Kodak and the Hot Air Balloon

It was a sunny, cold, slow day sometime in 1978 and John Coombes and I sat around our hissing one bar gas fire in our 4th floor little photographic studio in Leeds, upstairs from The Venus Health Studios. Elsewhere the building was semi derelict except for a small Itallian restaurant in the basement.

The Health Studios were run by a tall athletic Canadian called Ken who drove a huge American Chevrolet with fins. It was an unusual place all panneled out with ply-wood and when you walked past it out of breath up the stairs because the lift was broken it smelt of leather, sweat and cheap after-shave unless it was ladies night. No, actually then it smelt the same.

Down below the city traffic roared its way along Wellington street, named not surprisingly after the Duke of Wellington. Sometimes we’d have lunch in the pub named after him, along with the city slickers.

I was telling John the story of how, when I was a child at my rather forbidding private school in Saltburn-by-the-sea the Art master who was a draft dodger from Portugal, ( see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_Colonial_War ) he liked to make hot air balloons. In fact it became a craze and each night we sent up larger and larger craft with spluttering trays of potassium pellets to add to the effect. We watched as they gradually drifted out to sea, Some were huge, two stories high, some crashed and burned which only added to the excitement. This good fun had to come to an end when reports of UFOs started being published in the newspaper and we were investigated. One had fallen in the perimeter of a gas tank at ICI Wilton and no one wanted another massive explosion.

John was enthusiastic and insisted we built one there and then. There wasn’t anything else going on, the old black phone was silent. We got out sellotape, bin liners and a hoop to hold the base open. Before long we had what looked like a giant black condom 20ft long laid out on the bright red painted photo studio floor. I know its an odd colour for a studio floor but that’s another story. Fortunately we didn’t have the kit to light a fire under it, we just used the gas fire and a fan heater and pretty soon it was full of hot air. We opened a sash window high above the city and fed it out.

To our delight and surprise it began to sail out over the street. Like children we watched in wonder as it drifted, lurched and bobbed upwards into the frosty blue. We could see office workers looking out of their windows, hands poised on their Olivettis wondering what this black distraction was but like all great things it was not to be. A gentle breeze drove it back towards us, closer and  closer it came and then shooting upwards it went, catching on the guttering just above its original launch site. Hmmm… what were we to do?

John said it wasn’t a problem, he’d just climb out on the ledge and grab it. I suggested it was rather a long way down and the cars were rather small and we’d only been in business together a short time and the ledge was only suitable for pigeons. He said he’d be fine as long as I held his ankles.

So it was like that I was to be found hanging out of the window holding onto my friends ankles when Keith Trott the Northern United Kingdom representative for Kodak entered the room. Besuited, with flashing polished brown shoes and carrying a brief case he introduced himself and explained he had come with the paper work for us to open an account for our photographic film, paper and chemical supplies.

Turning my head as far round as I could I explained I was just holding onto my business partners ankles, whilst he retrieved a hot air balloon from the roof and I’d be with him in a minute….

Story assistance: John Coombes

Wellington Street photo : Reg Cox