An new fun sport has manifested itself in Marlborough – slack lining is its odd name – but it has so interested the town council that it is helping to get it established.
Slack lines are tightropes that you can string between two trees – protected with pieces of carpet round their trunks – and that gives you a chance to test your balance like a circus trapeze artiste.
But it all happens safely just three feet off the ground – and you can do it barefoot too.
Seventeen-year-old Harry Shakeshaft and a group of fellow sixth formers at St John’s School tried it out in Priory Gardens last month and immediately attracted attention – and the need for permission to continue.
And Harry was at Monday’s meeting of the council’s Amenities and Open Spaces Committee to explain the sport to councillors and seek their approval.
“I was given a slack line for Christmas and it all started from there,” Harry told Marlborough News Online. “Then a school friend bought one too.”
“Now most days after school we come down to the park and put up the slack lines. It’s good fun.”
Councillor Richard Pitts, the committee chairman, showed councillors a video he took of the slack liners in action. Councillor Caroline Jackson commenting: “Learning balance is so important. It’s a wonderful idea.”
Deputy mayor Edwina Fogg approved too. “A nice activity for youngsters,” she said.
Now Councillor Pitts has had an offer from a company to put up easily removable slack line poles in the council’s Salisbury Road play area to give a chance to other youngsters to try out the sport.
“I’m all for it,” he declared.