High flier RNLI Governor, Barrie Simpson- Wells marked his 65th birthday with an Alpine paraglider flight for charity.

The flight from the 7,500ft Plan d'Aiguille, filmed by a camera crew with radio instructions to keep him in sight, left Barrie short of the landing field in increasing wind, so he diverted under radio guidance to a field to the South.

This course also looked to be a long shot when radio instructions told him he would not be able to reach the field and should look for a clearing in the woods. Many a lowairtime pilot would have panicked at this but Barrie, keeping his nerve, put down between two moving cars on a residential road! A cool French driver promptly wound down his window and exclaimed, 'Bonjour Monsieur!'.

In January, following the film show of his flight, Barrie presented cheques for a total of £1,300 to the RNLI and Marie Curie Hospice in Penarth..