According to The BOF, BMISS was a long running joke; but to those of us addicted, it means a great deal more. To us it is the governing body for our hobby and all record attempts are done under the guide lines set down by him.
I'm sure he wouldn't have minded so The BOF, short for Boring Old F**t was really John Barker. He did more to encourage this branch of the kiting hobby over the years than any one in this country. For 100 issues of The Kiteflier he put in his section called Roman Candle. For the uninitiated A Roman Candle was the expression used during the war when some ones parachute failed to open. It is also the most heinous crime in the world of Fauna bombing unless done to furry snakes, rats, Telly Tubbies or annoying little sisters.
The style was John's own brand of dry humour liberally sprinkled with profanities, political incorrectness, deliberate spellin mistakes and typos. It was all done on a type writer as John was not computer convinced and then he cut and pasted it together before photo copying to send to the editors. That is why we all jump to that page first as soon as we receive our copies. Every issue now available on this site.
BMISS stands for Bearly Made It Skydiving Squad and is said to have originated when a 'chute opened at the very last moment and some one was heard to exclaim *!&-^%-"!)*_*-"!?><%* that one barely made it. John was always happy to fill in the details.
Sadly John passed away on 10th September 2012 and we did not find out until early in 2013 when club members were concerned that they had not heard from him and one of them went to his address and was given the news. We have no information on what happened to his kites, bears or parachutes.
I shall keep this site running for as long as possible as a memorial to him. If you have any pictures of John that you would like to see here please send them to me. Similarly if you have any memories you would like to share, I will add a tributes page.