Local funeral directors from Coventry Road, Yardley, Jordan Rhys and Paul Edgcumbe were a sight to behold, in full mourning dress as I witnessed them abseil down the side of Haddon Tower in Lea Bank, Birmingham, doing their bit for the tsunami appeal. They scaled down the tower all 250 feet of it! Together with staff from the Equator Bar, Hurst Street, Optima Housing Association and Focus Housing from Birmingham. In total, 13 brave souls successfully completed the challenge.

I asked Jordan Rhys how Paul and himself got involved, Jordan said, “as funeral directors we are used to having to deal with the devastation that death causes when it takes its natural course, but we were particularly struck by the sheer number of young lives that will never reach their full potential. We were so moved we had to do something for the young people in particular that survived but had their whole families and communities wrenched from them. We in the UK are fortunate that we are not often struck by natural disaster and it seemed all the more incomprehensible that something of this scale could happen in such a beautiful part of the world. Paul and myself are thrilled we completed the abseil for such a worthy cause, my mother, who was from Cork, God Bless her, would have been proud of me!”.

I asked when the next abseil was arranged for, he said, “I think we will give the abseiling a break for now, maybe it will be a parachute jump the next time”, a slightly tongue in cheek comment, but I wouldn’t put it past them!