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Many years ago in the City of Derby, as it was then, the population became engulfed in a great craze, which spread through the city like wildfire. The craze began when a young man, searching for an activity with which to impress his friends, found a length of discarded rope. He suspended one end of the rope to the upstairs window of a suitable building and the other end to the trunk of a tree some distance away and slid with great celebration down the rope. His friends were impressed, so much so, that they quickly found other sites to perform similar feats of great daring and courage. Others took up the challenge sliding down on boards, even standing up, playing trumpets and even firing guns to entertain the gathering crowds.

One evening there arrived in the town a showman, whose name is now forgotten, who thought he could make some money out the spectacle. He suspended a rope from the tower of all Saints Church down to the Market Place. Secretly, at dead of night, he managed to push, pull and otherwise encourage a donkey to negotiate the spiral staircase to reach the platform at the top of the tower. The next day when a huge crowd has gathered he set the donkey astride the rope, tied a hundred weight of lead to each leg and set the donkey off to slide down the rope. All went well until the rope broke and the donkey landed amongst the crowd. Fortunately no one was killed in the resulting melee, but the crowd was sufficiently demanding in its anger to chase the showman out of the city and he was last seen disappearing down the London Road with the donkey in his wake. The donkey seemed none the worse for its fall.

With Thanks to Elizabeth Eisenberg, Tales of Old Derbyshire, 1992, whose tale of The Amazing Flying Donkey was the inspiration for the name of The Flying Donkeys.

The caption to the print reads:

Peter A Elliott © 1986