Exmoor: Dunster Like You've Never Seen It Before

Many years ago I spent a lot of my time hanging around with some guys I knew from Bath. And I mean, literally hanging around. They were hot air balloon pilots and we used to do a lot of filming while dangling under their vast balloon envelopes in small baskets made on the Somerset Levels.

The metal burner-frame located below the balloon but above the basket was an ideal and steady structure upon which to hang an upside down tripod.

The two guys I became great friends with were John Clifford and Clain Armstrong-Brown who, alas, has now passed away. John is out there somewhere though - Australia I think - and if you see this John, all the very best to you old mate.

We lived in a big house at Luxborough at the time (Chargot) and occasionally the guys would come down for a visit and a few times John brought a balloon with him. We were trying to get sponsorship to do an entire series of films flying over the national parks of the UK - which would have been fantastic had it ever come off.

Anyway, we did a couple of experimental flights over Exmoor and I’ve been digitising them from old fashioned High Band U-matic video. Here is the very beginning of one of our memorable flights - - shot early one winter morning after we’d taken off from the low flat fields under Dunster Castle - right next to the main road just where they have the eastern entrance to Dunster Show.

Over the coming weeks I’ll put up some more of these balloon flight clips - next time soaring over Luxborough…