'I don’t have a problem with heights, but dangling?' Radio's Graham Liver abseils off Blackpool Tower
“You can dangle 380 feet in the air with your bucket and your squeegee.”
BBC Radio Lancashire presenter Graham Liver has held up his side of a gravity-defying bargain, as he took a leap of faith and helped experts clean the outside of Blackpool Tower’s iconic SkyWalk.
Challenged to help Blackpool Tower’s expert team of extreme window cleaners by Kate Shane, Managing Director of Blackpool Tourism Limited and Chair of the Blackpool Tourism BID, Graham was roped into the hair-raising task last week.
And today was the day.
“Out marvellous Blackpool Tower SkyWalk 380 feet in the air needs cleaning,” said Kate last week on BBC Radio Lancashire, to which a notably unsettled Graham replied: “What, the inside of it you mean?”
In response, Kate said: “I’m talking abseiling off the top, lowering yourself down, and cleaning the outside. Obviously it’s incredibly safe and we have a team of experts that do it for us,” she added. “So you can dangle 380 feet in the air with your bucket and your squeegee and clean our SkyWalk.”
Egged on by his BBC colleagues, Graham said: “Abseiling of the top of Blackpool Tower and cleaning outside the SkyWalk?
“Hang on... I don’t have a problem with heights, but dangling? Cleaning the outside? I need a little time, respect my boundaries!”
But Graham eventually held up his side of the bargain, duly abseiling off the edge of the Blackpool Tower to help clean the five centimetre-thick glass of the SkyWalk viewing platform, with the Promenade far below him and the Irish Sea in the background.