roof of the last bus and bounced upwards, the front wheel continued straight down the slope but the back wheel was still in the air and the seat had catapulted his backside in the air and he was what we motor crossers call a “flying W”, not good and hard to recover from, at this point he was thrown over the handlebars the bike’s front wheel buckled sideways he was now bouncing down the ramp with the bike cart wheeling behind him and it clobbered him a few times. Paramedics were there instantly and stretchered him into an ambulance, then to everyone’s amazement, just like the professional show man, he insisted on being carried to the top of the landing ramp to address his audience with a 10-minute speech. I had experienced quite a few high-speed crashes and broken bones myself by this time and they DO really hurt a lot, I can’t help admiring Evel Knievel, a talented experienced fearless showman and he did all that on an antiquated overweight, under powered Harley which only had 3 inches of suspension. They broke the mold when he was made. He certainly influenced my stunt bike riding career. 52 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats Shaw bike club ran an annual trip to the Isle of Man TT Races with 40 or 50 of us going every year and in 1978 a well-known stunt rider from Kent called Dave Taylor did a wheelie display round the TT circuit between the morning and afternoon races whilst the road was closed. One club member suggested that I should go out on the long straight approaching Ballacraine - just before Dave Taylor was due to come past and I should pull a wheelie all the way down the long straight to the Ballacraine Pub where there was a live radio broadcast on Manx radio. So I did and the Course Commentator mistook me for Dave Taylor - until I arrived at the Pub then I disappeared into the crowd. After TT Week, although Dave Taylor didn’t wheelie continuously all the way - he put the front wheel down for the Ramsey Hairpin and other places but he claimed a new world record for the longest continuous motorcycle wheelie of six and a quarter miles, so that was what I had to beat. That year I also ran the slow riding competition, I had to balance with my feet up along a roughly marked track. It was on the rough ground, so I wedged the front wheel on full lock between two high points, and managed to balance stationary with my feet up for about 5 minutes which was the winning run for the slow riding competition! I also was dared to jump over some friends from the Shaw bike club, so I obliged! 53 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats Shaw motorbike club had an annual trip to the TT races, and it was always a big event. On one of my early I.O.M.TT trips was the first time I had a go at Bungee Jumping, I had seen it on TV but this was the first operational crane set I had seen for real, on the promenade in Douglas. We arrived off the ferry about 6.00 am. And rode our bikes along the prom to check in at the hotel Continental, there were some jumpers jumping head first from the basket over the wall just getting their hair wet in the sea, I dropped my bags off at the hotel and went straight back to have a go, none of my mates wanted to go so I went back alone and booked myself for my first jump, The other jumpers had all gone so there was only me, It looked higher now as I was up close and I really wanted to watch another jumper go first, I got weighed so they could calculate the drop, They harnessed me up and attached the bungee, I wanted to check all the caribenas because on one of my scuba dives in low visibility waters I had to be lined up and one of the spring loaded caribenas had a twist against the line which opened the spring catch and came disconnected! The last thing I wanted was to accidentally be disconnected but I checked all these were locked with a screw collar. All this faffing about was making me nervous and by this time the tide had gone out; I had to jump over the hard wet sand! I was then told to get into the crane basket. The bungee went through a hole in the floor and the other end was attached to my ankles, as I was raised the bungee dangled in a loop below, I was looking down onto the roofs and chimneys which seemed a heck of a way down, The instructor unlocked the gate told me to step towards the edge and hold the rails behind me and lean forwards, he said he would blow a whistle three times and then I should let go. The whistle just went peep “peep peep” very quickly and guess what, I wasn’t ready I was expecting more time and three smooth blows. I had no mates below to egg me on and there was no one watching, he said I could go down in the basket, I was all worked up but I knew I had to do it, so I dove off head first. “Phew-eeee” what a relief, the anticipation was far worse than the jump. After that all my future jumps were dead easy. 54 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats I went to the TT for about 10 years on road bikes and then another 10 years in a van with 3 or 4 sharing with Enduro bikes, in 1979 I went on my KX400 wheelie bike, on the 1st June we arrived on the ferry at 03.30 am. And went to the hotel Continental in Douglas, I dropped my bags off and decided to do a lap of the TT circuit as it was coming light before there was any traffic or police about, pulling some wheelies on the way round, another club member (Husky) came with me. There was no traffic at all, we hadn’t got very far going through “Union Mills” where I slowed down to pull a wheelie when Husky came flying past me, so close that he hooked my handlebars with his left shoulder forcing the bars to full left lock and I went flying! I broke my right Tabular. I was not at all pleased, Husky came back full of apologies and begged me not to tell the police, he suggested I say that I hit a brick on the road, and that he would pay to fix my bike! Then he went. An Ambulance took me to the hospital, my leg was straightened, and I had yet another Pot Leg. On average I had about one pot a year. I was unable to walk without crutches, but this didn’t stop me riding my bike, there is a club photograph taken at St. Johns on the TT course, I’m the one on the far left stood up at the back so you can’t see the plaster cast. 55 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats 56 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats I’ve just remembered an interesting TT Trip in the early 90’s Three of us took enduro bikes in a Transit van, we did a lot of off roading trails over the mountains on the inside of the circuit on race days. This gave us access to isolated points on the track which were not accessible from the rest of the island. Half way along Sulby Straight, the fastest point on the TT course, there is a small village with the Sulby Pub, a post office and a row of small cottages fronting straight on to the road, the end one of these had opened a small tea room/garden at the gable end so the garden wall was immediately against the circuit road, no footpath we ordered tea and cakes and sat on garden furniture, I turned my chair round next to the wall hoping I could see the oncoming bikes approaching partway along the straight, the wall was 2 feet high with a 1 foot wide concrete flag top so I held my tea cup on the flag whilst leaning over to see the first bike. The race had started, we could hear screaming engines going flat out at over 180 mph. there was a slight bend and the wall was right on the apex so I could not see very far along the straight. I did not see the bike because it was less than a foot away from the wall at 180mph, I just felt an enormous pressure wave in my face and then a vacuum which sucked all the tea out of my cup as my reflex action jumped me back. It 57 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats was quite an adrenalin rush to unexpectedly be so close to something going so fast! On Sunday 22nd July 79 I competed in the Hill climb event at Batins Dam on my KX400 and won the fastest time of the day. Sunday 19th August 79 was my first professional Stunt ride performance at Steve Murty’s Drag race meeting at New York Raceway, Melbourne. See “The Dave Smith Motorcycle Stunt Show” at the end of the autobiography. 58 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats For my attempt for the world longest wheelie, I found a suitable venue at Aintree Road Race Circuit. Aintree is of course most famous for the Grand National horse race but the road-race track is on the inside of the horse racing course. I arranged for a practice run - the clockwise racetrack is almost two miles long with various corners - the first is a left-hand elbow bend, then some sweeping right-hand bends leading round to a fast, long back straight which leads into a tight right-hand hairpin bend before the start/finish straight. By the time I had got round to the hairpin my front wheel had stopped turning and I had to slow down to about 10 mph. I could not steer it round the hairpin! I was going so slow, the gyroscopic forces were not enough to steer, so the bike keeled over to one side. Attempt over. Being an engineer, I knew all about kinematics, that momentum is mass x velocity. In this case the gyroscopic force is the momentum and I had to reduce the velocity to get round the hairpin, so my solution was to increase the mass of the wheels. I melted led flashing and poured it into molds to form heavy cylindrical wheelweights. I drilled holes down the centers and fitted them on to all the spokes to front and back wheels, I fine balanced them with lead soldering wire and it worked amazingly but I still had the problem that the front wheel would stop spinning after a few miles of not being in contact with the ground. I had the idea of fixing plastic cups on the spokes to catch the wind whilst I was doing over 50 mph on the back straight but they didn’t generate enough torque. I found more aerodynamic shaped cups with pointed bases - they should ‘cup’ the wind on the bottom and cut through the wind whilst at the top of the wheel but, with all those lead weights, the cups were not strong enough. The only other solution I could think of was to fix an electric motor to the front wheel. So I went to a car scrap yard and bought a 6 volt windscreen-wiper motor, I mounted it on the fork leg on a spring loaded hinge, next to the front wheel. The KX400 was an enduro bike originally fitted with lights so it had a magneto which generated a small alternating current which I wired to a rectifier to convert it to a DC current for the wiper motor. The bike had a negative AC earth so I wrapped the fork leg with a rubber inner tube to insulate it, fitted a toy wheel to the motor shaft which ran on the side of the tyre - like a dynamo in reverse. With a small toggle switch on the handlebars, I 59 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats could switch it on when needed and guess what? It worked! Now I could easily control and steer a wheelie, up or down hill, fast or slow, down to very slow speeds and do tight turns in any directions! On the day of my World Record Wheelie attempt at Aintree I have to say – I smashed it! Completing nine full continuous laps on the back wheel. I wrote an article of my account of the day which was published in The Biker magazine on a two-page center-spread. I’ve included a copy on the next page. 60 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats 61 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats 62 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats 63 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats In 1979 I had completely given up road bikes but I borrowed one to take my Institute of Advanced Motoring test. It involved Saturday morning classroom lessons and supervised rides on the road, learning to predict potential hazards and learning a lot of safety procedures to apply to my riding habits. Since I passed the IAM test, I didn’t have any more road crashes for the next 30 years. When I was in my fifties I bought another road bike - a Yamaha DR800 - or ‘Doctor Big’ as they were known. This was similar to my old favorite the Yamaha XT500. It’s a single cylinder 800cc four stroke. A big thumper with lots of torque, built for the Paris Dakar rally with a massive fuel tank for the long desert crossings. It was too big and too heavy for me so I modified it. I took off the big tank, luggage rack, big mudguards, headlamp/screen/surround, exhaust and silencer. That’s a lot of weight. I then fitted a small ‘peanut’ petrol tank, motocross mudguards and handlebars, a megaphone silencer, small rubber rear light off a trials bike, a small plastic headlight and lowered the suspension front and rear which improved the handling and agility. One of the all-round favorite bikes I owned was a Yamaha XT500 - a single cylinder with lots of torque and a noisy megaphone silencer. It was OK for light off road use although a bit too heavy to be competitive but it was OK on the road for commuting through the rush hour traffic. It was noisy and other road users could hear me coming, an extra safety feature. When I worked in Manchester Town Hall, I was quick enough to beat everything away from traffic lights and I could filter through standing traffic to get to the front at each red light. Sometimes it was a bit of a squeeze between wagons, buses and cars with the wide motocross handlebars - which were just the same height as car wing mirrors so when I came to a narrow gap where a mirror was in the way I would approach slowly then with a touch of throttle and use of clutch I could pull a small wheelie, precisely through the narrow gap so the bars raised just enough to clear the mirror. It was like poetry in motion! When I was in my late forties, I was taking Josh and Connor to the ‘Circus Arts Class’ in Rochdale. They thought it would be fun to try it and they learnt how to juggle, snake boarding, the unicycle and tightrope walking. 64 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats I also joined in, particularly the unicycle, as I had a world record for riding a motorcycle on one wheel. Surprisingly I found it really hard, holding on to the wall and wobbling along but, with a lot of perseverance I eventually mastered it. The saying “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” comes to mind because Connor picked it up straight away! I found it easier to ride the tall ‘giraffe’ unicycle - up and down ramps, along an elevated bench and eventually we rode round Hollingworth Lake for Red Nose Day and then in the Rochdale Carnival. The circus class was on Tuesday evenings and there was a trapeze class on Wednesdays which I joined with enthusiasm. Since my Superstars days I had always had good upper body strength, so I was a natural on the trapeze. Firstly you start on the static trapeze, I have one in the farmhouse fixed to an oak beam over the stairs gallery and it is good exercise like having a work out! Then for the more confident there is the swinging trapeze, you need a lot of room for this as the swing tends to be from as high as horizontal, through 180 degrees to horizontal again so there is zero G force at the top – weightlessness – switching to 2G at the bottom of the swing. This I have only done on occasions with a safety harness connected to either side of the swing. Then the full flying trapeze with midair transfers is for professional circus performers with safety netting. 65 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats Chapter 11 – But the Lure of Tarmac is Irresistible… As I was in my fifties and I hadn’t owned a superbike in over 30 years, I was curious as to what they’re like now. I wanted to start with something slow. A friend of mine had a Harley 880 which was rusting in his garage, I offered to clean it up for him, fit a new battery, fix the brakes and get an MOT so I could borrow it. The first time I took it on the road it felt really heavy, it accelerated about as fast as a moped! The first bend I came to it didn’t want to steer and when I used the front brake, with one or two fingers as I had done on trials and moto crossers, it just did nothing! I had to grab a real hand full to make the brakes work at all. It was the most cumbersome bike I had ever ridden! I thought I wanted a Harley so I wouldn’t be tempted to race everywhere as I had done in my youth. So, I eventually bought the Harley 1200 Sportster, a heavy cruiser, overweight with ancient suspension. It was still fun to ride and noisy with the Screaming Eagle exhaust. I went on some rides with friends from the bike club over my old favorite moorland roads, they were on modern superbikes. I soon found that not only could I keep up with them but overtake them on the bumpy bends, it was handling like a pogo stick, the back end jumped sideways on each bump about two feet on bends as I was passing them round the outside! After many years of off-road riding, a bit of bouncing didn’t bother me! I managed to do wheelies on it but only by dumping the clutch in first gear. I soon sold the Harley and bought a Buell - much faster - the first thing I noticed was all the moorland roads were different at a higher speed, instead of fast sweeping bends it became a series of short ‘drag race’ straights reaching much higher speeds and with hard breaking before each bend. On my first ride from Grains Bar to Delph, on the first straight I was going lots faster, too fast for the first right hander on an adverse camber over a brow, I couldn’t get round, as I was banking max right, I mounted the left kerb, like a small wall of death, round on the footpath narrowly missing the dry-stone wall before rejoining the road. Phew - I had to re learn all my favorite moorland roads. The next bike I got was a Yamaha R1 street fighter, which is like a fast circuit racer, striped down naked with motocross bars, Hell - It felt like a moto crosser but on steroids! A 180-mph bike which pulls wheelies in third gear from 50mph to 150 mph, I just couldn’t resist it. 66 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats 67 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats Then I bought a Triumph, A Honda SP1, An MV Agusta 750 F4, they were all lined up in the garage, so I had a great idea - to start The Superbike Club bike hire business. It turned out that this was not a good idea as the only would-be customers were young hooligans with a great potential to kill themselves and wreck my bikes in the process. The insurance requirements were a clean license and being of a responsible age, it seems that the older more careful bikers who own a superbike have them parked up in their garage and only ride on dry sunny summer days. They seem to get more pleasure out of polishing and cherishing their bikes than actually riding them! Some of my younger biker friends had started an interest in racing their bikes on race circuits on what are known as ‘Track Days’. They had attended training days and classroom sessions to learn how to ride quickly - but with some degree of safety - then taken round the circuit under the guidance and advice of an experienced instructor. I was keen to give track racing a go, I am full of confidence, I didn’t attend any classrooms or instructions, I had been a serious bike competitor for over 30 years and raced my dirt bikes on tarmac with road tires long before Super Moto was even thought of. I won the fastest time of the day up the local Baitings Dam hill climb and the Clubman of the Year cup, previously won by Mick Grant, a world champion Kawasaki works rider. So straight in at the deep end… My first track day, the grip on the road was perfect. The course was flag-marshaled so you were warned of any incidents or dangers. There was first aid cover, gravel run-offs to arrest bike and rider should one go into a corner too fast, although the most efficient way is to go in slow then accelerate round with sort of a sling-shot effect of speed for the next straight. I felt the whole thing was pretty safe, I felt more confident than ever and could out-brake others into corners and pull massive wheelies accelerating out down the straights, in fact I felt like I was in some sort of computer simulator where no matter what I did I could not possibly fall off! I could feel the traction reaching its limit with the tires starting to slide both on breaking into and powering out of corners with the rear end just breaking traction and starting to slide under controlled throttle - just like riding a moto crosser on a racetrack. 68 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats Then I heard about an annual competition for the world’s ‘Fastest Flying Kilometer Wheelie’ at Elvington - a disused airfield in Yorkshire not far from where I used to do my wheelie shows in the 70’s and 80’s on my old KX400.The runway is almost 3 miles long with a measured kilometer in the middle. You have to be pulling a wheelie before entering the kilometer and your speed is measured on finishing the kilometer. If one’s front wheel touches down within the kilometer length then the run is void. My first year in 2006, on my R1 Street Fighter, I clocked my top speed wheelie at 154mph. I had a serious ‘tank slapper’ when I put the front wheel down - it wasn’t quite pointing dead straight ahead and I was thrown forward over the bars in the violent wobble! I just managed to hang on to the bars and my right boot hooked under the silencer and as the bike steadied, I managed to heave myself back on to the seat with the help of the wind pressure at that speed. I was so close to letting go of the bars and tumbling over in front of the bike. If there is one thing I have learned - as long as you can keep a good grip on the handlebars there is a chance you can regain control. But this 154mph run wasn’t fast enough. The R1 had not enough power to wheelie in 4thgear and I took it 2000 rpm past the red line in 3rdgear - the more I revved it up past the red-line, the more and more power there was. It is an absolutely bullet-proof engine and I think this R1 is my most exciting favorite bike of all! I fitted a good steering damper after the event to reduce the chance of further tank-slappers. The winner that year was Terry Calcot with a 172mph wheelie. I needed a faster bike! In 2007, the Elvington T shirt said on the back ‘Remember Terry Calcot and Johnny 2K’ - they both had crashed and died! Then in 2008 another competitor had crashed and had a leg amputated and was serving a prison sentence for wheelying on the roads. He also met another competitor in prison - they both had their Terry Calcot tee shirts on! The R1 clearly wasn’t up to it so I bought a Suzuki 1300 Hayabusa which in road trim has a top speed of over 200mph. It had dropped race handlebars and the full faring. I didn’t like the handling or riding position and on my first kilometer record attempt I dropped the front wheel down halfway through the run - a void run, so next time I red-lined it in 3rd and 4thgear. I had just changed up to 69 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats 5thbefore the speed measure at the far end of the kilometer. My speed was 187.4mph! That’s just a little over 12mph short of the magical 200. If I had a longer run, I could have red lined it in 5th and then again in 6th. I have actually managed to take it past the red in 6th gear on the M62, it was very early morning, no traffic at all on a 2mile straight between junctions 35 and 37. The speedometer I had fitted was only calibrated up to 165 mph then it misread, as I was accelerating through 6th. I was concentrating on the road over a mile ahead looking out for debris, my field of view had gone to tunnel vision just concentrating straight ahead the hard shoulder to left and the Armco to right, the bridges coming up ahead had Armco on the hard shoulder which narrowed my safety zone, I couldn’t see the sky above or the fields to the sides. At that speed, about 210mph, it took just 17 seconds to travel 1 mile. This is the fastest bike I’ve ridden I still have it in my garage but the last time I rode it was for the MOT test 3 years ago. I took it for a spin over my favorite moorland roads and it was so quick, hanging on when accelerating, I felt uncomfortable, it actually scared me. I’m too long in the tooth now for all this stuff. I used to take my son Connor skydiving, on the back of my bike when he started a Static Line course, at Tilstock DZ, he loved it! Round the country roads through Shropshire. We were stopped at traffic lights at Sandiway behind half a dozen cars when a fast Mercedes came past in the right turn lane, the lights changed to green as it got to the front then he floored it straight through, I thought “The cheeky bugger” so I passed the six cars whilst the Merc was disappearing into the distance. I could hear his engine screaming and by the time I had caught up and passed him we were going about 140 mph with the front wheel level with his bonnet. At the next traffic lights two miles down the road he pulled alongside, all grinning from ear to ear with thumbs up, he was well impressed. Connor still talks about it to this day. 70 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats The last bike I bought was a Honda Pan European, a comfortable tourer. I’ve only used it to go to drop zones but now it’s too heavy and I can’t even push it in or out of the garage. For the next year at Elvington in 2008 I stripped the ‘Busa naked and fitted motocross bars but by then everyone else had turbo power with 550 bhp. Some of the speed runs were clocked at 265mph. I do not want to even attempt to go that fast. In 2007 and 2008 I did get my old 1974 KX400 out and I rode it in the 600cc class at a terminal speed of 79.9mph and I won this class both years. My second World Record. They don’t run a 600cc class anymore, so my record still stands. I went as a spectator in 2018 and the one-kilometer wheelie record was then set at 213 mph. 71 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats Chapter 12 – Four Wheels? I was never bothered much with cars except for something to tow my bike trailer to Trials and Motocross events, although I had always fancied an E Type Jag, as most young men do! That was until I saw a Corvette Stingray, an American Muscle car with the V8 seven litre engine which sounds just amazing. My school mate Baden trained with Hawker Sidley then he got a three-year contract working in California. He is actually still out there after over 47 years, and I went out to visit him and to see the west coast on many occasions using his house as a base for sightseeing. When I visited in 1980, Baden had a new Corvette and I had arranged to transfer my life savings there so I could buy my own dream car. I drove it round California, Arizona, Mexico, Utah and Nevada, I used two years annual leave from work, back-to-back so I could go for six weeks, I drove across the USA on route 80 round the great lakes to Buffalo to see Niagara Falls, and on to New York where I stayed for a few days, I booked it on a ship to Liverpool then got a flight home. Whilst I was in JFK Airport, on a large screen everyone witnessed live the first landing of the space shuttle, everyone in the airport stopped and cheered. My Corvette arrived in Liverpool three weeks later, I went to pick it up and to get through customs, I had to get it ‘type E’ approved, pay 10% import duty, 15% car tax and 8%VAT all compounded. I set off on the motorway home and it felt scary driving at 70mph - the USA had a 55mph speed restriction for fuel economy as there was a world oil shortage and I had only done 55mph for the last 7,000 miles. Well, my driving habits soon changed. I had a limited-slip differential which meant both rear wheels spun on full power. I soon mastered power sliding- drifting the back-end round corners. When I wheelied the Kawasaki round the Three Sisters Cart race track I did a few laps in my Corvette sliding round all the tight corners, sometimes I drove on the roads like that as well. I had my 1st wife stand on the seat with a video camera out of the open T top whilst racing over my favorite moorland roads. She didn’t take it very well; the camera was shaking all over the skies and moors. I took It to the monthly Drag Race meetings pulling my trailer with my stunt bikes and got to drag race it. It wasn’t as competitive as the highly tuned drag racers so to make my run more interesting I would set off in reverse up to 40 or 50 mph then spin round 180 degrees to face forwards in one smooth 72 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats transition - it’s quite easy, just lift off the throttle for a second then tweak the steering slightly and the weight of the V8 engine at the front slides it round whilst pulling the auto shift from reverse to drive then back to full throttle. I got this idea watching a James Bond movie and thought I’d like to try that! 73 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats The Corvette was my pride and joy for many years, I washed and waxed it every weekend the interior was immaculate, I vacuumed it, cleaned it and treated the white leather seats with hide food. I had all the engine parts chrome plated, fitted a four-barrel Holly carburetor and a LT1 high-lift cam shaft. Suspension wise I fitted a heavy-duty roll-bar, nylon bushes, rose jointed camber control rods, BF Goodrich white wall tires - it was a real head turner. It boosted my confidence picking up girls. But then it only did 8 miles per gallon! However, it was a lot of work and worry - some people would gob on it out of spite or key scratch it and when I did get an occasional scratch I was devastated. It was all quite stressful really, but all this was about to end one fine sunny evening. I’d filled it up with 20 gallons - I’ve never had the heart to work out the running cost till now. That’s 91 litres, today £170for 160 miles that’s over a £1.00 per mile just for fuel. So, with a full tank I set off over the moors for a lovely sunny evening drive. Going up Buckstones road a bike flew past me so like a ‘red rag to a bull’ I couldn’t resist a chase. We went over Grains Bar then left down to Denshaw and I passed the bike on the first straight and stayed in front at high speed down to the crossroads in Denshaw. I slowed down to about 50 mph (in the 30 limit) in case a vehicle appeared from the side roads but the bike rider, in my opinion took a great risk and flew past me and the cross roads flat out and up to the hill towards the Rams Head, I floored it accelerating hard behind the bike, not far there is a gradual left hand bend with a shallow dip in the road on approach, I had reached about 100mph at this point, as I exited the dip the car bounced up slightly, lousing some traction and the back end started drifting out to the right, then on re bound it came down and gained a tremendous grip as I was instinctively steering into the slide, which threw the car into a fast right hand spin, It spun round 180 degrees, leaving the road and hitting a dry stone wall backwards at about 90 mph. 74 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats This lifted the front end over and I was cartwheeling end over end. I had the T top off, I saw blue sky, black dust, blue sky, black dust, three times. The car came to a stop the right way up on the right-hand side of the road. My instant thoughts were the engine was red hot, the fuel tank was full, and in a split second I removed the ignition key, whilst releasing the seat belt, jumped out and ran across the road expecting a great explosion. I turned round to look and was stunned at the carnage. There was no fire I think because the tank was full there was no air, sometimes even a high-speed bullet won’t ignite a full tank. The bodywork on a Corvette is all fiberglass and it was all shattered and gone! Strewed all over the road. Then I realized what I had just got out of, I stood there without a scratch, not even a whip-lash neck! Not a single bruise or even a broken fingernail! I was lucky again. All this carnage had made a terrific bang which travelled for miles. The biker came back down, he said he saw it in his mirror, he couldn’t believe I was safely stood there, he asked “Are you sure you’re all right?” I said “Yes I’m OK” then he said not to tell anyone about him he didn’t want to be involved. I agreed and he went. A few minutes’ later three fishermen came over from a nearby reservoir saying they thought they had heard a plane crash! They were amazed I was OK. I was clearing the road picking up pieces of shattered fiberglass panels, the head lamp units and the like - I even found my broken Institute Of Advanced Motorists badge which had been fastened to the dash board. I was putting all the bits next to the car and even trying to put some back in place. The wheels were all pointing in different directions and the left rear wheel was under the car, there was only one tire left on, the others were all torn off the rims. I thought I should gather it together a bit, before any police arrived so it might look a bit more like I wasn’t going so fast. Then I noticed all the coping stones were missing from on top of the dry-stone wall where I had hit it, so I climbed up, it was about three feet high but there were hardly any stones there - they had been impacted with such force they were scattered about 100 feet away up the field. Oh dear this looks bad, so I ran around throwing them all back down to the wall before police arrived. Eventually they did, there were no injuries, or third parties involved so they just called for a breakdown. 75 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats A tow truck with trailer arrived it took almost till dark to drag the car onto the trailer using the winch. When finished I walked down to the Junction pub and had a pint of Guinness, rang my wife, asking for her to pick me up. About a week later I had to meet the Insurance assessor, he wanted to inspect my car and check it had been fully legal, he measured the tread depths on the tires and asked a few questions about my crash, I said it just spun off the road unexpectedly, then he asked “where is the bonnet”? I looked at the car, I had not even noticed the bonnet was gone, it’s not like you couldn’t miss it! It’s six feet long! The car was such a mess no one had noticed it was missing! So, I was really curious as to where the bonnet was. I went back to the crash site to search the surrounding fields, the spring grass was growing tall ready for haymaking so I scoured the fields hoping to find it in the long grass but it was not in the grass, I eventually found the bonnet in perfect condition in a ditch out of sight in the field on the opposite side of the road. I can only think it must have become detached from the car whilst it was cartwheeling and flew off in the opposite direction like a flying Frisbee. After this crash I got to thinking about how guilty I would have felt if another family car had been coming down the hill at that moment when my car was spinning across the road, I could have killed them all! From that moment on I have never speeded or been reckless in any car, I am now a careful, patient and courteous driver on four wheels, for more than 30 years since then I have been much happier, taking my time, pottering about in my builders vans - ones which are under powered and slow but do lots of miles to the gallon, I drive as smoothly and economically as possible, It’s much less stressful, I don’t worry at all when someone else scratches or bumps it, I never wash it, just occasionally shovel out the building rubbish, as long as it passes an MOT I will run it till the scrap yard beckons. 76 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats Chapter 13 – Changes to My Life As a child and a young man, I overcompensated for my polio disability. As a child I had attended many physiotherapy exercise sessions to build up my strength, I knew the importance of regular exercise, working on the farm was hard work but I particularly worked hard when in winter it was time for the muck spreading. Whilst the cattle are chained in their stalls all winter the mucking out had to be done every morning, Dad paid me a sixpence for this task, most of the muck is in the concrete slurry trough behind the cows but some was on the sawdust where they laid down, this was swept back into the trough then shoveled up into a large wheelbarrow then tipped into the miden. I was driving the tractor from being 10 years old, I would reverse the muck spreader into the miden then using a hand fork, load up about two tons of muck, then drive round the fields where it was spread out. My brother and I managed to do as many as twelve loads per day, that’s a lot of biceps exercise we were each champion arm wrestlers in class at school, I also did biceps curling with the crow bars in the workshop for regular work outs. In the sixties there were no gyms. In 1971 when I started working in Manchester, I found what was the only gym in Oldham, on Byron St, Hollinwood, It was a Power Lifting training gym run by Tony Mills in the upstairs room of the council’s lawnmower store building, it had some broken windows often with a freezing gale blowing through and with gaps in the floor boards so you could see the lawn mowers below. Well, they say fresh air is good for you! No toilet, no showers, just a low-level pot sink with a cold tap, I cycled to work in Manchester, Monday to Friday in all weathers and trained at the gym on alternate days. Then I found Harry Hague’s gym, it was in two derelict terraced houses on Main Road in Chadderton. When these houses were demolished, the gym moved to a big attic space on Union St. Oldham next to The Cats Whiskers night club. This was luxury and more people were starting training with weights then. There was an annual competition for the Mr Oldham and entries came from round the country. There was a new TV program called Superstars which was a gym endurance fitness competition for athletes. 77 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats I was not a competitive body builder, I only entered one body building competition in the novice class but when I dug out the old photos to show my boys 25 years later, they were well impressed. I never thought I was that good! But looking back now I was surprised at myself! My gym training was more focused on endurance fitness with high ‘reps’ and low weights to be competitive at Motocross and Enduro races. Most gym members have a regular training partner my training partner was Kevin Ousey, he was a strong man, thick set and as hard as iron, a Power lifter, concentrating on the Dead Lift, the Squat and Bench press with low reps and very heavy weights, this builds up muscle mass and power. My heaviest lifts were a 500lb dead lift, a 495lb half squat with level thighs to a low stool and a 280lb bench press, this is all with free weights, there were not many machines in those days. I also trained heavy at parallel bar dips with 150lb chained round my waist, this helped me a lot in the Superstar competitions. Always having been a good climber I was good at ‘chinning’ on a bar. I took up the trapeze when I was 50 at Circus Arts and rode the Unicycle in the Rochdale Parade. The tall Giraffe unicycle is actually easier to ride. 78 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats The Oldham Superstars Competition was held with the body building competition and it involved doing as many reps as you can do in one minute. Firstly, sit-ups on an inclined bench, from back on bench to elbows to knees. Then chin-ups from arms locked out to chin over bar. And finally, the parallel bar dips, from arms locked straight out, to elbow at 90 degrees, the judge held his fist at the point of contact at the bottom, if you miss a contact then it is a no count. I trained hard for this event and I won it for three consecutive years. My scores on the last year were about 100 sit-ups. 36 chins and 86 dips. I think maybe my slightly withered left leg may have given me a slight weight advantage. From a polio cripple to a champion Superstar, through shear perseverance and determination. I think maybe Perseverance is one of my strongest traits, I was honored to win the Perseverance prize at the skydive training camp. Recently I watched the latest Brian Cox documentary on the Mars remote Rover explorations searching for proof of past life on Mars. The rover is called The “PERSERVERANCE” If it can find evidence on even some past microbial life it could answer one of the most profound Philosophical questions of all time, “Where did life come from” About 3.7 billion years ago the conditions on Mars were the same as on the Earth, but whereas all the evidence and fossil records on Earth have been eroded through weathering and gone beneath the mantle through tectonic plate movements. The fossil records on Mars have been sterile and perfectly preserved as in a deep freeze. So the answer to the question could be on Mars. 1985 was a year which led to a few changes in my life. 1/ It was the year I married my 1st wife. 2/ I started my own business Buying, renovating and selling houses, ever since I built the matchstick model of Blackpool tower I had the desire to build things. 3/ I started Home brewing. The cool brick vaulted cellar at the farmhouse made the ideal store for beer and with a hand pump for a smooth pint with a perfect head. My brewing was so good I provided free bitter for the office Christmas party each year and there were many friends came visiting at 12 Thorp, every Tuesday was pool night with a few beers. 79 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats 4/ I stopped weight training at the gym, with a full-time job In Civil Engineering and with my own business to run I didn’t have the time. But I have always made time for a quick daily swim; In fact, I took to swimming not because I was any good, I was fit and strong but I created a lot of white water splashing without getting anywhere! (Like a heavy Barge boat pushing a big bow wave). But I appreciated the cardio/vascular exercise. I made a point of going every day; I couldn’t do running or jogging because of my Polio but swimming is the best exercise thing I have ever done! Over time I learnt to improve my stroke (gliding through the water streamlined like a racing yacht) In fact I have swam 50 lengths a day, every day for the last 35 years! This has given me confidence when snorkeling, free diving and for when I took up SCUBA diving, the following chapter on this subject refers to salvage diving for Gold Bullion on the Lorentic and the fact that none of us ever found any! But I have dived for gold and found it, over the years in all the swimming pools, I’ve swam with pool goggles, and when I’ve seen something glinting on the bottom I’ve picked it up. You would be surprised at how many small stud earrings and the little butterflies’ and small bits of broken gold chains, I have picked up and zipped them in my key pocket. I had a plastic film canister in my kit bag filling up for years. I took it to Bescaby’s jewelers in Shaw for a weigh in, there was some scrap, but I got £62.00 for the gold! I have just realized that I have not found any more gold on the pool bottom for about the last 15 years; this is because I have had 20.20. vision all my life up to when I tuned 50 when at first, I needed reading glasses, Now I wear triple vary focal glasses without which I can’t focus, everything is blurred, the only things I see now are girls hair bands on the pool bottom. I didn’t get married till I was 30 when most of my school friends had families with children by this time. My first wife was Lindsey, we met in 1980 and I had been working on renovating 12 and 13 Thorp to make one house so as soon as it was habitable, she moved in with me at 12 Thorp. I had always thought of having about six children, but it never happened. 80 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats As soon as we had set a day for the wedding in 1985, we were keen to start a family as soon as we could, Lindsey got pregnant, and she was at 3 months when walking up the isle, so the bump didn’t show. Unfortunately, it was an ectopic pregnancy, she was very ill and had her fallopian tube removed and lost the baby. She got pregnant again after a year, but this also turned out to be ectopic and she had to have the other fallopian removed. The only way to conceive now was a ‘test tube baby’, this procedure was new and quite stressful, we had 5 attempts before conception, the pregnancy went to 26 weeks and Charlotte was born prematurely, she was in an incubator on the ward, we visited every day, she didn’t require a ventilator she was doing well breathing on her own, but then, after only 10 days she developed a blood infection from some complication with her bowels and within a few hours she passed away in my arms. I’ve never felt such grief before or since. Lindsey never got over this! Our only option for a family then was to adopt. We did try short-term fostering and cared for quite a few children for a while. In 1989/90 we went on a ten-week world trip stopping at: Bangkok, Hong Kong, Sydney, Cairns, Hawaii, and Los Angeles. I kept a day-to-day diary describing all the amazing things we did and saw, included in the appendix. Then in 1991, quite out of the blue, Lindsey said “I’m leaving you” and walked out taking anything she wanted, there was no arguing, I suppose the stress of losing Charlotte had taken its toll. I let her move straight into a brand-new house, which I had recently purchased as an investment, with her new boyfriend who I didn’t know anything about, they lived there for three years rent free and got married, when our divorce was finalised they did not get to keep the house. In 1992 on my 37th birthday I was out celebrating with friends, I met my second wife Joanne, she and her friends came back for my party to the farmhouse where I had recently built an extension and installed a wet room with a 375gallon six-person jacuzzi. It was filled with cold water as I was testing for leaks prior to connecting the heating when someone thought it was a good idea for me to christen it so they all picked me up and threw me in, fully clothed, watch and wallet and all! But it didn’t stop there, before the evening was out everyone had been thrown in! 81 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats We were all in dripping wet clothes but there was a roaring log fire in the lounge to warm up and dry out. It wasn’t long before we got together as a couple and she soon fell pregnant, we were over the moon and she moved into the farmhouse with me. We married as soon as Joshua was born in 1993. Then in 1995 our second son Connor arrived. Over the following years Josh and Connor learned to swim in the jacuzzi and it was used many times as a great party piece. We lived a happy life, the boys growing up on the farm, although unlike my childhood, they were supervised - well most of the time. Not only was I working on the farm and rebuilding the barn and cattle sheds and constructing new stables, I had a full-time job working for Oldham Council’s Civil Engineering Department and I also had my own business renovating houses. At first, I used various tradesmen but after a few years’ experience I was able to all the renovation work myself, I would often have the boys with me, they would usually play in the pile of building sand whilst I worked on the houses. I gave up working in local government in 1992 to pursue my renovation business full time, I only ever worked on my own properties, from 1985 to 2001 I had bought renovated and sold 40 houses. Joanne and I had been together for eleven years when she suggested we have a trial separation, she suggested I should rent a terraced house for her and we shared the boys 3 and 4 days a week each, we were still good friends and no arguments, but after 3 months I was not wanting to pay rent so we got back together, the next year she suggested we have another trial separation but this time I should vacate the farmhouse so I moved into one of the properties I had just renovated and we shared the boys again. We had a holiday in Turkey booked so we all went together and got along fine. I wanted to move back into the farmhouse, so I bought Joanne a cozy cottage in Shaw - 34 Woodend. This house has now been passed to Connor. In December 2006 I met my third wife Dawn, she moved into 12 Thorp with me although she had her own house which she then rented. Joanne met Tom in2007. Dawn and I got engaged and we had a big party at the farmhouse with a big house tent on the front lawn all friends were invited. 82 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats The jacuzzi was again the center piece but we were more civilized about it this time. First all the girls got in and had champagne with strawberries, then when they got out all the boys got in and had brandy shots. We were married in 2008 and Joanne and Tom were married in 2013 we are all good friends and have regular gatherings for birthdays and Christmas with our sons like one big happy family. The biggest party we had at the farmhouse was the Bike Club Bonfire, they all brought van loads of wood down by the brook behind the barn, we had a BBQ on the drive so there was a crowd at the fire, at the BBQ, in the front garden, in the kitchen and lounge and in the jacuzzi. There was also a crowd in the garage where I had just bought the 12 Superbikes for The Superbike Club my bike-hire business idea. So, I think there were about 200 people in all. I had so many parties at the farmhouse I can’t recall, the first one was where half of Royton came before I had even built the stairs, I had a rope swing where the trapeze is now so when someone wanted the bathroom they had to climb up the rope, There was no shortage of helpers pushing the girls up the rope! Then we had a party with friends from the Diving Club, another with friends from the gym, birthday parties, Christmas parties. When the boys were growing up I would do a Sunday dinner every week for lots of family and friends. The biggest Sunday dinner I counted up 22 people there - mums and dads, grandparents, children, grandchildren, and their friends, they all played in the tree house and the jacuzzi. I cooked roast beef, roast gammon, roast chicken, roast potatoes and vegetables and steamed vegetables. In fact, the reason I remember the count is because there were 22 people and 22 vegetables, it was like Christmas dinner every week. 83 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats Chapter 14 – We are Diving – Under Water This was something I had always wanted to do. I was a good swimmer, after I had stopped with the gym, I took to swimming 50 lengths a day, every day for the next 30 years. I was a keen and confident snorkeler and a breath-hold free diver. My first scuba dive was on the world trip in 1990 on “The Australian Great Barrier Reef” I was absolutely “Blown Away”. This first dive is fully described the appendix “World Trip” attached. This was also my best ever snorkeling experience with the most vibrant pearlescent colors of coral I have ever seen. There were giant clams up to 6 feet long in 5foot of water, they are like two giant bath sized shells hinged like a big mouth lined with a soft spongy growth shimmering with refracting sunlight in all the colors of the spectrum. I could gently put my hand inside and this triggered a reflex reaction, the mouth snapped shut griping my hand in the soft spongy lining. I have a photo of me sat in one half of an empty clam shell on the seabed, it looks like I’m sat in a bath. A more recent snorkeling experience was in 2008 whilst on honeymoon with Dawn in the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, each morning I snorkeled in the sea off the beech right in front of our hut and I made friends with an octopus which lived in a crevice it was there every day and became quite friendly. We went out on many boat trips to the surrounding atolls, the snorkeling trip was about 45 minutes away in an open boat with about 25 people to a very small submerged atoll, more like a hump of rock and coral with sand on top just beneath the waves, the swell was about 3 or 4 feet high so between the waves there was 2 feet of water but when each wave came it washed round the perimeter and splashed up in the middle to about 7 feet high. I saw this as a challenge so first I swam over the rocky circumference, I had to time it with the swell so as not to be washed onto the sharp coral rocks until I reached the sandy bit in the middle, then I stood up in 2 feet of water but then I was thrashed from all sides with white water to 7 feet deep, it was difficult to keep stable because white water is full of air bubbles and is less buoyant so it was quite exhausting, I thought if the boat left without me I would not survive long here! 84 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats I noticed a lot of activity on the boat so I swam back to find they were watching some giant Great Manta Rays cruising by, I was swimming behind them getting closer and closer until I was about 6 feet behind one, they were absolutely massive, I believe they can reach up to 8 meters (26feet) across and they are in danger from extinction, I think it was aware of my presence because it stopped and turned round! I found myself directly in front of its wide open mouth, they are filter feeders feeding on plankton and they have two arm like tentacles to guide the flow of water into their gaping mouth, I was between these and I thought if it wanted to move forwards then I would be inside it so I was back sculling with my hands as fast as I could, Its mouth was very big I could see inside, it was big enough to swim round inside and hopefully swim out again but I was breath holding so I managed to turn and swim away “PHEW!”, it was an alarming experience. I was glad to get back on the boat with everyone else. It was time to head back, after about 20 minutes someone noticed a pair of sandals and towel bag, we were all couples on honeymoons, but someone shouted “Hey there was a single man sat there on the way out”! The boat crew didn’t even do a head count, they had been motoring back leaving the man alone with only the submerged atoll, he would not have been able to get on it, he could only have swum in open waters, he would not have survived. We went back and found him still swimming where we had left him, He must have been terrified when he saw the boat leaving. The holiday organizers gave him one free week accommodation as compensation. Another amazing snorkeling experience was whilst we were in Fiji visiting Dawn’s brother Alan, who had bought some land and had started his own farm on the lush volcanic slopes. This was a very ambitious task and we respect and admire his achievements. We got a hire car from the airport and followed his directions for miles up dirt tracks in the pitch blackness until the track was 12 inches deep in mud and we could go no further, daylight was breaking and as it came light we could see the Union Flag flying further up the mountain, so we set off walking, shoes and socks off through the mud, there were thousands of giant Toads every couple of feet in all directions all croaking! And we were being savaged by mosquitoes. Dawn was shocked. Alan was expecting us so he came down to meet us on his horse to carry our cases. He had built his own house with a bore hole for water and a diesel generator for 85 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats electricity, he accommodated us in his master bedroom for our 3 weeks visit. We did all the sightseeing trips, visits to local villages on a jet boat river trip, white water rafting. On a 3 day sailing trip on the “Captain Cook Cruises” we sailed out to a remote island with no electric or facilities and stayed in small grass huts on the beach with a flash lamp and a mosquito net, we paddled out in a hand dug out log canoe round the island, there was lots of coral and brightly colored fish in crystal clear waters. Dawn wasn’t up for swimming out of her depth, but there were shallow sandy lagoons waist deep with lovely warm clear sea water, she fitted her facemask and snorkel and waded along looking at pretty little colorful fish, until suddenly she jumped up and shouted, she had just seen a particularly ugly fish with great big bulging eyes and a big gob with fat lips, it was only a foot long and was harmless. When in the sea if you ever encounter something which you do not recognize it is always best to air on the side of caution, no matter how much experience you may have there is always some new life to discover that you had never seen before, and the chances are it could be dangerous. When my sons were two and four years old, whilst on holiday in Turkey, I introduced Josh to snorkeling, He had not yet learnt to swim so I sat him in the sea with a facemask and snorkel, when he got used to breathing through it I told him to put his mask in the water, only 12 inches deep, so he could see the brightly colored little fish in the warn, crystal clear water, he was amazed, he was just floating on the surface moving along looking at everything, I was right by his side in case he got a gob full of water but his confidence soon grew, he was getting more adventurous and going over rocks, coral and in places out of his depth. When we went out on a boat trip and it dropped anchor in a lagoon we were first in the water, there it was 10 to 15 feet deep. Connor had his arm bands on clinging round my neck on my back whilst I stayed right next to Josh as he was fining round the cove. His confidence grew and grew so later in the week I gave him a talk about recognizing some potential dangers, I showed him some black spiky sea urchins and explained not to touch them as their spikes are as sharp as needles and made of brittle carbon so if one sticks in you they snap off and you can’t get them out. He looked at me in terror; he wouldn’t go in the sea again after that. 86 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats There were many snorkeling boat trips which included BBQ lunch and crystal lagoons and clear water to swim round, I did a lot of exploring and saw some amazing sights and being a good swimming and being quite adventurous I swam further away than most. On this particular day during one of the swims I had swam along the coastline and around into a lagoon out of sight of the boat and everyone else, after a few minutes I noticed our boat steaming off out of the bay, they were going without me! So I changed direction and swam flat out after it to try and catch it up! Then my son Connor spotted me off the rear of the boat in the distance front crawling as fast as I could, he alerted the captain who immediately cut the engines and let me catch up. Connor was amazed to see me climbing onto the boat after having chased the boat for the last few minutes – he still remembers it to this day! My first scuba dive was on the Great Barrier Reef. The dive training was very brief, but I was confident. I got my PADI dive license in Hawaii on a three-day training course; this is adequate for warm tropical waters with good visibility and small tides. As soon as I got back to England I joined Chadderton Sub Aqua Club. The British Sub Aqua Club BSAC. This training is very thorough compared with the pre dive training in Australia, a 30-minute talk on the beach, purge the demand valve and a quick mask clear and away you go! The BSAC training is 13 weeks of lectures and exams, that’s before you are allowed in the swimming baths for another 13 weeks pool training, before your first open water dive. The waters round Britain are cold, poor visibility, Deep, Dark and Dangerous with high running tides. But there are more shipwrecks round the British Isles than anywhere else in the world. There was an old saying ‘Britannia Rules the Waves’ and in the last century the British Empire governed three quarters of the civilized world, an empire built on trade and shipping so this makes British wreck diving the most adventurous and worthwhile although it is not for the faint hearted. There were many advanced divers in Chadsac. Dives were organized every weekend, weather permitting. There are hundreds of recorded shipwreck sites in less than 50 meters depth. When I first started, we used dive tables and a dive watch which can be a bit complicated to calculate bottom times for nitrogen retention, this builds up with pressure and time. 87 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats There were one or two divers who got the bends which is very serious and painful, the only cure is to call the coastguard for a helicopter lift to a recompression chamber and the nearest one is at the Police Headquarters in Preston. Club members had training trips to experience this hyperbaric chamber. Then when Dive computers came out it was much easier, these measure the depth and dive time and it works out your nitrogen retention and tells you when to ascend and at what speed and the times and depths of any decompression stops if needed. From 1990 over the next ten years, I stopped logging my dives after filling two logbooks, I must have had hundreds of dives on wreck sites but I’ve never gone deeper than 50 metres or done cave diving. There are some caves at Hodges Close quarry. We often dived in flooded quarries as training dives as they are usually safer than the open sea but these caves have had regular fatalities. Some caves lead into a vast under water cavern. There was a sign over the cave entrance at 22 meters with a skull & crossbones - a warning not to enter - I only went in about 10 meters the water is crystal clear but when I turned round to come out the silt had kicked up from my fins, it was cloudy and black, just the dive torch light. You could see how easy it would be to get lost, I’ve heard that when you enter the cavern it soon clouds up and you can’t find the exit cave, I can imagine being in there watching the air contents gauge go to empty, the ceiling of the cavern is about 10 meters below the surface. There were divers drowned in there each year I went. The first year I dived at Hodges the bottom was at 33 meters. There are vertical cliff faces all round and some cars in the bottom. the last year I dived there the bottom was only 22 meters. It was gradually filling up with loose shale. There are some caves above the water level and the path down comes through a cavern with a large puddle under the rock face, I was quite surprised to see a diver coming out of this puddle, then another and another. On exploring the paths and a cave led into a small cavern about five metres high filled with water up to about two metres below the cave where we stood. When we turned off our torches we could see some dim daylight coming up underwater across the other side of the cavern. We could jump into the water from the cave, swim across with facemask then duck under a half meter deep and along three meters which brings you up it the large puddle. It’s a one-way 88 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats trip because we couldn’t climb back up after jumping in, the only way out was a short dip under the rock. We couldn’t see how deep the cavern was but this one is on the other side of the quarry from the submerged cavern. There are just too many dives to mention, some of the ship wrecks were still intact where you can go exploring inside for souvenirs from Pots and crockery to bottles of wine still intact but mainly for brass portholes and shell cases, the older wrecks are in various stages of rusted decay and are sometimes unrecognizable, some are all broken and have fallen apart, the keel is usually the strongest part which is like the backbone of a skeleton with the ribs attached either side, then there can be the left over, just flat rusty steel plates scattered over the sea bed. Shipwrecks make a perfect habitat for sea life; most of the sea beds are baron sand and silt, but where a ship wreck lies a multitude of barnacles, corals, plant life and a whole community of creatures and fish, divers usually take a net goody bag so we often pick up large lobsters and other edible creatures, after many dives we would drop a fishing line over the wreck and have a fish banquet in the dive boat galley, we always took some garlic cloves, lemons and seasoning, fresh fish from the line straight into the frying pan! Nothing better! There was an annual trip to Plymouth for a week, a historic Naval base with many shipwrecks - some of which are classed as war graves. One of my early dives was on a battleship just outside of the Plymouth Sound, sunk in WW2. Most wrecks are covered in barnacles and a thick rusty crud kike covering so we usually carried tools for getting through to the brass of but first you had to find it - an axe is a good tool for chipping through the crud. If the metal underneath is silver coloured it is steel and I had found some part which looked a golden color, my first bit of brass. I my excitement I started chipping harder to see what it was, I could see it was cylindrical about 12 to 15 inches in diameter and the brass bit was in the center at one end. I signaled to my dive buddy that I had found something, and he went absolutely crazy, screaming at me - his demand valve out screaming bubbles! It turned out to be an unexploded bomb and I had been hacking away at the brass primer! We both immediately surfaced and got everybody out. Had a bomb this size detonated, the shock wave would have killed every living creature over a very large area. 89 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats One of the most remarkable annual trips was to the Northwest point of Ireland, Loch Swilley. This is a very wide loch opening on to the North Atlantic. There is a very large ship wreck called the SS Laurentic, built in 1908, a White Star Line Ship, a sister ship to The Titanic! In 1917 it was transporting the biggest ever shipment of gold bullion that has ever sank, on its way from Liverpool to Canada, as payment to buy ammunitions for the first World War. It was carrying 3,211 gold bars, at that time worth five million pounds, when it struck two German mines and sank in 40 meters of water between Fanad and Malin Head at the mouth of the loch. Salvage attempts were made and in 1917, 542 bars were recovered, which at the time was worth £800,000. Then in 1919 a further 315 bars worth £470,000 and in 1920 another 7 bars. Salvage attempts were becoming more difficult as the wreck was collapsing in on itself and filling with sand and stones. By 1924 a total of 3,186 bars had been salvaged so there are 25 bars still unaccounted for! When we dived the wreck, the value was £25,000 per bar. The early Chad-sac dive trips were made by taking the two club Inflatables but members soon got to know the local fishing boats who could take us out to the wreck, two dives per day, there was lots of brass but of course we all dreamed of finding some gold. When I dived on the Laurentic in the 90’s the salvage rights were owned by Ray Cossum, he was in his 70’s at that time and had dived the wreck more than anyone but as far as we know had never found a bar. He came out and dived with us for many years. One of the club members with a blacksmith’s shop, made a fake gold bar out of thick brass plates brazed together, filled with molten led and polished up so it looked and weighed incredibly like the real thing! This was taken out on a dive and placed on the wreck near the bottom of the shot line where Ray would find it. On returning into Port Salon from each dive there was always some locals who would be given a few fish that were caught and to see the salvaged port holes, shell cases and whatever else was unloaded on the quayside. This would be loaded into vehicles before going in the Bucket Bar, the quayside pub, for a pint of Guinness. 90 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats One chap had seen our ‘gold bar’ on the boat deck and the news travelled like wildfire. The bar was carried into the pub and placed on the bar with a resounding heavy clunk! Jaws dropped, everyone gasped! Before long the Harbor Master arrived, the Police, the Customs Officer and even the local radio station reporter, of course they soon realized it was just a joke! After ten years of being a member of BSAC and the Chadsac Diving Club, I carried on diving with dive mates on and off, mostly when on holidays in tropical warm waters with the tour guides and many times in the Canaries, just safe, scenic, shallow dives. We did the tourist shark feeding dives in the Bahamas and again in Sharm El Sheik Egypt. The guide wore a chain mail suit and carried a canister of fish bait whilst we were told to squat down in a semicircle on the seabed and keep our arms folded in. There were lots of sharks arriving from all directions and would gently glide in and around us pushing past us sometimes between our legs and under our armpits! For this daily feeding session, they seemed quite tame and used to humans. The next year in Sharm El Sheik there were three shark attacks on snorkelers - having their hands bitten! The sharks were obviously trained to accept food from human hands! The most remarkable dive day in my life was in the Galapagos Islands. I had spent the last ten days riding with a group of off-road bikers all round Ecuador which was pretty hard going. So then we got a flight to Galapagos for three days’ rest and recuperation. I kept a daily diary on the 10-day trip; I’ve just typed it up and attached in the Appendix. On Wednesday 25th May 2006, the day of the Galapagos Dive, I met two PADI Instructors, Mark and April. They were an adventurous couple who were sailing their small yacht round the world and they had just come through the Panama Canal on their way to the Galapagos Islands, when they were chased by pirates whilst crossing the Pacific from south America. They were lucky to escape with their lives - it was dusk so they turned off all lights and changed course - on the equator it goes from daylight straight to pitch black in minutes. Pirates are armed robbers who can get away with murder on the high seas. Mark and April had arranged a day diving trip with a local dive shop leader, and they asked me to join them next day to split the cost, so there were just four of 91 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats us, all well experienced divers and we set off in a brand new boat which had two 200 horsepower outboard engines. This could do the business, the fastest boat I’ve ever been on! We went out to a place called Gordon Rocks, an underwater volcano which had just two sections of the rim visible above sea level but the crater is complete with a sandy bottom at 40 meters. The sea around the volcano is miles deep at this point and there are strong currents of cold water coming up from the depths. The dive leader told us to keep close as it’s going to be like being in a washing machine! On our first dive we had only been in the water two minutes when I saw my first hammer head shark, about 2.4 meters long. As a diver, I had heard that the hammer head was a powerful and particularly lethal beast so I was a bit worried when, a few moments later, there were over 100 hammer heads gliding gracefully on the sandy bottom directly below us, just minding their own business. I had never seen anything like it, it was unbelievable! We didn’t feel threatened at all, there were too many to count but I could see as many as 20 sharks abreast by about 8 or more nose to tail, just cruising along. I didn’t know until fifteen years later, when I watched David Attenborough’s camera crew filming this very same spectacle. From the aerial view of the crater rim, I recognized it as being Gordon Rocks and his commentary said the sharks have an annual migration here to breed and that this spectacle had just been discovered. To list some of the sea life I saw - a shoal of White Tip sharks 1.8 meters long, turtles of all sizes, common black seals, manta sting rays, a spotted eagle ray 2.1 meters wide, bright traffic-light parrot fish and an unidentified fat spotted strange fish. There were many varieties of angel fish large and small. The most amazing thing was they all seemed really tame as if they had never seen a human before. I was reaching out to touch and stroke them all! One turtle was in a gulley, I finned down to it, I could stroke its soft neck and it lifted its chin as if to say “scratch me a bit more please”. It was over a meter wide and as it moved slowly, I gently held on to his shell at either side for a tow, It was really powerful. The seals were really playful, I had dived with seals in Scotland before, but you couldn’t get anywhere near them. These seals were playing at eating the bubbles coming from my valve! One was swimming tight rings round a puffer fish which had puffed up like a football. I reached up to 92 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats stroke the tummy of one playing with my bubbles, when I touched its tummy, it seemed to jump a bit, you know like when your tickled under your arm, as if it was really ticklish! I laughed out loud. The eagle ray came past twice having a real good look, I could have touched it but it has a poisonous sting on its tail. Before the second dive we had a snorkeling break, in a sheltered bay and then a second dive which was just as good as the first! The third dive had to be a shallow one - it was in a different location a mile out at sea, on a flat rocky bottom 10 meters deep leading to an edge ridge where it dropped off vertically to an infinite depth. We did briefly go over the edge, which was a cliff overhang leading into cave entrances, the white tip sharks use this place to sleep and also a large ray. I would say today’s dive trip had been the best diving experience of my life. I am quite an experienced diver and although I’ve not been a paid-up member of BSAC for more than 20 years I have taken a full tank with dive gear to many places and done a few solo dives - even though It is always recommended to dive with a ‘buddy’. I have dived in many tropical places round the world, but I would say that day in Galapagos had been the best diving day of my life by far with all the latest first class equipment, amazing under water topography and scenery. Visibility was good and with the most amazing tame, friendly, playful diversity of creatures I’ve ever seen! 93 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats Chapter 15 - My NHS ‘Adventure’ Continues I think maybe my PDA problem for the first three years of my life could have left me with a damaged mitral valve. I was not diagnosed with a mitral valve prolapse until I was 30, which eventually lead to two more open heart operations in my fifties. Heart surgery has come a long way since 1958, now the sternum bone is opened giving access to the heart. In 2009 my mitral valve started severely leaking, I was admitted to Wythenshaw Hospital for major heart surgery (the bicuspic flaps) were repaired with fine gortex ties, like the strings on a small parachute which was a success. Let me explain briefly how the heart works. We all know the heart has two halves and it pumps blood. Well, it is actually two pumps, each with an inlet valve and an outlet valve (four valves). Blood enters the left atrium through the tricuspid valve and is pumped out through the pulmonary valve to be cleaned by the internal organs and re oxygenated by the lungs, then it comes back into the left atrium through the mitral valve which is a bicuspic valve. This is why in 2009 I became breathless even just going upstairs, my mitral valve was leaking. This valve pumps the systolic blood pressure out through the aortic valve and through the main arteries - as it was regurgitating, my blood was going back into the lungs and not being fully oxygenated. After my recovery I was sent home, then a few weeks later I was getting seriously out of breath again. This was because I had fluid building up in my pericardium sack, this is a tough fiber-like sack which surrounds the heart for protection, and the fluid was building up pressure in the sack which prevented the used blood from returning to my heart so it was not getting any blood to pump. An ambulance took me to Oldham Hospital where I was admitted to the cardiac ward all my vitals were being constantly monitored and the Consultant Cardiologist came round each day. I was on that ward for 5 days. My pulse was constantly racing at 130 bpm, my internal organs were failing, I had water retention so I put 3 stone on in 5 days. Each day there was another fatality on the ward, I thought it was my turn next. The consultant did not want to drain the fluid from my pericardium sack as it can be a bit tricky. I think he was just waiting, hoping the fluid would be reabsorbed. I was then transferred, by emergency ambulance, back to the 94 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats Wythenshaw hospital where three doctors met me on arrival and carefully stuck what looked more like a horse hypodermic syringe, with a long-curved needle, in under my sternum - somehow missing vital organs and arteries, into the sack. Withdrawing the plunger time and again they removed one and a half liters of a dark brown watery fluid and I instantly recovered. It had been like having a full one-and-a-half-liter bottle of coke stuffed inside my ribcage. This created more pressure than my diastolic blood pressure preventing the blood returning to my heart and stopping it from working? I think my pulse racing at 130 BPM for 5 days must have wrecked the gortex ties, because then I needed a metallic prosthetic valve fitting which was major open-heart surgery for the third time in 2011. Now I have to take warfarin (rat poison) antiquagulents for the rest of my life. 95 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats Chapter 16 – Bi-Plane Wing Walking, Rafting, Hot Air Ballooning & Paragliding In June 2015, me and another dive buddy decided to try the wing walk experience with the Breitling Flying Circus, on a fully restored vintage bi plane with a massive ten thousand cc, ten-cylinder radial engine. There is a stand-up seat fixed on a frame on top of the upper wing, a five-point seat belt keeps you firmly strapped on to the seat so you do not walk freely about but you are stood up, face into a 150 mph. wind. The pilot was also a fellow skydiver and a jump plane pilot, he told me he will customize my ride, if he sees that the rider looks tense and worried, he would fly the plane in a more gentle manor, but if the rider is more confident and Waving arms up to catch the air he would perform more aerobatic maneuvers, so I was enthusiastically waving all the time. The nearer the ground you are there is a increased experience of speed so we performed some low level “Barn Storming” flights just above the Hangar roofs! Then some steep climbs under full throttle until it stalled and fell sideways into a low swoop, there is a negative “G” Force at the top! Much better than any rollercoaster. I was hoping we might try some loops and a barrel roll but there must be a limit to which Health and Safety or to which the insurance will allow! Of course, what I really wanted was to wing walk without being strapped on! But wearing my skydiving rig, then if I was to slip or be blown off, I could just stabilize in free fall and deploy my parachute, falling off the wing is no harder than jumping out of a plane, but the pilot explained most of the flying maneuvers are performed close to the ground for an increased exhilaration so there would not sufficient altitude for my parachute to open. Base jumper rigs are set more for a more instant deployment and even they need more altitude than what we were flying at. I have had a couple of days White Water Rafting experiences whilst in Queensland, Australia, the biggest river was the “Tulley” which originates high up in the mountains and cuts through hundreds of miles of tropical jungle, it’s a long day with an early start with an organized BBQ lunch stop. This is fully detailed in my Diary on my “Round the World Ten Week Trip” which mum typed up for me and it’s copied into the Dropbox folder where this autobiography is located! 96 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats Yet another experience which deserves a mention are some Virgin Hot Air Balloon flights, these are the biggest balloons which carry a compartmental basket which can carry 12 to 16 people, you have to be patient because the weather has to be perfect so there are a lot of cancellations. My first flight was over the North Yorkshire Dales it was a beautiful sunny evening and as the sun went lower the shadows grew longer emphasizing the hills and valleys, when it was time to land there was a last minute change, the pilot had picked a large field near to the A1. As we descended the A1 was so close it looked like we were heading straight for it, the pilot then fired the burners which lifted us past the A1 and we landed in a large ploughed field on the other side. We had been drilled for the landing, we all had to face rearwards, holding on to grab rails so when we touched down the basket was pulled over on its side so we were all laid on our backs being dragged over the ruts maybe 100 yards or so till the balloon deflated, we all crawled out, no one was hurt. My next flight was with my sons from the Forest of Bowland across Morecambe Bay at the estuary of the river Kent landing in the south Lake District, again it was an enormous Virgin Balloon, a beautiful sunny evening with a gentle breeze, I was in the basket next to the pilot, I was surprised to learn all the things you can do, not just drifting on the wind but you can choose where you want to go to some degree. He was constantly letting droplets of spit fall; spit is quite viscous and tends to stick together as it falls, when you observe it falling sometimes it changes directions which is a good indicator of wind shearing, this shows the changes in the direction of the gentle evening winds as they are affected by the terrain and thermals, so you can choose to descend into a different wind to steer your directions! You can also vent hot air through longitudinal flaps to rotate the balloon in either direction! And when you need to climb to a higher altitude you simply fire the burners. The landing was just the same being dragged backwards across a ploughed field. The first time I saw paragliding was back in the early 70's. The early ones were called Hang Gliders and were made by connecting three aluminium poles at the front to form a triangle with fabric attached and the pilot was sat on a seat suspended underneath. They were often over Rooley Moor, Rochdale, I used to ride my Trials bikes over there. 97 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats So from the top of a long hill, the pilot would run down into wind carrying the overhead frame until it caught some lift then jump on the seat. Steering was achieved by shifting your weight fore and aft, left and right. There was a lot of crashes, often on take-off, sometimes it would stall and fall backwards and sometimes it would nosedive. I was not a good enough runner, and it all looked a bit dodgy so I decided to give it a miss. A few years later a pod on wheels and an engine and propeller were added and the first microlites had evolved. These are weight shift microlites and are still reliable and popular today. In the mid 80's I bought my own microlite, an Australian model, a Thruster G.M.T.W.Y. I preferred the fixed wing model with the conventional ailerons elevator and rudder controls with rudder pedals and a joy stick control. Great fun to fly, take offs and landings were good with safe controls, The only thing which spoiled it for me was the very noisy 500cc Rotax engine up front, sat next to my instructor or passengers it needed an intercom headphones to talk. Many years later when I took up skydiving, this is a most beautiful experience flying in complete silence with a wing shaped canopy which produces lift and toggles which steer and can flare for gentle controlled landings into wind. there is no danger on take-off either, simply jump out of the plane. I have done Tandem paragliding a few times whilst on holiday in Tenerife, the launch area is about 3,000 feet, on the top of the ridge, which is visible from the coastline all along from Los Cristianos, Las Americas, Costa Adeje, and to the landing site on the beach at La Caleta. This is a particularly good launch site at the top of the south facing hill which catches the hot tropical sun producing good thermals for lift. Some days I've counted as many as 100 canopies, I think it was an international competition. The first few times it clouded over, no thermals and we landed on a DZ next to the motorway, very disappointing. The last year flight was with an experienced international tandem instructor called Goyo, The weather was perfect, we found lots of thermals, there is an audible altimeter which makes raising squeals on assent and lowering ones when going down, when you find a good 98 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats thermal you need to keep turning round to stay in it, but like any aircraft you lose altitude when turning so Goyo instructed me to shift my weight with him from left to right to steer without pulling the toggles so as to not loose altitude, so using this technique we managed to traverse the full length of the ridge, right over the enormous rocky pinnacles, gaining altitude. It was like gliding as free as a bird in complete silence with amazing views. There is an amazing mountain between here and the Airport called "El Condor" it's 5,000 feet with a near vertical south facing cliffs and a flat top like Table Mountain, we gained even more altitude as the sun was on the cliff face and we soared over the table top looking down and out to sea towards La Gomera. We could have stayed up there all day, from this altitude it looked like we could carry on and land anywhere on the coast from as far west as San Juan and as far east as the airport, obviously the airport was not an option because of low flying jets. We headed over the coastline at La Caleta and out to sea, over the fish farms before making a 180 degree gentle turn. I pointed out a large green plankton bloom out at sea further down the coast, Goyo told me that is where the treated sewage outlet is. When we landed on the beech the other paragliders jokingly said they thought we were heading over to La Gomera to land! 99 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats Chapter 17 – Seeking New Adventures – Canoeing Trip, River Spay Scotland In October 2019 three friends, John, Allan, Paul and myself took two canoes on a five-day paddling trip from the source of the river Spay in the West Scottish Grampian Mountains, for 150 miles through the Cairngorms and all the way to its estuary at Kingston on the North East coast of Scotland where it joins the North Sea. It was a beautiful and amazing experience of nature and wildlife, there were places where there was no evidence of human civilization, the river meandered through valleys surrounded by woodlands fields and mountains, the leaping salmon were swimming upstream to spawn, we were hoping one would leap into our canoe for the evening BBQ! Wild Deer were grazing on the riverbanks. Each evening we wild camped and BBQ’d the best of the roadkill that we found, five pheasants, three rabbits and a whole Roe deer. We were very lucky with the weather - blue skies, shirts off and a lot of grade 3 rapids to get through. Sometimes the river would widen out and shallow, then we’d get stuck on the boulders. Then other sections were fast and furious white water. There was one dodgy moment which could have had serious consequences. A large tree had recently toppled from the banking across the deepest part of the river where the strong current was washing under. Paul and I were in the lead canoe and before we could back paddle to the shallows the currant had our canoe pinned against the tree trunk sideways, filled with tons of force of fast flowing water. This was a very large tree, maybe 60 feet high with lots of branches above the water line so there must have been as many branches below the water. The canoe was on its side in the water and we were clinging on not wanting to be washed under to get tangled in the submerged branches. Paul managed to climb on to the trunk, holding on to a branch with one hand and holding on to my kagoul with the other but, the water had me pined and I couldn’t climb up! The other canoe could not follow as it too would get stuck. I did not know how deep the riverbed was but my only option was to find out, keeping a firm grip on the branches I lowered my legs and fortunately it was about 5 feet deep and I managed to brace myself from the river bottom and the trunk whilst just keeping my head above water and worked my way across to the shallower side where the other canoe had thrown me a rope! Yet again I was lucky. This was clearly not a trip for the inexperienced! 100 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats Chapter 18 – Pot Holing, Climbing, Abseiling & Canoeing Some of my friends from the diving club do regular visits on the Outdoor Pursuits club and are qualified instructors, so I have been lucky enough to have a go at all of the above. Some of the interesting caves for beginners are in and around Ingleton and the Yorkshire Dales where there are a lot of porous limestone geological formations which are easily eroded by underground streams. The Gaping Gill cavern is probably the most famous, there are certain days of the year when the local caving club make easy access for the public by fixing up a boswain’s chair, a short walk over the top of the moors there is a small gulley formed by rain water which disappears down a small hole, a scaffold structure with an electric winch lowers you down into the hole into the most enormous chamber, you descend through the hole and then it opens up so you are dangling from the center of the roof, the size of the chamber is big enough to house the entire St. Paul’s Cathedral, the chair lowers you right down onto the floor of the cavern where you get off, there is a queue of people waiting to ascend, you can go exploring as long as you like. Other easy caves I’ve explored are The Great Douk Pothole, the upper and lower Long Churn caves, Alum Pot and Doctor Bannisters Hand Basin. Be prepared to get wet as you are mostly climbing up an underground stream sometimes just a trickle and other times almost waist deep. The basin is a cavern with a waterfall gushing in dropping from the middle of the roof, the force of the fall has eroded a circular basin about 20 feet in diameter, you can walk round it but the rock is smooth wet and slimy, it’s all white water full of bubbles so there would be no buoyancy, if you slip in you may not get out! The only way out is back down the cave. Yet another adrenalin adventure day is a ride on the Words Fastest Zip Line, It is in North Wales at Penrhyn quarry, at 1.5 kilometers long it is the longest zip line in Europe and reaches a speed over 100 MPH! Six of us went for the weekend in my motor home, we all had a great experience. You have to be over 4 feet tall and there is a weight limit. Each person is weighed as obviously heavier people will go faster. The speed is controlled either by adding sand bags on the light riders or fixing one of a number of small sails on the harness above to catch the wind and slow you down; they don’t want heavy people crashing in to the stopping station at the bottom. 101 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats Groups are transported in 4WD ex-army trucks, up a steep winding track hundreds of feet up the mountain to the launch station at a cliff edge overlooking the flooded quarry. There are four parallel cables so four can go at a time, facing forwards you lie down into s sling which is harnessed to the pulleys on your cable above you so you are in a streamlined position, then the sand bag or sail is added. The angle of the cable is quite steep from the top then it curves out flatter as you descend and your speed increases fast at first then reaches a maximum velocity as you’re going over the lake, then you go over the tops of trees. The views were spectacular, a beautiful blue sky and the coastline of Wales for 50 or 60 miles you can stretch your arms out sideways to catch the speeding air flow, a bit like Skydiving which slows your speed down a little before approaching the end station also the sag of the cable is so you are travelling slightly upwards which slows you ready for the catcher, he has a long stick for you to grab hold of so he can position you over an elevating platform where your sling is unfastened and the platform then descends you to ground level, sadly it’s all over and you just want to go again. It is very well organized, very safe and I’d recommend it to anyone. 102 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats Chapter 19 – Two and a Half Cats! There is a saying “A cat has nine lives”. Looking back at all the times in my life where I’ve been in a critical situation; either expecting the very real possibility of Imminent Death or being in a situation where if I was to make the wrong decision, or the wrong move, it would be fatal. Or experiencing disease or illness or circumstances where I have been extremely lucky to have survived, I think I must be up to about 23 lives now, hence the title of the autobiography! To show my appreciation of the simple joys of being alive, I feel I must thank the three orthopedic surgeons who had the task of putting me back together after my skydiving accident. As they told me it was a horrendous task, the first one I remember was Mr. James Borne, he provided me with a lot of information which I very much appreciated, then there were Mr. Henry Wynn Jones and Mr. Sunil Panchani, they too were very informative. They are often put together as a team on the Extreme Trauma Unit and if it was not for their skills and dedication I would not have survived, I owe them my life and I will not forget them, I will be forever grateful! I also owe my life to the Air Ambulance Service and the paramedics who stabilized me so I could be helicopter-lifted to the Royal Preston Hospital. I believe this service operates on a fund raised entirely by charitable organizations, I have contacted them and to show my appreciation I have personally set up a considerable monthly donation, but this is not enough. If you have found my autobiography at all interesting, informative or amusing, I am asking you to also make a donation of whatever amount you think fitting even if it is just one pound. Of course, a little more would be better and I hope that if enough people read this, my autobiography, then the fund raising could be quite considerable and would be more effective. Only recently we saw the air ambulance from our lounge window land on the main road 200 yards away to pick up a seriously injured electric bike rider in a road traffic accident. Please make your donation to the “Great North Air Ambulance Service “ Through this “Just Giving Link” https://www.justgiving.com/David-Smith443?ut 103 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats Just an additional note as “The Saga Continues” only last week on 2nd September 2022 whilst working on maintenance on one of my properties I was foolishly on a 10-foot ladder changing some window blinds when the base slid away from the wall on the polished floor and I slid down the wall about 5 feet. I landed on the floor on the ladder and cracked a left rib! I’m a bit battered and bruised; lesson learnt, I will have to be extra careful from now on. I mentioned earlier that I had suffered 22 fractures by the time I was 22 years old. I’ve lost count since then but I think it must somewhere between 40 and 50 by now. On 2nd Dec 2022 I was ill with a temperature, cold sweats and extreme shivering's and the skin on my right leg went purple and peeling. Dawn took me straight to A and E where I was admitted on the cardiac ward with cellulitis which developed into sepsis and Endocarditis. I've had this previously in August and September 2021, they told me then it could come back at any time, what they did not tell me is this has a particularly high mortality rate, 30% !!!, I was given various venal antibiotic infusions day and night round the clock till the end of December before I was well enough to go home. I suppose this may count as yet another of my (Cats Lives). 104 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats Chapter 20 – The Final Chapter, Maybe I would like to conclude my autobiography with my thoughts to some of the most profound, philosophical questions of all time. “What is the meaning of life?” “Where did we come from?” “Where are we going?” For many of us, just holding down a job, keeping a roof over our head and our children clothed and fed provides enough of a challenge and means that most of us live our lives without giving these questions a second thought! And if most of the people were to ask themselves these questions – who could provide the answers? Over recent years I have given these questions a lot of thought. I love watching scientific and nature documentaries, I think Charles Darwin’s book, “The Origin of Species by Natural Selection” on his theory about the evolution of life is a big part to the answer as to where we came from. His book has now been scientifically proven through fossil records. I have watched scientific documentaries by the famous nuclear physicists and cosmologists like Brian Cox and his mentor Carl Segan on the creation of the universe. “We all come from microbes in muck and those apes are our cousins”. Life spontaneously evolves where there is:- Liquid water and where there are the right conditions and ingredients, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Iron, and also energy from heat. The difference between raw chemistry (Geo Chemistry) and life (Biochemistry) is the difference between a moth and a flame. A flame burns fuel with oxygen and releases energy. A moth uses oxygen and energy to pump billions of protons across a membrane. In a hydrothermal vent deep on the ocean floor away from the heat and light from the sun, there is evidence of new life forms. The hot venting fresh water mixes with the cold salty sea water (alkaline and acid) and a chemical reaction occurs where a positive electrical charge is formed with an excess of protons on one side, then a cascade of protons occurs. 105 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats This could have been the spark of life? Not just once but in many places on the earth and very probably where liquid water exists throughout the universe. Even then it’s taken 3.8 billion years of a relatively stable planet for these microbes to evolve into intelligent life. If intelligent life has evolved elsewhere, the incomprehensible vastness of the cosmos is such that even if it could travel across the vastness of space at the speed of light it would take hundreds of billions of years for any sort of communication! More recent theories suggest that maybe we - as an intelligent species - could be very rare in the universe and may even be unique! Because the chances of all the unlikely and extraordinary circumstances and conditions that have led to our existence of occurring again elsewhere are so improbable! I’ve also reached a conclusion on “What is the meaning of life”. I think the answer is as different for every single living organism as that organism’s individual uniqueness and since each human being is in fact a unique individual then the answer must be different for everybody. Having said that, I have put together a general explanation which could and maybe should apply to all mankind. Firstly, a quote from Shakespeare. “To be or not to be? that is the question” this is referring to the idea of whether it is better to live or die. Secondly, to have or not to have. Finally, A quote from Mahatma Gandhi “Everything you do in your life will be completely unimportant but, it is VERY important that you do it”. 1) TO BE - It is a privilege to be borne and to be a human being. To be conscious and aware, to be inquisitive and inspired. To be capable, confident, considerate and consistent. To be trustworthy and honest firstly to yourself and then to others. To be prudent, rational, and dependable. To look for the good in all things and be sincerely complimentary and appreciative. To be genuinely interested in the people around you so you can be generous, loving, helpful and forgiving for them. But most importantly, simply BE yourself! 2) TO HAVE - The most important thing we all take for granted is to have our freedom. Just think of all the millions of people who gave their lives 106 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats for it in the two World Wars. Then it is to experience something that we all need, to have– love and passion. To have ambition and enthusiasm. To have courage and a sense of adventure. To have dignity and integrity. To have patience and perseverance. To have empathy and compassion. To have knowledge, experience, wisdom, strength, agility, and control. 3) Finally and most importantly, the meaning of life is “TO DO”. Firstly you must take the responsibility to do all the things which have to be done when they need to be done. Then you will be able to do all the things you want to do. So be grateful for your life and do not waste a single moment of it, keep yourself busy “Fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth of distance run”. Enjoy your life and do the things you love. Another Gandhi quotation, “Above all do not forget your duty to love yourself”. Note that not one of the things worth having is materialistic! A man’s desires for a bigger house, a faster car, more money, have nothing to do with living a happy and fulfilled life. We need to have the realization that we only need to have enough, just enough of anything and no more. The desires for more than we need will only create stress, anxiety, envy, jealousy, and spite. Mankind’s greed for more than he needs will be his downfall. So if you can think about being all of these things, if you can work towards having all these qualities and character traits. Then you will be able to do all the things you want to. This will surely bring you a life full of happiness, a feeling of fulfillment and completion, harmony, and peace of mind. This, my friends, is what ‘the meaning of life’ is for me. A final Quote from probably the richest man ever to walk the earth, Andrew Carnegie: “I have known millionaires starving for lack of nutriment and I know workers and poor men who revel in the luxuries beyond the power of those millionaires to reach. It is the mind that makes the body rich. There is no class so pitiably wretched as that which possesses money and nothing else.” He used his incredible wealth to build and furnish over 3000 Free Public Libraries throughout the United States, Canada, Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zeeland, the West Indies and Fiji. 107 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats I only know this because I have bought the Carnegie Library in Shaw. Oldham Council was selling it in a terrible state of disrepair with planning permission for demolition and new build for residential use. I thought this was a crying shame as the skills to build such quality craftsmanship just do not exist anymore. I specialize in the repairs and renovations of these old quality buildings preserving the character and original architectural features, I converted it into five high class luxury residential apartments. Conclusion Had it not been for my parachute accident a year ago, with my four months hospital stay, I would not have had the time to spend reflecting over my life. I believe I have been very lucky; I have been able to think clearly and appreciate all my amazing life experiences. Even though I cannot yet walk a single step unaided and I am still suffering significant pain, I am happy and comfortable within myself. Now I really do appreciate even the simplest things in my life - like each breath of fresh air that I breathe! It is good to feel the satisfying relief when my lungs stretch, I can actually feel the refreshing oxygen percentage in my blood stream instantly increase! I also like each glass of fresh water that I drink, sometimes like when I’ve had my daily swim and I can feel my body dehydrated, I have a drink of warm water I can feel it going down and I’m instantly refreshed as it enters my blood stream. I’ve never been more in tune with myself as I am now. It is strange how such a violent very neardeath experience has awoken my senses. I now look at my life with love and choose to learn from my previous experiences. There is no right or wrong, nor good or bad. The past is over and done. There is only the experience of the moment. I want to share this, my autobiography, what and who I am, for I know we are all one in spirit. A happy life is not something that you can simply experience; it is something that you have to create for yourself. All is well in my world. I can see small, week by week improvements with my physical capabilities and they give me the encouragement to continue getting well so I can appreciate and enjoy what is left of my life! 108 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats I remember my dad, just before he passed, he told me he was grateful that he was lucky enough to have been born in what he considered to be the best time - work had been hard but people had honest values and could be trusted. If Mum and Dad were going away or just going out for the evening, they would deliberately leave the front door unlocked so that if friends called to visit they could at least let themselves in to make a brew, rest, warm up and check on things! I am also very grateful that I was born when I was - for a whole lot of reasons, too many to mention. It saddens me to know that my children will not have the freedom, adventures, and opportunities that we had. When we left school, every child could get a job and have the opportunity to begin their chosen career, now there are so many school leavers with not enough jobs. “TEMPUS FUGIT” This is an ancient saying in Latin. It means “Time Flies” another quote is “Time waits for no man” Time marches on relentlessly, it NEVER stops, it cannot be reversed, we can only experience it in the forward direction. We have all seen the science fiction films where someone can travel back through time, but when you think about all the paradoxes it could create which would change the future from that point onwards, we know it is not, nor will it ever be possible for anything to travel back through time. We can of course examine fossil records to see scientific evidence of events in the past and learn about the evolution of life. But time is not a universal constant, Mass is not constant, it increases with velocity; this is why no mass can travel faster than the speed of light! The closer it gets to the speed of light it takes more energy to push it faster and there is never enough energy to pass the speed of light at 186,000 miles per second. Only two things are universal constants, gravity, and the speed of light. Science has proven that the faster one travels through space, the slower time passes, an experiment has been conducted to prove this, two extremely accurate atomic clocks were set and synchronized with each other, one was stationary in a laboratory, the other was transported as quickly as possible round the earth by jets, it took about a day, when the times of the clocks were compared, the stationary one was a tiny bit faster than the travelled one. 109 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats People say that the older they get, the quicker the years go by, this is true and I have experienced it myself, it is one’s own perception of time which seems to speed up as you get older, I have thought of a simple theory which explains this. Let us consider a child of say 3 years of age, they are just beginning to understand and experience the concept of time, it’s their birthday and they are given birthday presents, or Christmas and they get lots of lovely chocolates to eat, these are very exciting and happy times which the child will fondly remember and when they come round again next year it all happens again! So, they are then looking forwards to the next year which seems ages away. In fact, they have to wait 33% of their total life’s experience till the next time, so one year for a three-year-old is an extremely long wait. The next year will pass quicker because they will only have to wait 25% of their life’s experiences. A 10-year-old will only have to wait 10% as long so their perception of time passes more than 3 times faster. Now let us consider a 100-year-old person waiting for next Xmas, they will have to wait a mere 1% of their life span! Not only am I now perceiving time to be passing faster but this last year, due to all my injuries, it takes me four times as long to do anything so now it takes me four days to do what I used to do in just one day. There’s N’owt Down for getting OLD! We older people say that “youth is wasted on the young” and we all wish to be young again so we can do all the things we never got round to doing! At the end of one’s life, few people regret the things they have done but many people regret all the things they wanted to do whilst they were younger, which they never did. I was lucky because I worked this out when I had the “Light bulb moment” when I built my matchstick model of Blackpool Tower at eleven years of age at that point in my life I realized that I could achieve anything! As long as I believe it! My message to all the youth of today is to have faith in yourself to achieve your goals and you will achieve them as long as you believe in them. Don’t give up! It is up to you to decide what you want to do with your life; no one else can decide for you. In point of fact, one’s own personal thoughts and 110 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats deeds, are the only thing that anyone ever has full control over, and we always do choose them, consciously or not. I hope I can give you some inspiration to live your own fulfilled life as I have done. Last year Dawn bought me a very appropriate Tee shirt which says on the front TO BE OLD AND WISE YOU MUST FIRST BE YOUNG AND RECKLESS Considering all the things I have done in my youth; do you think I might qualify? The End © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, copied, distributed or adapted for profit or financial gain, with the exception of certain activities permitted by applicable copyright laws, such as brief quotations in the context of a review or academic work. For permission to publish, distribute or otherwise reproduce this work, please contact the author at thorpcon@yahoo.co.uk. 111 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats 112 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats 113 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats 114 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats 115 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats 116 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats 117 © 2023 David Smith’s Two and a Half Cats