Taking it to the EXTREME

It began as a fad for young, hip kids in search of quick thrills. Now people of all ages, from all walks of life, are getting their kicks out of death-defying extreme sports. For them, life wouldn't be worth living if they didn't spend their weekends jumping out of aeroplanes or diving off bridges. Interest in daredevil pursuits is now so great that more than 100,000 people are expected to join in the UK's first "free adrenaline" sports festival, Max Mania '98, in Manchester's Heaton Park on Saturday. IAN STAFFORD met four enthusiasts - including a skysurfing granny - who would rather do anything than keep their feet firmly on the ground.

DILYS PRICE, SKYSURFER

Dilys Price has been a skydiver for 12 years. Nothing particularly unusual about that, you might think, except for the fact that she's a 66-year- old grandmother - and she's now taking her pursuit one step further by learning to surf...in the air.

Not satisfied with throwing herself out of planes and balloons from great heights, Dilys, from Cardiff, now wants to strap her feet to a surfboard and glide down towards terra firma, riding the clouds on the way.

"I've been taking lessons for the past few weeks now and I'm pretty close to performing my first skysurf," Dilys, a retired dance teacher and grandmother of one, explains.

"Your legs have got to be pretty strong so I've started to jog. It certainly provides a new dimension to skydiving."

All this is said in a very matter-of-fact way. To Dilys, who also likes to dive (underwater), canoe, ski, windsurf and ramble, skydiving is her way of staying young and enjoying life. She sees nothing wrong or extraordinary about the way she chooses to obtain her pleasure.

"Why not?" she asks. "There's no rule against it, is there?

"One of the great thrills of doing this is that it means you can live part of your life on the edge.

"It's good to push yourself, you know. Surviving provides exhilaration. I believe that it takes courage to live well and to grow old. Everyone has a right to lead a rich life, to lead it to the full, and to enjoy a passion."

Dilys's life took a turn skywards 12 years ago.

"I was going through a mid-life crisis at the age of 54. I was divorced, my son had grown up and all I seemed to be doing was working. I thought, 'Is this all there is to life? Am I already sliding slowly into old age?'

"Then a funny thing happened. I dreamt about falling off a castle wall and landing on a springy, feathery surface. I thought my sub- conscious was telling me to get out of my rut. "Skydiving seemed to be the closest thing to my dream. My dance students ran a Saturday morning sports club for disabled children and we needed to raise money, so I completed my first ever skydive, in tandem with an instructor."

It made an instant impact.

"As I stepped forward to the edge of the plane I thought I was going to die. Seconds later I thought, 'Wow, I'm flying'. I experienced such extremes of emotion and I was on such a high, I wanted to do it over and over again."

Since then Dilys has never looked back, or indeed down. She is now a veteran of 725 skydives and, to celebrate her 65th birthday last year, she jumped out of a Hercules plane from 12,000 feet over a Jordanian desert. What, though, do people think of her?

"Some think I'm silly and clearly don't approve," Dilys says, with a chuckle. "Some of my friends worry about me and ask me to stop. And others see me as an example and that one should never be held down by prejudices. My son, Rhys, totally approves. He thinks it's great that I have such fun." One of her best friends, American-born Leslie Herman Jones, who also lives in Cardiff, sees Dilys as an inspiration to others.

"She's opened up my life," Leslie says. "She has a positive attitude towards ageing and I know I'm not alone in saying that she inspires a lot of people.

"Talking to Dilys gives you an incentive to age. Her skydiving seems to empower her, and she's become a role model."

Away from skydiving Dilys leads a full and active life.

"I conduct stress release, shiatsu massage classes, movement classes for the elderly, and I'm also working with the profoundly mentally and physically disabled," she says. "But skydiving and surfing gives me my biggest thrill." And does she intend to carry on throwing herself out of planes for much longer? "Until the day I die," she says. "You see, it's given me a new-found love of life that I thought I had lost at the age of 54.

"Even if I am physically unable to sky dive when I am older, I know I will find another way to enjoy my life. That's what sky- diving has done for me."

LYNNE SPINK,

BRIDGE SWINGER

They call her "Spinkoid from the Planet Zark" at work because she's seen as an eccentric. Lynne Spink translates her way of life differently.

"I'm a non-conformist who believes life's there for living. I like to confront my irrational fears and conquer them."

She chooses to do this by bridge swinging, leaping off railway bridges and viaducts and then swinging her body on a rope through the arches up to 200 feet above the ground.

"You feel trepidation, fear and panic before you push yourself off, and then you experience complete weightlessness," Lynne, 43, from Saxelby near Lincoln, says. "Of course I'm afraid, but I don't give in to it. You've got to open your eyes and throw away life's blinkers. I don't just get an adrenaline rush, I get a tremendous confidence boost as well."

A single mother of two boys, 14-year-old Alex and 10-year-old Josh, Lynne works for the fire brigade as a Commercial Fire Safety Awareness Instructor.

She and her sons entered the world of extreme sport four years ago. "We were on a walking weekend in the Yorkshire Dales when we discovered some people zip-wiring across a gorge (this involves hanging on for dear life as you travel at high speed, suspended from a wire). I told the kids it looked easy, and they dared me to have a go. So I did, and loved it. I got talking to the organiser, Alec Greening, who told me all about the Brigsteer Bridge Swingers in the Lake District, so off we went and did our first bridge swing."

So how does Lynne bridge swing? "You jump off the bridge outwards in a Tarzan-style dive, or climb over the edge and push yourself out backwards using your feet. You are tied to a rope so it's important not to just drop down, but to swing out. It leaves your stomach behind as you swing about a dozen times right up to the level you jumped from."

Alex, can't believe his luck. "My mates think Mum's brilliant," he says. "And so do I. It's great that my brother and I can do the same hobby that she does and get such a thrill out of doing it."

Lynne enjoys seeing her sons swing as much as doing it herself. "I'd never put my sons in danger, but I do like to stretch them."

She laughs: "Besides, when I'm asked what I did at the weekend I love to tell people that I threw myself and my sons off a bridge. You should see the look on their faces!"

LISA RAWSTRON,

BUNGEE JUMPER

Six months ago Lisa Rawstron would have laughed if anyone had suggested to her that she would be spending her weekends bungee jumping. The 18- year-old part-time model, from Rochdale, is even frightened of roller coasters. But all this changed after she volunteered to help out a friend.

"I knew a bungee jumper at British Gas in Manchester, where I work as a billing assistant," Lisa explains. "I told her she was mad, but agreed to do some work for her at her next jump outside a pub in Preston. Everyone kept telling me I should have a go. At first I refused, but the second time I helped out, in Liverpool, I agreed."

Lisa performed a tandem jump with an instructor.

"My stomach was turning, and I was incredibly nervous, but as soon as I'd finished I wanted to do it again. My Mum couldn't believe it when I came home that night and told her the news. All of my friends think I'm bonkers."

Lisa's mother, Ann, 42, is delighted for her daughter, but won't watch her in action.

"It would make my toes curl," Ann admits. "I'm so scared of heights. I think Lisa's very brave, and slightly mad. Once she sets her sights on something she likes to see it through. I'm proud of her, and her Gran thinks it's marvellous." Lisa bungee jumps off cranes. "You're so high you can see for miles around you," she says. "You're not supposed to look down, but you always do. The urge is always too much.

"A safety bar is placed on one side, and a safety harness around your waist and through your legs. An ankle harness is also joined up to the leads linked on to the elastic bungee rope. You stick your toes out, place your hands on either side of the cage, and lean backwards ready to jump.

"The jump master in the cage with you shouts, '3,2,1 Bungee!' and then you do a swallow dive out. That's the worst bit, when your toes are over the edge and you know you're about to dive. That's when the fear and adrenaline really hits you.

"In the two or three seconds it takes you to fall, the ground comes rushing at you, then you bounce back up on the elasticated rope. You bob up and down for about 10 seconds until the crane lowers you to the ground."

Lisa hopes her modelling career will take off. "Right now I'm doing fashion shows, but I'd obviously like it to get bigger," she says.

But whatever may happen career-wise, Lisa knows what her main hobby will be.

"Oh yes," she says, "I'm absolutely hooked on bungee jumping now. I love it, and I'm going to do it forever."

ALAN SMITH, DISABLED ZIP WIRER

At the age of 39, Alan Smith's life changed forever when medical treatment meant he would never walk again. Now, at the age of 57, he has just completed his first ever zip wire - and fully intends to become even more involved in extreme sports.

Alan, from Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, was asked to perform his adrenaline- pumping feat at Coniston in the Lake District, in aid of charity.

"I've been helped a great deal over the past 20 years, so it was good to give something back," he says. "My wheelchair was fastened to a safety harness and I shot across this 200-foot quarry on ropes at some speed. It was scary, especially if you looked down at the water, but also exhilarating. Of course I was worried at first, but there was no way I wasn't going to complete it."

Alan, a former hospital technician, was left disabled when he had an adverse reaction to a drug he was given to treat back pain.

"When I was first put in a wheelchair I thought my life was over," he admits. "It took two years for me to get over my misfortune and come to terms with the reality of my situation." When he was 49 Alan started to play wheelchair basketball for a newly-established club called the Furness Falcons. Since then, ironically, he has been more active than ever. "I'm now the player-coach, captain and treasurer of the club," he says. "In fact, I go all over the place playing sport. I was part of the doubles team that won the Tennis Cup at the Bath And West Show, as well as the Basketball Cup, and I also go bowling. Now I think I'm lucky."

But zip-wiring is something else. "I used to go abseiling when I was in the Army," Alan recalls. "And when I was first asked to participate at Coniston I was under the impression I would be abseiling. When they told me I'd be zip-wiring I agreed because I fancied the challenge."

His wife, Pauline, couldn't bring herself to watch. "I'm terrible with heights," she says. "And I do think he's still a big kid. It's just that his toys get bigger and bolder every year. But someone like Alan has a choice. You either have no life, or you get on with it, and Alan's chosen the latter."

Their children Deborah, 29, Paula, 28, and Wendy, 26, stand divided. "Deborah thinks I'm a nutter, Wendy is unsure, and Paula tells me to go for it," Alan says. "To me there's no debate. Now I've discovered these sports, I intend to carry on living life to the full."

Copyright 1998 MGN LTD
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.