When 22-year-old Rudi Omankowsky announced he was going to put a hood over his head and walk a high wire across the Cheddar Gorge without a safety net, people thought he was either mad or a genius.
It was an extraordinary challenge that no one had attempted before, but the bold Czech-born acrobat was determined to attempt the feat. A member of a continental troupe called Les Diables Blancs - the White Devils - Rudi and his team had been taking part in a variety show at Goram Fair, Whitchurch Airfield, Bristol in 1959, when heard about the deep limestone ravine nearby.
He had apparently looked into performing the stunt over the Avon Gorge, but was refused permission. However the police made no objection to the Cheddar venue and landowners the Marquis of Bath, the National Trust and the Bristol Waterworks Company also gave their approval.
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A crowd of 20,000 people flocked to watch the spectacle on September 12, 1959, causing traffic chaos in the area. It was the climax to nerve-wracking preparations for Rudi and the White Devils team.
Two days earlier they discovered their own wire was too short to span the valley, even though they had used it to cross major ravines all over France and Germany.
They had to get one urgently from a Bristol firm, but this new cable was protected by a thick layer of grease to stop it from rusting. Rudi led the team across the wire with a cleaning cloth, but it made little difference. After a public appeal, Bristol University supplied litres of special cleaning fluid, but even that couldn’t disperse all the grease.
For his trial walk on the first Saturday, Rudi wore six pairs of thick socks, taking off a pair at a time as it became too greasy. Almost safely across the wire sloped upwards and he kept slipping. He had to hold out his balancing pole so a member of the troupe could grab it and help him to cross the last 20ft or so.
Before changing for his grand performance the following day, the acrobat spent eight hours on a sling underneath the wire, refusing food and drink, then insisted on carrying out his challenge in spite of the dangerous state of the cable and a blustery cross-wind.
At one point he slipped and the crowd gasped in unison, hearts in mouths. Rudi crashed down with one leg each side of the wire and for 10 seconds he was seen sprawled forwards, clutching his balance pole. Then he moved to a kneeling position before rising back to his feet and completing the walk in his bare feet. It took him 21 minutes to cross the gorge.
He later told journalists: “The height didn’t bother me. It was the grease and the fact that I was very tired. The Cheddar Gorge had never been crossed before. It was a challenge I couldn’t resist.
It was clearly such a memorable experience that Rudi chose to do it all again two years later in 1961 with a cable weighing 700lb that took four days to erect. This time the crowd, who had travelled from all over the Westcountry, was estimated at 30,000 with people arriving up to three hours early to secure a good view of the feat taking place high above their heads.
Local newspaper reports from the time say that some spectators walked four miles to get to the show, after parking at the top of the gorge. Rudi donned his red blindfold and stepped out onto the wire, stopping halfway to salute the crowd. There were no reports of greasy wires on this occasion but Rudi once again slipped a little further along, catching the tightrope between his legs, perhaps this time for dramatic effect.
A voice came over the loudspeaker saying: “He is fighting for his life. Only a split-second reaction could have saved him.” Rudi quickly completed the course and was soon down on the ground signing hundreds of autographs and posing for photos.
The following night he repeated the stunt without the blindfold - a task he said he found much more difficult - while troupe members Roger and Berti Deguges took to the wire on an adapted motorcycle with a trapeze slung under it. All the excitement became a bit too much for some people. The local St John Ambulance Brigade said its volunteers were kept busy with people who had “fainted with fright”.
Rudi was already a big circus star in France and his career went from strength to strength after that, not only as a performer but also as a teacher of young daredevils. He was portrayed by Sir Ben Kingsley in the 2015 film The Walk, as Papa Rudy, mentor to young tightrope walker Philippe Petit who walked between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in 1974.
For more stunning images from the past have a look at memorylane.co.uk and see what you can discover
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