The Trusty Servant Nov 2015 No.120 | Page 4

NO.120 event, which attracts 70,000 revellers, had ruined the desert surface. An intense survey threw up Hakskeen in South Africa – a truly wonderful place with an eightmonth weather-window and at optimal altitude. But there were problems: a road on a causeway had been driven across the desert and there were 21 million square metres of surface stones. Not to be put off, our partners the Northern Cape government signed up the entire population of the Meir district, who picked up 15,800 tonnes of stones by hand – it T H E T R U S T Y S E RVA N T took 450 man-years. We aim to run Bloodhound SSC there at 800mph in 2016 and 1,000mph in 2017, driven by Andy Green (who also drove Thrust SSC), and powered by the Eurofighter engine and three Nammo rockets. There is one last innovation, resulting from direct input from teachers at the BET education exhibition. Bloodhound is being followed in 220 countries and the unprecedented idea is to export 500 channels of live data for each of the 30 runs in 2016 and 2017, so that schools and followers can receive the data live and manipulate it to establish exactly how Bloodhound is developing. This will be the world’s first example of open big data. Public support has been brilliant: 7,000 people have joined the 1K supporters club and 30,000 followers have put their names on the tail fin. Daily updates are available on the Bloodhound website. Reports that British engineering and innovation are dead are greatly exaggerated! ■ Sliding Down the Slippery Slope – the Cresta Run and its Inventor Stephen Bartley (H, 61-66), Hon. Archivist of the St. Moritz Tobogganing Club, London, tells the tale: Old Wykehamists have done many extraordinary things in the past, perhaps none more so than William Henry Bulpett (G, 1869-74), who now lies in the churchyard of St. Mary’s, Old Alresford. His family were from local yeoman farming stock in the neighbourhood and his grandfather had invested in a local bank in Winchester – Bulpett & Hall – which was subsequently run by his uncle, William Whitear Bulpett. After an undistinguished academic career in Phil’s, Bulpett, the youngest of three brothers, entered the Army. He was commissioned into the 3rd Royal Surrey Militia based in Kingston, close to his parents’ home in Chertsey. Quite why he ended up in the Swiss Alps one winter is unknown. Very likely, he had gone there for health reasons, as the dry air and altitude were considered helpful for anyone suffering from a respiratory illness, TB in particular. Bulpett became devoted to alpine pastimes, whether climbing, skating or The First Grand National Race on the Cresta Run showing the winner Charles Austin round the 3rd Upper Bank below the Church. Photo: Unknown; courtesy of the SMTC Archive, London recreational tobogganing. In the winter of 1884/85 he joined a group of three British sportsmen in St. Moritz, along with an Australian, the famous cricketer George Pringle Robertson, to build a toboggan 4 run for a timed race between competitors from Davos and St. Moritz. Three years previously, the Davosers had organised the first timed toboggan race in Switzerland, the International on the old