The first aerial crossing of the English Channel was achieved on 7th January 1785 by the famous French pilot Jean-Pierre Blanchard and the American Dr John Jeffries, who paid for the venture. The journey started in an atmosphere of highly strained personal relationships, continued in most hazardous fashion and ended in extreme discomfort. Blanchard “a petulant little fellow, not many inches over five feet and physically well suited for vapourish regions” tried to trick Dr Jeffries out of the journey by concealing a lead belt under his clothes and pretending that the hydrogen balloon would only lift one person, a tense state of affairs only settled by the personal intervention of the Governor of Dover Castle, from near which the voyage was to start. When they finally became airborne they were transporting a strange assortment of goods including a barometer (necessary for height recording) a compass, thirty pounds of sand ballast, flags, anchors, cork life jackets, a packet of pamphlets, a bottle of brandy, some biscuits, apples, two useless silk covered aerial oars and Blanchard’s “moulinet” (or revolving fan) which was equally useless, as was also a rudder he had fixed to the car. The actual crossing was a hectic affair and the balloon – so we believe today – was both leaky and badly piloted. Their sand ballast was soon expended and so overboard went all their cargo and fittings, until nothing movable remained except their cork life jackets, which they dared not jettison. So they flung off their coats. Then Blanchard panicked, tore off his trousers – it was a cold January day and sent them over the side too. The wretched balloon slowly went into an up-run and the aeronauts knew they were safe at last. They were deposited cold and discomfited amongst the treetops of the forest of Guines near Calais. After this ordeal their morale was duly raised when they were welcomed into the city as hero’s – which indeed they were. A monument still stands in the forest to mark the end of this successful, but perilous, journey.