This is a memory from about 16 years ago and is based on what I remember and reports from various sources.
Hot air balloons were a regular summer sight here at Swanton Farm. They often took off from Broome Park, which is only a couple of miles North of here. For several years we’d watched dozens of them pass over on cross channel balloon flights. The last one in 1993 ran into a problem with the weather.

The lead ‘spotter’ balloons took off in a steady NNWesterly breeze, on a bright sunny morning with some high level cloud. Once they were safely airborne and heading for the coast, they radioed the ‘all clear’ for the rest of the fleet of about thirty to take off. As the spotters neared the coast between Dover and Folkestone, they discovered that the wind was now blowing more Northerly, which would send them down towards Spain, or they could miss landfall completely. An urgent radio message was sent to all balloons to abandon the flight immediately.

Unfortunately most of them had already lifted off and we could see many of them approaching the farm. We guessed something wasn’t quite right, as most of them were far lower than normal. A couple touched the ground as they came towards the farm. We watched a dark red one land very close to woodland half a mile away and another one narrowly missed hitting a car as it passed over Swanton Lane.

An old school friend was a passenger on one balloon that passed right overhead, brushing through the top of an old pear tree a few yards from the barn. We could hear his colourful language as he pleaded and shouted at the pilot to ‘Get this blanking thing down!’ They landed safely in the next field and my friend wasn’t too put off as he later bought his own balloon but told me he would always stay well clear of ‘that blue stuff.’ Two more landed a little further on in the valley where we had sheep grazing. They narrowly missed high tension cables and a colleague and I led the follow up crew down to retrieve them.

We later read that one had dislodged a chimney pot in nearby Alkham village but they all eventually landed safely. Sadly this was the last time we saw a mass balloon flight, now just the occasional loner on Summer evenings.







There are a few more photos here:

http://s647.photobucket.com/albums/u...Colon/?start=0



















http://s647.photobucket.com/albums/uu200/Fred_Colon/


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