St Leonards resident John, 87 takes a parachute jump in memory of late wife

John Harris with late wife Joyce SUS-190416-144734001

Daredevil John, who lives in St Leonards on Sea successfully completed a tandem skydive last Thursday (April 11).

He was jumping and fundraising in honour of his beloved wife Joyce, who had Alzheimer’s disease, and died last year.

John says that despite never having done anything similar, he was unperturbed by the jump. “It was a great experience,” he said.

John Harris, 87 on his tandem sky dive SUS-190416-144724001

“I wasn’t scared.”

John vividly recalls the moment he stepped out of the plane. “We kick off, tumble over, arms out and start to descend at a very fast rate.

“In 30 seconds we fall 7,000 feet – that’s 233 feet per second.

“The noise is tremendous, the rush of air, and it’s very cold.

“Thirty seconds seemed to go on longer than that!”

During the once-in-a-lifetime experience John said his late wife Joyce was never far from his thoughts.

“You’re told that you should shout, in order to make yourself breathe while you’re falling.

“So I yelled at my dear wife Joyce – for the first time ever – telling her what I was doing and why.

“I felt that after our 50 years of happy marriage and she did so much for me, it was my turn to do something in memory of her.”

John said if Joyce had been there to witness the skydive she would probably say something like: ‘Silly old fool, what’s he doing now?’, but she would actually have been very proud of him.

To date John has raised an impressive £3,000.

To donate visit: https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/JohnHarris49