I spotted a woman’s head and rushed over until I could see the rest of her. She was sitting about 8 ft below Maggie’s cross, just at the point where the cliff curves away to a vertical drop. It is such a steep slope – about 70 degrees – that I could hardly believe she had managed to get so far down without slipping away. Immediately, I was petrified. There was no way I could lurch for her, no way I could pull her back. She was so precariously balanced that any movement would send her flying – and me too. More to the point, I would have to climb down to get to her. At first, all I could do was talk, and I didn’t want to scare her. I started off by saying ‘Hello’ very, very quietly.
She turned her head very slowly and I could see she was petrified too. There was no time for explaining who I was.
‘You’re not thinking of jumping are you, darling?’ I said softly.
‘I was going to,’ she said, her voice wavering, ‘but I thought of my children and changed my mind. I can’t get back.’
She was trapped. She may have changed her mind about dying, but whether she wanted to or not I could tell there was a good chance she was about to. I could see her bottom begin to lose its purchase on the chalk – it was leaving a little track behind her. Very slowly, she was sliding away. There was only one thing for it: I’d have to go down and try to bring her back.
‘I’m going to come and get you,’ I said. ‘Just keep as still as you can. We need to try and stop the sliding.’
I walked down as far as I could, then sat down and began to slide myself gently down the cliff. Any sudden movement and I’d be gone. It must have taken just a couple of minutes for me to reach her, but it seemed like an eternity. ‘Don’t worry, sweetheart,’ I said when I got to her. ‘I’m with you now. Here’s what I want you to do. When I tell you to, I want you to lock your arm into mine. You’re not going to fall, I promise.’
That was a complete and utter lie – we were so far down that I could see the waves lapping at the shore a few hundred feet below and the chalk we were sitting on was far from stable. I could feel myself beginning to slide.
I gave her the instruction to lock arms with me, which she did. She was very nervous – almost hysterical with fear – and even though I was desperate for us to get away from the edge, I needed her to regain some composure first.
‘Now, I want you to take some deep breaths and try to calm down a little,’ I said, holding her tight. She did as instructed and after a minute or so she seemed to have steadied her mind a little.
‘When I say go, you’re going to move your left buttock up, back and down again, and then do the same with your right buttock. I’m going to do the same – it’s very important that we do this together while we hold on to each other. OK?’
She nodded.
I tried to dig my heels in to the chalk, but they slipped over it; very slowly, I twisted my legs so that the sides of my shoes were pressing into it. I managed to get a tiny, yet vital grip on the cliff face, and instructed her to copy me. It was time to try and move.
‘Go!’ I said.
Cheek by cheek, we retreated from the edge. With every tiny movement, we advanced closer to the safety of the grass. Little by little, I began to feel a little more at ease. By the time we were clear of the chalk and I knew we weren’t going to die, it felt as if half an hour had passed. In reality, our bum shuffling probably only took around five minutes, but it was one of the most intense five minutes of my life. I hauled the woman on to the grass, grabbed her arm and told her it was safe to stand up and walk.
‘Well, I’m certainly glad that’s over,’ I sighed, smiling, once we got back to the top. We hugged each other, and I looked over her shoulder to where we had been sitting only minutes ago. It was only then that I realised exactly how much danger we’d been in. Put simply, I nearly crapped myself!
A chaplain came over to us. The woman had told me she was in financial difficulty and I hoped they would offer her some help. I was shocked at their opening words.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ one of them shouted. ‘You could have killed her!’ Killed her? She was about to die, there hadn’t been a moment to lose. The rant continued before I had a chance to reply. ‘You should not have gone down there. You should have called the coastguards to save her. You could have killed her, and you could have killed yourself!’
I was truly gobsmacked. It took me a few moments to appreciate just how insane these comments were. Health and Safety rules and regulations had obviously burrowed themselves deep into this man’s head. That’s why he was telling me that I should have called the coastguard. The rules state that harnesses are required for anyone trying to save someone. Following the rules, though, would have meant the woman who was standing safely by my side would have been long gone by now.
‘If I’d have called the coastguard it would have taken 20 minutes for them to arrive, and even longer for them to harness themselves up and make sure they were safe enough to perform the rescue. This woman had about two minutes…’
‘That’s no excuse. Under no circumstances should you put lives at risk!’
What bizarre logic. If I want to put my life at risk, that’s my problem, I thought. ‘Well, if that’s your way of doing things, fine!’ I shouted. ‘It’s not mine. I’m proud of what I’ve just done. I’ve saved a life and all you can do is wave the book at me. Well you’ve got a rotten, stinking problem and there’s something dreadfully wrong with you!’
It’s difficult to describe how livid I was. I was being accused of nearly killing a woman whom I’d just saved, and it felt like madness. Standing there with that chaplain, I wanted to grab hold of him, shake him and scream, ‘Have you got any fucking common sense? Don’t you think life is more important the Health and bloody Safety regulations?’ What would he have done if faced with a woman who had two minutes to live? Said a little prayer for her as she slid to her death? Would he have comforted himself with the thought that God would look after her in the next life and would he have gone home happy that he hadn’t broken the rules? If that was Christianity, he could stick it.
But I didn’t do any of those things. I left the woman with the chaplains and walked away. There was no point in wasting my breath.
I was cross and deeply disappointed. All I’ve ever wanted to do at Beachy Head is save lives. I appreciate that every society needs rules, but life isn’t always black and white. There are some moments when you have to buck the trend and break the rules for the sake of pure logic, to be able to get the job done. Sometimes, you have to forget about Health and Safety and put your life on the line. I didn’t flout the rules for the sake of breaking them. I flouted them because I had no choice. Moreover, in my view, a rule that tells someone they can’t take a risk to save someone else is a pretty dumb rule in the first place. There are good rules and there are bad ones. Some aspects of Health and Safety law make sense, while others are just a lot of twaddle.
The incident had left me feeling distraught, and as I drove home to Val I began to think that my time at Beachy Head might be about to come to an end. I’d been snubbed, sworn at and accused of contributing to suicide rates at Beachy Head. I’d been reprimanded for ignoring Health and Safety rules and now, to top it all off, just after saving someone I was being accused of nearly killing her. I didn’t know how much more I could endure. I felt that despite my best efforts, despite three years of commitment and numerous saves, I was being brushed aside as a nuisance. I was exhausted.
After talking to Val about it all, I came to a decision. I wouldn’t stop my patrols, but I’d cut back. I wasn’t going up to Beachy Head in order to be insulted, so I decided I would only go up there when I knew I’d be alone. I would continue with my early morning patrol, but that would be it.
I stopped patrolling during the afternoon and evening – I left that to the chaplains. It made me immensely sad to have to do this, but I had to protect myself from confrontation. Were it not for the animosity I had encountered from some individuals, I’d probably still be patrolling today. But fate dealt me another card. I’d saved a woman and been lambasted for it – it was the final straw.
I also decided it was time to close down the charity. I called an Extraordinary General Meeting and explained to the trustees that I felt it was time to wrap things up. I was immensely sad, but I knew I couldn’t go on like this. Closing the charity made me feel that I was closing off the memory of Maggie, but several people pointed out that her name would always live on – and that her name had raised a lot of money and increased awareness of Beachy Head and its problems. I hadn’t managed to achieve 24-hour cover, but I’d saved many lives, I’d raised lots of money; put simply, I’d done all that I could. I’d worked hard and now it was all coming to an end. It was something I had no choice but to accept.
I made a statement to the press to explain that I was cutting back on my patrols and closing the charity. Afterwards, Val and I flew off to Spain. We both needed a break and wanted to avoid the barrage of phone calls that would inevitably follow my statement.
The phone calls came, but I ignored most of the requests for interviews. However, when I received a message from Tonight With Trevor McDonald, I was intrigued. A recent news item at the time had highlighted the case of two police community support officers (PCSOs) who had been present when a boy had drowned, but had been powerless to save him. In light of this, Trevor McDonald and his team were making a programme about whether or not Health and Safety laws were actually leading to the deaths of innocent people. My battle up at Beachy Head had been reported in the press, so they wanted me to go on the show to discuss how the laws had impacted upon me and to hear my opinion.
I felt honoured to be asked on the show and agreed to fly back from Spain for the interview. It was a wild 24 hours. I flew back at night, met the McDonald film crew at 7 am the following morning, did the interviews and was back on a plane by mid-afternoon! I was asked if I thought Health and Safety laws were too heavy handed, and – as you can probably guess – my reply was a resolute ‘Yes!’
It’s a sad state of affairs – one human being is prevented from helping another because of the law that says they need appropriate training or a rope tied around their waist.