When I come home feelin’ tired and beat
I go up where the air is fresh and sweet (up on the roof)— Carole King / Gerry Goffin. “Up on the Roof.”
Beep
Beep
Beep
The messages arrived late afternoon my time. Three photos. Two of a canted shingle roof strewn with dried leaves and other garden debris. The third showed a steel ladder leaning against the side of a house I recognised immediately.
“Gary’s going up on the roof. He will wear the life alert. He cleaned the gutter yesterday.”
Gary is Fran’s stepdad. “Fingers crossed,” I replied. “That looks like a decent ladder but I wouldn’t want to be on the roof itself.”
“He is fearless and full of faith.”
My mind went back some thirty-five years. A friend’s house in Nottinghamshire. An invitation to help repair the roof of an outbuilding. It was an invitation I felt incapable of declining. It was ever that way. Gary might be fearless and full of faith but I was neither. Not then, not now. I climbed the ladder and shifted myself awkwardly on to the rafters. My job was to hand the heavy clay tiles to my friend’s partner who appeared very much at home up there. It’s years since I visited but Street View shows the outbuilding roof fully tiled so I can take a little satisfaction from that.
I don’t have a fear of heights as such. If I feel safe, as I very much did not on my friend’s roof, I’m fine. I’ve ziplined twice from Newcastle’s Tyne Bridge, trusting the professionalism of the organisers and the harness they’d buckled me into. I’d do it again. The only other time I remember putting myself at any great height — and in retrospect at considerable risk — was traversing the 3,028 foot (923 meter) “razor-sharp, knife-edge ridge and Grade 1 scramble” that is Crib Goch in Eryri (Snowdonia) National Park. As I’ve written elsewhere I had no business being up there. I used to imagine having the courage to do a parachute jump. It’s something I’d like to say I’d done. “Oh yeah, I did a parachute jump one time. It was great.” I never have and never will.
And now I’m thinking of other men and other heights. The iconic 1932 photograph Lunch Atop a Skyscraper depicting ironworkers taking lunch on a steel beam of the Rockefeller Center in Manhattan during it’s constuction. Often misattributed to Lewis Hine but more likely taken by Charles Clyde Ebbets, the photo was staged as a publicity stunt to promote the skyscraper. That takes nothing away from the fact the eleven men were sitting on that beam 850 feet (260 meters) above the ground with no safety equipment or harnesses. Those of a certain age may recall English steeplejack Fred Dibnah who achieved TV fame after being filmed by the BBC while repairing Bolton Town Hall. The 1979 documentary Fred Dibnah: Steeplejack is worth watching, as is this video from 1982 in which he demonstrates how to erect a chimney scaffold at 200 feet. It’s many years since I watched the 1988 BBC recording of Henrik Ibsen’s play The Master Builder starring Leo Mckern in the title role alongside Jane Lapotaire as his wife Aline and Miranda Richardson as Hilde. At two and a quarter hours it’s not a short watch but it’s stayed with me. No spoilers but watch to the very end.
Some of my favourite comedy sketches feature ladders. These include Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em starring Michael Crawford, the Chuckle Brothers (Barry and Paul Elliott), and the classic episode of Only Fools and Horses in which Del (David Jason), Rodney (Nicholas Lyndhurst), and Grandad (Lennard Pearce) are hired to clean two very expensive antique chandeliers. The final scene of Blackadder Goes Forth is in a league of its own as Captain Blackadder (Rowan Atkinson), Private Baldrick (Tony Robinson), Lieutenant George (Hugh Laurie), and Captain Darling (Tim McInnerny) mount the short wooden ladders from their trench and emerge into No Man’s Land during World War I. It has been described as “one of the greatest interpretations of the madness of war that has ever been put on film.”
Relevant songs include the R&B classic “Up on the Roof” written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King. Originally recorded by The Drifters it’s been covered by artists including Carole King herself, James Taylor, and Robson and Jerome (Robson Green and Jerome Flynn). The contemporary Christian song Ladder by Rick Pino and Abbie Gamboa references Jacob’s ladder from the biblical book of Genesis, by which angels ascend and descent between heaven and earth. It would be remiss of me not to include Led Zeppelin’s legendary Stairway to Heaven.
Two of my favourite movies open with fatal falls from great heights. The 1993 action thriller Cliffhanger begins with mountain rescue ranger Gabe Walker, played by Sylvester Stallone, failing to prevent Michelle Joyner’s character Sarah falling to her death while attempting a high-altitude traverse. The 2000 thriller Vertical Limit also opens with a mountaineering accident, as Royce Garrett played by Stuart Wilson falls to his death saving the lives of his adult children Peter (Chris O’Donnell) and Annie (Robin Tunney). My nerves would never allow me to watch the 2022 survival movie Fall in which best friends Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) and Hunter (Virginia Gardner) climb an isolated 2,000 foot (610 metre) TV tower. The rusted ladder collapses leaving them stranded at the top. The trailer is more than enough for me! Continuing the theme of things that scare me, check out this video featuring China’s Zhangjiajie Sky Ladder. Yikes!
Fran reminded me of the musical Fiddler on the Roof which I remember watching on a family holiday in my teens. The movie is based on the 1964 stage musical of the same name, itself based on Tevye and His Daughters by Sholem Aleichem. The title is explained in the film’s opening lines. “A fiddler on the roof. Sounds crazy, no?” asks Topol’s character Tevye. “But here in our little village of Anatevka, you might say every one of us is a fiddler on the roof, trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking his neck. It isn’t easy. You may ask, why do we stay up there if it’s so dangerous? We stay because Anatevka is our home. And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word. Tradition.”
Not all rooftop experiences are scary or perilous. I’ve never been to a rooftop party, restaurant, or bar but as someone dedicated to living vicariously I know people who have. Fran attends events organised by Portland Greendrinks on the rooftop of the WEX Building which has panoramic views of the city and ocean. She’s also enjoyed deck and rooftop time with various friends over the years. I remember being on a video call with Fran in 2018, witnessing her excitement as she watched a thunderstorm from the balcony of the apartment she was staying at in Mexico. The following is taken from my account of the trip.
While we were on our call, there was big thunderstorm, which Fran LOVED! I couldn’t see the flashes of lightning but I could tell them from Fran’s reaction, and soon learned to pause whatever we were talking about. I felt a strong flash of frustration when Fran told me she needed to stop our conversation so she could experience the present (Mexico) moment to the full, but we handled it well.
She was clear about her needs, and my frustration at being “set aside” in favour of a thunderstorm passed as easily as the storm itself eventually did. And I got to experience it too — the sounds of thunder and rain, and Fran’s delighted, awestruck response. Moments like this are what friendship is about.
Our mutual friend Andi shared fond memories of her time living on Long Beach Island, New Jersey, including one autumn afternoon in 2009 when she witnessed the approach of President Obama’s helicopter entourage.
I run out the door (behind the apartment) hop off the deck onto the roof and run out to the front of the roof!!! Here they come!!! I can see them from the south ... 3 LOUD dots ... approaching ... ME!!! Here they come ... and so low, they were traveling close to the shoreline, a short block away and there I was .. without another human in sight ... I KNOW THEY SAW ME — THEY HAD TO!!!
We featured Andi’s story in full in a recent guest post. I’ll close with a shout out to an extraordinary artist I chanced upon while working on this article. Naya Green’s video caught my attention because she’s standing on the roof of her house.
I’m nineteen years old, living in a house on a hill in Georgia, scheming about light and dark. Every morning, if the day is born, I wake up, spring out of bed, and paint the day away. If a sorrow threatens to bear upon me with its shabby wings, I will take off on my bike leaving only steam and gravelly specks flying in my wake, or will go out in the yard and spin around till’ it’s over. I am saving up to buy a cathedral, or a shabby castle to convert into a museum.
For more information check out the artist’s website.
Over to You
In this somewhat rambling post I’ve shared thoughts and memories inspired by Fran’s stepdad going up a ladder and on to the roof of his house. For anyone concerned, I can reassure you he was fine. Are you confident on ladders and other high places? Have you done a parachute jump or zipwire, abseiled, or bungee jumped? Would you like to? Have you atttended a rooftop party or concert? Fran and I would love to hear from you, either in the comments below or via our contact page.
Photo by Brian Wangenheim at Unsplash.
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