I’d never heard of “tombstoning” until yesterday. Apparently it’s an “extreme sport” and involves diving off rocks and cliffs into the sea. Sounds bloody stupid to me.
It seems that it’s also something of a craze in the town where I grew up.
A middle-aged man drowned and another was seriously injured when they jumped into the sea off a pier in Essex, in a stunt known as “tombstoning”.
The two men – both believed to be in their 40s – were found face-down in the sea by lifeboat crews after jumping off a pier at Clacton, Essex, on Saturday.
Natural selection in action.
Update: More details on the story. It seems that the man who died was a former soldier who had moved to Clacton to escape his drink problem. Not sure that was the brightest of moves. As long as I can remember, there’s always been a big drinking culture in Clacton.
You lived on the coast and hadn’t heard of cliff-jumping (what we used to call it down here in cornwall when I was young)?Pretty much every early-teenage boy I knew would go cliff-jumping on a hot sunny day.. until we discovered drugs and alcohol.
Well, I didn’t say that I’d never heard of idiots jumping of cliffs. I just said that I’d never heard of “tombstoning”.A new name for an old stupidity it seems.
Interesting how things seem to get into the public consciousness when they get a recognised name. And you can’t say that “tombstoning” isn’t an appropriate name!
I always thought it was called “jumping into the sea”.