Larry Donovan Bridge Jumper (1862-1888) <\/b><\/p>\n
I have done two really stupid things in my life which might have endangered my life.<\/p>\n
The first was when I was thirteen years old and I was dared (and offered money<\/em>) to climb along the outside of a railway bridge in my home town<\/p>\n That was a stupid thing to do how high was the bridge? <\/i><\/p>\n It was a sixty foot drop into the river \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n So if the fall didn\u2019t kill you <\/i><\/p>\n You would drown <\/i><\/p>\n But I made it <\/i><\/p>\n If you had fallen then you would not have met me <\/i><\/p>\n The second happened when I was twenty when I dived into Harwich Harbour in November for the reward of ten pounds<\/p>\n You could have drowned \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n Was the water cold?<\/i><\/p>\n Freezing <\/i><\/p>\n Did you swim?<\/i><\/p>\n Funny question but yes I swam back to the harbour steps <\/i><\/p>\n Did you do it naked? <\/i><\/p>\n No I wore my underwear<\/i><\/p>\n When did you thaw out Peter?<\/i><\/p>\n During the summer <\/i><\/p>\n I was sent to the South of France to recover <\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n Larry Donovan was a bridge jumper who became famous because he jumped without serious injury from the following bridges<\/p>\n Brooklyn Bridge<\/p>\n Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge<\/p>\n Clifton Suspension Bridge<\/p>\n Schuylkill River and High Bridge<\/p>\n Chestnut Street Bridge<\/p>\n London Bridge<\/p>\n Waterloo Bridge<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Hungerford Bridge\u00a0 (<\/em>this was his last bridge as he sadly drowned during the attempt in August 1888) <\/p>\n What are you writing about Peter?<\/i><\/p>\n Larry Donovan the famous bridge jumper<\/i><\/p>\n I have never heard of him <\/i><\/p>\n He is forgotten <\/i><\/p>\n But he was a brave man <\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n In 1922 a secret tunnel stretching from Buckingham Palace to Clapham Junction Railway Station was discovered during improvements at the station<\/p>\n It had been constructed during the 1850s and was to be used to transport the Queen to safety in the event of an attack on Buckingham Palace<\/p>\n When discovered three men walked its entire length and were arrested when they emerged in Buckingham Palace<\/p>\n The intruders were later given \u00a35000 each by the state in exchange for their silence and were told that disclosure of any kind would result in imprisonment<\/p>\n When the last of these men (James Cole) died in 1959 he told his son of the 1922 discovery on his deathbed.<\/p>\n In June 1960 the Daily Mirror<\/i> ran a story about the mysterious tunnel after being contacted by the son of James Cole<\/p>\n After official denials the newspaper was fined \u00a310000 in camera<\/p>\n The son of James Cole (Graham Cole) was threatened with imprisonment but was subsequently given \u00a32000 and told to issue a denial saying that he had made the whole story up<\/p>\n The Daily Mirror ran this story on the 9th<\/sup> of September 1960 and the story went dead until December 1967 when a number of newspapers reported that Graham Cole who was by then the owner of a successful car dealing partnership in Croydon had drowned off of a beach in Southern Australia<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I am off shopping do you want anything?<\/i><\/p>\n Nothing I can think of<\/em><\/p>\n I am meeting Justine at Macy\u2019s and we are going to have a coffee together <\/i><\/p>\n Give her my regards<\/i><\/p>\n She hates you <\/i><\/p>\n That is because I married you <\/i><\/p>\n She thinks you are an arrogant shit and that I could have done better <\/i><\/p>\n You married a writer <\/i><\/p>\n A successful writer <\/i><\/p>\n We live in Manhattan <\/i><\/p>\n In a nice apartment <\/i><\/p>\n You have written about all the major bridges in New York <\/i><\/p>\n Thanks to Larry <\/i><\/p>\n I owe him a lot <\/i><\/p>\n If I had not read about him I would have not come to New York and written the book <\/i><\/p>\n And you would have not met me <\/i><\/p>\n I was bi-curious at the time <\/i><\/p>\n I cured you of that <\/i><\/p>\n And now I am just curious <\/i><\/p>\n Curious about the love- lives of my girlfriends <\/i><\/p>\n Would you do me a favour?<\/i><\/p>\n Ok<\/i><\/p>\n Would you pop this into Jerry\u2019s it is my piece about the Buckingham Palace tunnel <\/i><\/p>\n Are they going to publish it? <\/i><\/p>\n In the next edition of Spotlight <\/i><\/p>\n Will that not piss the British Government off? <\/i><\/p>\n You might get fined or even imprisoned after all you do hold a British passport<\/i><\/p>\n I have not written it under my name I have used another name <\/i><\/p>\n What name have you used?<\/i><\/p>\n Larry Donovan <\/i><\/p>\n You see they cannot prosecute a dead man even if they wanted to prosecute someone Especially one who has been dead for one hundred and twenty-nine years \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n Translation <\/b><\/p>\n Whilst he was in Vietnam in 1968 Bobby Schultz was given a copy of The Natural History of<\/i> Selborne <\/i>by the Reverend Gilbert White<\/p>\n He was given this book by a dying peasant who explained that his father had purchased the book in Paris before the war<\/p>\n The book saved the life of Bobby Schultz as it deflected a bullet away from his heart during an ambush some months later<\/p>\n Because of the seriousness of his injuries Bobby was invalided home but he recovered and subsequently translated the book into Vietnamese<\/p>\n Before his recent retirement Bobby Schultz taught in a prestigious university and was recognised as an expert on the Austroasiatic language families<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Larry Donovan Bridge Jumper (1862-1888) I have done two really stupid things in my life which might have endangered my life. The first was when I was thirteen years old and I was dared (and offered money) to climb along the outside of a railway bridge in my home town That was a stupid thing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3239"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3239\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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