The Cunning Stunts of Stainless
The Isle of Wight doesn’t really do excitement. My wife, an Islander, often regales me about the time BHS in Newport installed an escalator – and she joined the crowds of people queuing up to have a go on it. If you ignore the increasingly chronic youth unemployment (as most do) the Island is a place of beautiful green fields, cream teas and a well-supported donkey sanctuary. It’s not where you’d expect to find the birthplace of Carmageddon. “There were only eight of us – so it was a real ‘write the theme music, sing the theme music’ affair,” explains Stainless’s Neil Barnden, who co-founded the company with fellow Islander Patrick Buckland back in 1993. “So we did all the reference stunt-work ourselves. Patrick was driving a big yank station wagon at the time, so we used that to capture our mate Tony rolling over its bonnet while we drove slowly towards him. Or at least slowly to begin with. He’d taken full precautions – he had cardboard stuffed up his jumper.” “There had been all these people in the offices nearby looking out of the windows. It was very shortly after Tony had gone through the windscreen that the police turned up. Then Patrick had to take the car up to Autoglass, and it was quite obvious that the windscreen had been stoved in by a large body.” Read more…
