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the fear of bad weather or the inability to control the balloon’s direction and speed or the idea of crashing. It had taken him forty years to realise that he had an unrestrained fear of heights.
    Instead, he started designing hot-air balloons, his inspiration coming from the Marlboro photograph, which he’d had enlarged and framed on the wall of his basement, which served as a studio for his work. He lived with his mother in the decaying neighbour-hood of Stanhope. In between working in his basement at night and sleeping at intervals during the day, he attended to his mother because she got ill all the time and demanded a lot of his time. It was one thing after another; hip replacement, pneumonia, bowel cancer op, flu. For years she had been onto him about finding a real job, complaining that his balloon doodles were a waste of time. Then she developed Alzheimer’s and forgot to remember to nag him. The news came as a shock to Burch. But it meant he could concentrate on his career without the party of a moaning mother.
    After his first success with a balloon called Agatha , a unique marrow - shaped balloon, he began to network as his reputation preceded him and he started to get in with the right people. Then, something magical happened. Never had he been headhunted for a special project before, not until a smartly dressed man came knocking at his door claiming to be in need of his skills. The man said he would pay handsomely and that Burch’s work would be marvelled over in the aviation world for decades to come. His name was Brad Sutcliffe. Burch needed the project. It would ignite his career. But he worried Sutcliffe would find out about his shady past and change his mind at the last minute. He had no idea that Sutcliffe was an articulate, prudent man and had already done his home-work. He had studied Burch’s resume a hundred times over before approaching him in person. Burch possessed the knowledge, the experience, the drive, though something about his brief time in prison left Sutcliffe suspicious. To be certain, he’d ordered a police reference check on Burch where he learnt about his time in prison. However, that had been a long time ago, enough time for a person to change their ways, Sutcliffe felt. Everyone did something illegal when they were young, he appreciated that. Burch was uneducated. He was unmarried. But he lived with his sick mother and took care of her single - handedly and that said a lot about a man.
    “Well, you think you’re up to the challenge?” asked Sutcliffe.
    “You want me to build the biggest ever zero - pressure helium balloon that is resistant to the extreme cold and can withstand the conditions of the stratosphere?”
    “That’s right.”
    “I have to say, that’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard in all my life.” Burch laughed, a nervous laugh, while he considered the offer. “On one condition,” he said.
    Sutcliffe was expecting the designer to ask for more money, to have the balloon named after him in his honour, to be present at interviews, something that would give him worldwide recognition for his involvement.
    “I want to fly with you, up there,” he said. “I want to be part of your crew. You agree to that and you’ve got yourself a balloon.”
    As soon as he said it, he wondered why. Heights frightened him and he hated ballooning. And Sutcliffe had explained that they would be flying into the stratosphere, some twenty five miles high. Then again, throughout his life Burch had always been a nobody. Flying a balloon into space would make him a somebody.
    ‘I will need to discuss it with Simon Matthews, my business partner. I’ll be in touch.’
    Sutcliffe called the next day and said that he and Matthews had agreed, but there would be extensive training and several seminars to attend, and his payment for designing the balloon would need to be scaled down, though he added that the financial repercussions of success would surpass that of his initial fees.