THE Scottish city of Dundee has a number of distinctions. It is has a nice cake named after it, for example, and is the home town of the Beano and Dandy, writes BARRIE HUDSON.

A lesser-known distinction is that Dundee was once parachuted onto from a height of 10,000 feet by a Swindon man riding a Raleigh Chopper bike.

The man was Terry Hagan of Stratton St Margaret, and if the Swindon Advertiser’s cuttings are anything to go by he was one of the most accomplished skydivers of his or any generation.

When we interviewed Terry in July of 1973, not long after his Scottish adventure, he was 26 years old and had already spent about eight years leaving aircraft long before the seatbelt light went out.

His explanation for the airborne invasion of Dundee? “That was a fund-raising stunt to help find the money for the British team to get to the world ten-man star championships in North Carolina.”

A ten-man star is a complex freefall manoeuvre which is impressive today but was far more so using the basic equipment available at the time.

In 1970 Terry had earned himself a place in skydiving history by participating in the first British eight-man star over Dunkeswell in Devon.

He added: “We have to raise the money to compete in any way we can. That’s why I did the bike-riding stunt the other day.

“Normally I don’t do stunt work – mainly because the professional stuntmen have the market sewn up and they have a strong union.

“It’s very difficult to get a break as a stuntman.

“I work frenetically for several months and make as much money as possible, and then I can take the time to enter championships anywhere in the world.”

Two years earlier his obsession had taken him to South Africa with three other skydivers.

“We got a charter flight to Kenya and hitch-hiked there. I worked for a while and then decided to come home again," he said.

“I managed to scrounge a ride to Europe – in a Portuguese troop ship.”

Following a forthcoming appearance at the championships in North Carolina, he planned on heading for California.

“That’s where the really good parachuting goes on. The air is so clear that the plane can get much higher and allows much longer jumps.”

There are no further mentions of him in our files, and online searches yield only the story of the pioneering eight-man star in 1970.

If any readers can tell us more, we’d be fascinated to hear from them...