Highs and highers

I hit 'stop' and then  'open' and the doors to the lift open to reveal a bare brick wall in between floors. This is the hardest bit, not laughing our heads off right now, holding it in and keeping it cool as the poor 'victim' of Stokes' and my lift prank get the full works. I close the door again and send us up on our way to their desired floor, usually stopping at the one below or above to complete the illusion that the lift is in fact broken and that there are not two sniggering, snorting, shaking with the hilarity of it all teenagers just a few feet above, sitting on top of the lift after breaking into the shaft and controlling everything with the emergency buttons! 

It's the funniest thing in the world to us at the time as we can hear and catch glimpses of the confused and bewildered lift passengers. Some of the conversations are priceless although we do ease off and get the passenger to their destination floor if they get too freaked out!

It's got to be 1988, so I'm 15, I'm at Campion high school (occasionally) and my best buddy/adopted brother and me are having a wail of a time. We're living in a council flat in Lillington, Leamington Spa and it's we because Stokes has again been kicked out by his parents and so he's here for now, until further notice. The flat is Ashton Court and sits as the first point of a triangle of high rise council blocks with ours and Southern court being the smaller blocks and the 15 storey Eden court dominating the skyline.

Ashton and Southern left, Eden right.

From here it's a 2 mile walk to school, it's no wonder I didn't get there too often! It is though only a lift ride to the top floor and we've broken the seal that leads out onto the roof and also gives access to the lift shaft. It's a fascinating place to be though and the workings inside are something to behold. I love the way the weights fly up as you go down and come zooming past again, never far from decapitating you, as you come back up. It's a double lift shaft running up through the building and we are the masters of control. Practicing our moves until they are so smooth we think that no one will ever suspect. 

We came up first on a windy day. This is back when I didn't have a fear of heights, there was a 10 year or so period when I could take on any height. The lift shaft hut was right there in front of us, inviting us to take a look and I don't think it was even locked so we just went in and watched the 2 lifts running up and down, the weights counter balancing. We soon got a feel for how it all worked and confidence grew. It's far from a safe environment for teenagers but we didn't just charge in, always better to suss it out first as to be fair, it was pretty scary. 

Then, of course, it developed. There's about 3-4 foot to spare at the top of a lift shaft when the carrier reaches the top, we watch it ride all the way up at least 5 times to be sure but still nearly shit ourselves the first time we sit on it and it comes all the way up. A little practice with the controls when the lift was empty and sat in silence when it had passengers. As soon as we knew what we were doing though we let the fun commence, and it is funny, even now at 40 i still think it was a great prank! 

There was a time when a guy waited for us, stalking the roof exit till he saw us climbing down and chasing us off and out of the building so we were obviously not 'that' quiet! Next time you're in a lift and it starts playing up you might just have found out why!!

I can't stand heights now, I wince at the thought! I couldn't when I was younger either, I remember hassling my Dad for ages and ages to go to Alton towers and go on the roller coaster, getting there and taking one look at it and then bursting into tears "no way am I going on that"! 

Right now though, in this time of lift chaos, heights are great fun. We originally came up because it was really windy and if we lifted our coats up over our heads, arms aloft so that the back of them formed a kind of sail we would see how far the wind would blow us, competing for the best bit of 'dragging'... I know, 10 stories up!! 

The games develops though as we look across to Eden court, the big daddy of the 3 and we resolve to have a crack at getting on top of that one. And then it becomes a challenge to get onto any roof, anywhere and anytime. It's quite remarkable how crap security is for roofs. Generally there's just a rusty old padlock that with one quick snap using a screwdriver or any strong bit of metal that fits through the gap will easily give way. 

About 8 years after this me and Stokes got pissed up in Harlech and took on the challenge of the castle, making it up to the highest tower after a colossal struggle with a stubborn padlock, mind you we only had rocks for that one! I'm pretty sure if we got drunk together tomorrow there'd be a challenge put down and we'd start looking around for things to climb!