Merry Christmas 2014

Well, if you'll forgive me, I'm having a day or two off, unless I change my mind and produce something for tomorrow. A very short break may just be in order. I've calculated that, given all I do, in the course of one week I now pump out close to 9,000 words (not all of them appear on this blog). So you can figure out what that equates to over a year. Most of these words are to do with Mallorca - its society, its politics, its culture, its traditions, its tourism and its eccentricities. And with the latter in mind, here is an article which was possibly my favourite story of the year, but one which wasn't posted to the blog. Here it now is. Merry Christmas, everyone.


The Amazing Mestelrich

In August, we are not short of entertainment in Mallorca. It can be entertainment of the simple pleasure variety - a day at the beach, messing around in the water - or it might be the entertainment of a spectacular show or perhaps the entertainment at a fiesta. Sixty-seven years ago, there was a spectacular of entertainment that had never been witnessed before in Majorca. It took place on 16 August, 1947. The performers were two brothers - Miguel and Rafael Estelrich from Santa Margalida - and a friend, a bike mechanic called Sebastian Mestre. Miguel, the brains behind the spectacular, was to go on and achieve global fame. His stage name was Mestelrich. The three-man troupe was The Mestelrich Trio. On that day in August, in front of a packed arena, the trio performed an act of daring some forty feet above the hard but sandy surface of the bullring. Without the aid of a safety net, with no protection on their bodies, they completed the "Ride of Death". Miguel was a high-wire cyclist, Rafael and Sebastian were the trapeze artists, attached to the wheels of Miguel's bicycle.

Miguel was a bit nuts. He had tried his hand at bullfighting but he wasn't much good. He was unquestionably a showman, and it was the urge to do something different, something more daring that drove him to eventually perform the high-wire cycling act. Prior to this, and after his failed attempt at becoming a bullfighter, he had performed other acts. These were centred on the bullring in Palma, where he was a sideshow for the main event. One of these acts involved him sitting on a bike motionless while a bull was allowed to roam around the arena. The theory was that a bull wouldn't charge a motionless man (on a bike). As luck would have it, Miguel's theory was correct.

Very much less successful was his scheme to become the first bullfighter on a bike. It ended in total disaster. Miguel wasn't hurt, but he and the bike took something of a battering when the bull charged and sent Miguel and the bike some distance into the air. Despite this failure, the businessman who ran the bullring was impressed by the young man's courage and Miguel persuaded this businessman, Eduardo Pagés, that it would be a good idea to develop the high-wire cycling act.

With the aid of an aviation mechanic, Miguel came up with the design for the bike, the trapezes and the wire. He patented his system, though he wasn't the first to have taken to the high wire on a bike; the Great Wallendas had been doing their act for quite some years before Miguel came up with his. But it was new for Mallorca, and being new it did require getting an initially reluctant town hall to agree to it. The day came, the wire was strung between two towers at the bullring, Miguel's patented contraption was put to work and, in front of an amazed audience, the act was a fantastic success.

So successful was it that another bullfighting impresario, Rafael Dutrús, contracted The Mestelrich Trio to repeat the feat at other bullrings in Spain. As the shouts of bravo reached their crescendo in the bullrings of the country, Dutrús had further ambitions. And so did Miguel. The showman in search of a show had well and truly found it. Fame came swiftly, and international interest followed just as quickly. It is said that the trio performed in over 50 countries, and one of them was Britain. But it was in Britain where tragedy very nearly struck.

The story goes that the BBC, who were to film the feat of daring, insisted that the act was performed more slowly than usual. This was because camera work wasn't that sophisticated back then. It is thought that this might have been the reason for what followed, but legend has it that Rafael, going against the advice of Miguel and Sebastian, had eaten before they went up on to the wire.

The Pathé newsreel report of The Mestelrich Trio in Battersea Park in 1952 said that the spectators might have suspected that there was some trick. The report went on to say that there clearly was no trick. Rafael, apparently suffering from indigestion, fell. He would have been killed, had he not had the good fortune to land on an attendant. Rafael was in a coma for some time, and when he recovered, he unsurprisingly came back to Mallorca to resume his other career with the post office.

A new line-up headed off to the US, where further disaster was to strike during what was now also a unicycling act. A new trapeze artist, Gabriel Perelló, fell into the sea at Atlantic City. Hopes of storming America came to a watery end. Miguel carried on and put together other acts, such as the "smallest bicycle in the world". He ended his performing days in clubs in Palma, doing an act called the "cyclist of fantasy". He retired when he was 55 in 1968.

The Mestelrich Trio was, for a time, one of the most famous acts in Europe, and it was an act which went on to achieve its fame thanks to what happened on one day in August sixty-seven years ago.