Anchor Man 
2003 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance
ick was helping Ken (my Dad) move his young family from a 4th-storey flat to its new house accross the road. The two healthy young policemen were finding the early 1960s appliances quite heavy, but luckily were lateral thinkers.
The building had a flat roof. Why not lower items off the landing using a rope rather than walk down all those external stairs? Mick, at 6'5" and 19 stone (300 lbs) was the natural anchor man (rope tied around waist), while Ken controlled the speed of the rope with his hands, bracing himself at the edge of the roof with his foot on the low wall. The item in question was a refrigerator.
Surprisingly enough, speed nevertheless built up and the rope began to burn Ken's hands. He finally had to release it, and turned to see Mick racing across the roof towards him (and the edge) at previously unseen speed (presumably around 8.9 metres per second) screaming profanities (as policemen do) and tearing out the ventillation pipes as he tried to grab them to slow himself down.
Did anyone think to measure the length of the rope? I doubt it. Each time Ken tells the tale, he cries with laughter - meaning that the fridge's progress was arrested by the last landing, so that Mick stopped a few feet short of a Darwin Award.
Submitted on 02/13/02
Submitted by:
Steve Armitage
Reference:
Personal Account
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