With a final lurch we rounded a bend on a ridge which seemed no wider than the truck. At the top of the mountain was a solitary concrete building, a primitive loo, a bulldozer and a bored soldier with a gun.
We piled out of the vehicle and the Turks started to unfurl some very flimsy pieces of canvas.
Earlier we had (while still at sea level, and feeling relaxed warm and safe) succumbed to the allure of soaring like a bird. Then it seemed a good idea. Then, we were reassured by the representative that they had not had a single accident this season (a little cautious when you think about it. What about last season and the one before?), and that the operation was fully insured by a reputable English insurance company. Then we had not been on the mountain passes, seen the bulldozer or the soldier with a gun.
Now it all ran counter to advice we would give clients. Now straps were being applied to our legs and leather thongs wound round our waists. Now there was a steep slope in front of us which ended in nothingness in twenty five yards. Now we were being strapped to a Turk with a proximity and intensive use of leather one expects to see only in unusual solicitors' offices.
Now we were being told to wait till the wind got up, and to be prepared to run like crazy.
"You see," said Selim to whom I was unwillingly bonded, "we have to take off like any plane. You need forward motion or you fall." Now it was little consolation that he would fall too if I did not run hard enough.
Now there was a whoosh, and some shouting in Turkish. Did I just imagine it, or was the soldier now pointing his gun?
Everything in me wanted to go back, to sit at my desk in the office and not annoy anyone, not even judges, for the rest of my life. But to do so would have shown cowardice. And would have involved a return journey along the mountain tracks. And how would the soldier with the gun have reacted?

Up up and away
Like a mouse picked up by its tail my feet were still running long after I had been yanked into the air. In the rush I nearly lost a shoe. It was several minutes before I felt safe enough to reach down and slip it back on.
It took many more minutes before I was confident that I was not going to plummet to the earth onto the rocks hundreds of feet below me.
We had seen the parachutes a few days earlier. From a distance they looked like flying toe nail clippings _ little curved shapes in the sky. But nail clippings do not take wing and wheel like birds.
"Never in a month of Sundays....." I thought to myself. But it was my birthday and SHE felt I needed to rise above it all. Besides, the day was Saturday.

What goes up must go further up
"We go up" announced Selim. That did not seem to be necessary. The world was already tiny beneath my feet. I was more interested in finding the shortest and safest way down. Until then I had thought that the real characteristic of parachutes was that they would deliver you gently to earth if your plane crashed or you found some other reason to be hundreds of feet above the ground. Nobody had told me about thermals and updrafts. Like eagles we gently circled until even our mountain was small below us. We were now high enough to encounter aeroplanes and large birds with big beaks and ugly faces.
Just when I thought we were going to go into orbit, we stopped turning and seemed to float motionless. Suddenly Selim started to struggle. My heart sank, even though the parachute did not. Was he dying behind me? What could I do if he was?
We lurched to the left, and then to the right. Then all of a sudden a hairy arm appeared in front of me. To the arm was attached a small video camera.
"You smile!" he commanded. I was not about to disobey. I smiled and smiled to keep him happy. I smiled at the ground to stop it rushing up at me. I smiled at the wind to stop it blowing the parachute inside out. I smiled at the miniature houses beneath and the toy cars and clockwork people as they slowly grew metamorphosed into the real world. I smiled at the sea which we suddenly started to swoop over, and I smiled at the beach which we effortlessly landed on, depositing me in a papal position ready to kiss the ground.
"Was it fun?" she asked. "Yes" I smiled. And having been through that experience I shall never be scared of a Master or judge again. I shall just smile, rise ten thousand feet above the court room and disguise myself as a toe nail clipping.

This article first appeared in Solicitors Journal in July 1998