That gave rise to a top-downwards approach which would at least avoid the need for scaffolding. We devised and built a sort of cradle or gondola which would be suspended from the top of the tower and would rest partly on the ledge eight feet below. The unsupported rear of the gondola would just have to hang out over the edge - secured by chains and steel ropes at five separate points so quite safe, if scary at first. Six months later it felt like a second home.
Everybody was happy about that - at its most heavily loaded it held me, George Clarke and a cameraman.
The Gondola's name was symbolic - GORDON. A reference to a then recent Prime Minister who was a safe(ish) pair of hands but who hung around for too long. Gordon the Gondola suited the need in name and in longevity.
Here is the then nameless Gordon the Gondola under construction:
and in action
We still have Gordon the Gondola but I am on a three-line-whip not to use it, or else . . . .
Today's somewhat overdue news prompts me to wonder if, had we been doing the tower now, the gondola might have had to be named THERESA? May be not.
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