Stunts
Boy Saves Grandfather as Underwater Stunt Goes Wrong. The Great Omanii, escapologist attempts a dangerous underwater escape in a Brighton swimming pool. Omanii, known to his friends as Ron Cunningham, was bound and chained to a chair and lowered into 4 metres of water. He should have been free in 90 seconds but when he failed to emerge his 13-year-old grandson Michael Carew grabbed a knife and dived in to rescue his 65-year-old grandfather. "I was determined to do the stunt because it represents such a challenge. I told Mickey I'd be free in just over a minute but one of the ropes expanded and wouldn't budge. It’s a trick Houdini would not touch because of the danger”.
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Britain’s Youngest Stuntman. Eight-year-old Tom Paynton, Britain’s youngest stuntman, is encouraged by his father Eric as he practises on a bed of nails.
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Human Cannonball who was too Fat to Fly. Stuntman Steve Smith proved too fat for the cannon that was supposed to be firing him across a lake. As a result, the barrel exploded him sending both it and him into the water. He was unhurt much to the relief of stunt organiser Joe Weston-Web. Photographed 1972.
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Car Flops Rather than Flies Across River. Stunt driver Oscar Mason was supposed to fly the car over a river in the Midlands (UK) but failed to achieve sufficient speed due to the wet ground. Fisherman Bill Johnston had been persuaded to tie up his boat in mid-stream so that the car could be photographed flying over it. Instead it touched down within inches of the boat as Bill flung himself into the river to escape. Oscar was unhurt but, as he stood on the roof of his car that was floating downstream, a furious Bill clambered aboard and delivered a punch to the jaw that sent Oscar flying. Oscar was one of the amazing Destruction Squad team of daredevil drivers and - as he told me in a recent e-mail"...did many stunts for Joe until the accident - then my parents said, no more."
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Stuntman Dies. Stunt performer John Bell, aged 23, died before hundreds on onlookers at Arlington Stadium near Eastbourne when a stunt went disastrously wrong. The stuntman was being towed behind a car on a wooden sledge when, as part of the stunt, he fell off and was towed along on his back with the announcer screaming at the driver to stop. In fact, he was in no danger at all since beneath his tracksuit John's body was protected by an inch of leather. Unfortunately one of the onlookers, believing the man was in genuine danger, scrambled through two safety barriers and ran out in front of the car to try and stop it. The driver had no option but to swerve to avoid him. John, on the end of a long cable, was flung into the safety fence as the car swerved and broke his back. He was dead before he arrived in hospital. Photographed in 1972.
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Destruction Squad – 1969 – 1975. Led by a former Harrow School student called Joe Weston-Webb the men and women who formed his team of drivers and human cannonballs in the six years I photographed them, were prepared to perform hair raising stunts calculated to make a Health and Safety officer’s hair go white from shock. Yet behind the seeming madcap stunts there was careful preparation for both vehicles and performers. Joe even set up a ‘school’ for stunt performers (see pictures) in which people were taught how to crash cars, jump from buildings and generally create mayhem.
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The Mad Bombers of Denham. Tiger Moth enthusiasts hit on a new way of having fun – by dropping smoke bombs on one another. One played the hunted, racing across the fields and pursued by a bi-plane on which another dare devil wing walked to hurl the rocket like missile at him. Photographed 1973.
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Cannonball Girl Loses her Pants. Liza Knight, an 18-year-old stunt performer from Leicester, felt quite a draught after being shot from a cannon during a rehearsal. A jagged piece of metal in the barrel of the giant gun had snagged her pants and ripped them and her track-suit bottom to shreds. Photographed in 1973.
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Sue, 23, one of a team of all girl stunt riders attempted to driver her motorbike through a twenty-foot long tunnel of fire. Wearing only a T-shirt and Hot Pants she entered the tunnel at 60 mph and emerged a few seconds later with both her motorbike and her pants on fire. Stunt arranger Joe Weston-Webb rapidly doused the flames with a bucket of water and Sue was left unharmed but with both her pants and her dignity in tatters.
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Stunt Birds. A team of 14 girls created by showman Joe Weston Webb for his touring stunt shows. The girls specialised in motorbike stunts, but could also turn their hand to crashing cars and being fired from a cannon. Photographed between 1970 – 1975.
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Superstitious stuntman Eddie Merton always slept in a coffin the night before a dangerous stunt. Photo 1971
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Flying Car. This was very much a Joe Weston Webb special. He had fitted out an old Ford Popular with wings and a tail plane, then persuaded a stunt driver to shoot it over a water filled quarry in the expectation of creating the world’s first flying family saloon. Not surprisingly the vehicle plunged from the sky and disappeared beneath the surface. Fortunately stunt driver Dave Brookland, from Destruction Squad, had been provided with a bottle of compressed air and a breathing mask. Just as well since he was trapped underwater for more than half an hour before a team of divers – on standby just in case – was able to haul him from the mangled wrecked and bring him, unharmed, to the surface. The assignment, for Life magazine, presented a number of technical difficulties. For one thing the driver’s seat had to be lowered to prevent the bolts that held the wings in place from going through his head – despite the fact he was wearing a full racing harness and crash helmet. In this position he was unable to see the jumping ramps. To get around this small difficulty the resourceful Joe planted two long sticks at each end of the ramp and the driver simply aimed his car at those to stay on track. One can be seen flying through the air just beneath the saloon. If he had missed the ramps the car would be plunged down the steep side of the quarry. As it was the ramps took him several yards clear. Photographically it was something of a nightmare. The Saturday scheduled for the stunt was wet and bleak with the rocks behind the car black painted car being an even deeper black, the lack of contrast and low light levels made it very hard to shoot at sufficient speed to capture the moment of take off and landing. By the time the whole team– including the divers, mechanics, medical and rescue specialists and labourers – were assembled and the jumping ramps positioned, the rain had changed from a steady drizzle to a downpour and light was fading rapidly. There was no way I could get the pictures that were the whole purpose of the stunt. Reluctantly I was compelled to ask for a postponement. The following day the weather was only marginally better and another problem had arisen. It was essential that the photographs be exclusive and so the whole operation had been kept a closely guarded secret. By Sunday morning, however, the word had got out and when we arrived at the quarry the lane outside was packed with photographers. Since the land was private we could ban them from the quarry and this, aided by some fairly sturdy looking crew members we did. However there was no way we could prevent them taking long lens shots from the public highway. Any pictures they obtained in this way would not have been very good, but they would have been sufficient to ruin the exclusive. Joe compromised by allowing one TV cameraman (you can see him filming beside Joe the edge of the quarry) onto the site. The others were deal with by the simple, if ruthless, expedient of positioning a dozen of the tallest crew alongside the quarry side of the lane with blankets. As the car hit the jumping ramps at 60 mph they all jumped into the air and completely blocked the view of the rival photographers. I felt a bit bad about it – but it was war! For the technically minded the pictures were taken with a Nikon F2 camera fitted with a 135mm lens using Tri-X film and an exposure of 250th second at f3.5. The films was developed to boost the contrast.
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