The man who performed the world’s first ever modern-day bungee jump, while wearing a top hat and tails and holding a bottle of champagne, has died aged 78.
David Kirke, one of the pioneers of the Dangerous Sports Club at Oxford University, jumped off Clifton Suspension Bridge on 1 April 1979.
Three other friends leapt off the 245ft (76m) bridge in Bristol connected by elasticated cords after a hang-gliding trip. The quartet were hauled back up by friends and were arrested by police for disturbing the peace and fined £100 each.
Kirke was inspired to carry out the bungee jump by the land-diving ritual carried out on Vanuatu in the South Pacific.
His family described him as “a free spirit”. “He had, and needed, an iron constitution, led from the front and went where many feared to tread. He will be much missed,” they added.
Kirke’s family told the BBC he had “a kind and generous nature” and “made friends in more than 40 countries, enjoyed a glass of wine and would never have changed the life he led”.
After the stunt in 1979, which led to bungee jumping from the suspension bridge being banned under bylaws, the Dangerous Sports Club spread the concept globally by carrying out jumps from structures including the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and the Royal Gorge Suspension Bridge in Colorado. By 1982, the club members were jumping from mobile cranes and hot air balloons.
Kirke said jumping from Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s 150-year-old structure was an “almost beatific moment”. He said the “real reward”, though, was that bungee jumping had made people he would never meet happy and that he had “given them fun”.
Kirke bungee-jumped from the same bridge in 2000, to mark the sport’s 21st anniversary.
The original members of the Dangerous Sports Club were Chris Baker, Kirke and Ed Hulton. Inspired by their work, AJ Hackett developed the sport from 1988 and his home country of New Zealand became its unofficial home.
Kirke went on to try to develop Microlighting and other extreme sports. In 1986, he flew across the Channel tied to a kangaroo-shaped cluster of helium balloons which resulted in him being prosecuted for flying without a pilot’s licence.
He was once fired from an aircraft launcher from a cliff in Ireland, and broke his spine in three places.
