ANOTHER VOICE
How my ride to oblivion made a god of me
MATTHEW PARRIS
Why do we enjoy fear? Last Saturday and for the first time in my life, I went to Alton Towers. My 16-year-old niece at boarding school had come to stay for the weekend in Derbyshire and we thought an expedition to the nearby amusement park might be fun. The truth is I had always wanted to go but had been embarrassed to set out alone and hesitant about inviting grown-up friends. Now I had an excuse.
You know when you're approaching Alton Towers because of the screaming. From miles away terrified shrieks pierce the air and mingle with the clatter and roar of machinery. As we walked from the vast car parks to the monorail the screams grew closer, my eyes widened and my pulse • quickened: just behind a big clump of trees, something was scaring scores of people out of their wits. From the monorail we saw it. 'Nemesis' was flinging ski-lift-loads of plea- sure-seekers through its cartwheels, cork- screws, terrifying descents and heart-stop- ping rushes into the air.
The Nemesis queue was nearly an hour long, so we decided to limber up on the log flume first. 'Borne on the current down an extended trough in a sort of canoe, you are winched up ramps, shot down chutes, hurled around bends, and splashed. Hooray — we're in danger of drowning! Oh, no — we've got wet! It is enormous fun, Then there was the runaway mine-train, a kind of themed roller-coaster upon which the little train you join appears to career out of control. Yipes — we're going to hit that wall. Wow — we're nearly off the rails. In the queue, people — at least half of us adults — groaned in anticipation as we heard the yells of those lucky enough to be being scared already.
One thought of Paddington: the heart- rending scenes on television, millions of viewers flinching at the very thought, nation- al sympathy for the bereaved as genuine as any public grief can be. Yet here, now, thou- sands were paying £20 a head for the thrill of frightening themselves with simulations of the real horrors at which we wince when we see the News. Why the fascination?
Truth to tell, I loved the runaway mine- train but it wasn't quite as frightening as I had hoped. So we tried the Ripsaw. When my niece saw it she turned back, afraid it would make her sick. I hoped it would make me sick. We listened to the cries of distress with mounting excitement as we queued — and watched. In a giant bucket, about 40 people are pinned into their seats by safety-arms and belts. The bucket is slowly raised into the air, then spun round three times on its axis while you are held in place by centrifugal force. Then the bucket is lowered towards a great pond, and turns upside-down, suspending you head-over- heels, staring down at the water. Everyone is screaming. Geysers of water spout up from the pool, splashing everyone's heads. You scream some more. At last you are spun upright again, lowered to earth, and let go. All stagger, comparing experiences of their fear, towards the booth where you can buy photographs of yourself looking petrified.
When I was a child, I had a favourite book about Pookie, the flying rabbit. There was a grotesque picture of Pookie con- fronting the Giant Winter from the pinna- cle of an iceberg at the North Pole. Win- ter's nose and fingers were huge icicles. I kept the book open at this page, under my pillow, when I stayed with Nana in Oxford. In the night I would hear the steam trains, think hard about skeletons driving the loco- motives until I was really frightened, then pull out the book, switch on the light, and look at the Giant Winter until I couldn't bear to look any more, and put it back under the pillow. I was about seven.
And now, at 50, I wanted to go on Neme- sis and be scared. We queued for ages, shuffling past the blood-red torrent of dyed water which plunges down the simulated cliff, hearing the creepy music they play to get you in the mood, shuddering at the science-fiction plant-animal which spreads its great tentacles throbbing with varicose veins across the machinery of the Nemesis roller-coaster itself. We shivered at the cries of distress from the passenger-lifts whipping over our heads as terrified occu- pants were flung skywards like demented ants — , legs, stiff with fear, flying out beneath. A creepy voice over a hidden intercom warned us that we were passing the point of no return. We did.
And truly, it was horrific. I missed the worst bit because I just couldn't look; but I could hear the squeals and whimpers all around. Afterwards, unsteady on their feet, complete strangers were confiding in each other their terror and relief. We bought the photographs. We were having a marvellous time. But increasingly I was puzzled. Fear as leisure is a bizarre phenomenon. What in heaven's name were we all playing at — choosing fear, buying distress, paying to be alarmed? Why do the citizens of Birming- ham and Derby work all week to earn the money with which they pay insurance pre- miums against every mishap, then strap themselves with safety belts into their cars and drive carefully to Staffordshire with their families to spend more money on being seriously rattled for the whole of Sat- urday? Alton Towers presents a caricature of the condition; but anyone who skis, motor-races, skydives, rock-climbs or hang- glides is in some degree infused with that same spirit, a spirit to which this amuse- ment park was a rural temple.
We are (most of us, I assume) Darwini- ans these days, and there should be a Dar- winian explanation of every persistent human drive. So how does the appetite for apparent danger boost a human being's chances of survival or add to his prospects of reproducing? It would seem more likely that a disposition to shun danger and dis- like fear would contribute to an individual's life-chances. What is it that we are doing when we contrive situations in which we know we are likely to be scared? The para- dox is that, having deliberately placed one- self in unnecessary danger, one then behaves, as a rational being should, in a manner calculated to minimise it. On Nemesis we were drawing up our legs as we hurtled at the ground, ducking as girders flew at our heads,
Tentatively, I conclude that the instinct in question is the instinct to play: the instinct Nietzsche believes makes gods of us. To play is to learn, and the creature who plays most daringly learns the most. This addiction to adrenalin, then, this propensity to be exhilarated, though it threatens life, is life-giving.
Or so I told myself on Oblivion. Oblivion was our last ride, and for me the best. Strapped into an open carriage you simply drop about a hundred feet into a black hole in the ground, with cold steam coming out of it.
I opened my eyes as oblivion rushed up at me, felt the cold steam, and experienced an instant's pure joy.
Matthew Parris is parliamentary sketchwriter and a columnist of the Times.
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