“I just felt really joyful” – a fundraiser with a difference

The first surprise for Emma is seeing the plane gather pace towards her. It takes off directly above her head and over the building as she’s walking in with the rest of her team.

It’s 8am on a November morning. It’s cloudy and chilly, but it’s dry.

Job number one is getting registered and watching the safety briefing. Then, getting kitted out. Emma is wearing leggings and sportswear and is presented with a jumpsuit, which she dons happily. She likes a jumpsuit anyway, it’s comfortable. The instructor triple-checks her harness straps on her request – they’re definitely tight enough, he reassures her.

The atmosphere is jittery and jovial – a cocktail of nervous energy, pent-up excitement and the smell of fresh americanos from the café.

In the weeks leading up to today, Emma’s nerves had been building. She had been keeping calm by doing extensive research – from the practical, like having her hair in braids, to the more theoretical, like what could go wrong. Turns out, not much, really!

Now, on the day, she is pretty much just excited. All the instructors seem very relaxed – they do this eight times a day.

Emma goes outside to watch the planes for a while and does sporadic jumps to let some energy out as she waits for her turn. She is called in to practise her landing with her instructor. You need to lift your legs quite high, they tell her.

Other groups, along with their friends and family are sitting at the café with snacks and pastries waiting for their turn and chatting animatedly.

The instructors are keeping a weather eye on the clouds – if they can see the top of the mountain in the distance, they’re good to go.

The team huddle together and the instructors fist-bump Emma and her group. It’s time!

The plane takes off with Emma and her instructor and the rest of her team. That includes her colleague Philippa, Channel 4’s First Dates waiter David Marc, who she met earlier today, and their instructors.

They’re all facing the back of the plane and looking out to see the ground getting smaller, until it’s covered with an expanse of white, cotton-ball clouds.

They’re about to skydive from 15,000ft to raise money for Epilepsy Action. Emma and Philippa know firsthand how far every penny goes, as members of the fundraising team. So, with that in mind, they set out to take on a challenge to help raise even more money for people with epilepsy.

About three-quarters of the way up, Emma’s instructor clips the two of them together. He attempts to have a little joke with her about the clips, but is swiftly – but playfully – reprimanded by mum-of-two Philippa. “Don’t do that to her,” she tells him.

Emma is feeling a bit sick with the build-up of nerves now, and gripping on to her harness. She looks over to Philippa and is met with an excited grin. She’s been itching to get her goggles on in case her instructor forgets them, but he doesn’t. He also reminds her to scream if she’s finding it hard to breathe. It’s noted.

Emma is first to jump. Within about 20 seconds, and without much thinking time, the doors slide open, helmets and goggles are on and she is sat on the edge, feet tucked underneath the plane. She’s leaning back, head pressed against her instructor’s chest, giving him the room to see over her.

The crystal blue sky fills her vision and the whirring white noise of the wind blocks out any other sound. Her instructor will communicate with taps and gestures from now on.

And then, they’re out. A tumble. A summersault. Tap-tap. That’s the sign to put your arms out. Emma stretches her arms out. She and her instructor are now freefalling at 120mph.

The feeling is unlike anything else. It feels like falling into nothing, but also into something. Something’s putting pressure on your body. It’s exhilarating and Emma is beaming. Or at least she thinks she is, she can’t feel her face at all.

Her instructor spins them around. She gets a 360^o view of the endless stretch of fluffy clouds below, like a duvet ready to embrace them. It doesn’t look to Emma at all like they’re hurtling at 120mph towards the ground.

About halfway through the fall, she remembers what her instructor told her. She starts to scream, letting out all the energy and excitement, and getting in big gulps of air.

After 60 seconds of falling, the instructor opens up the parachute.

The second surprise for Emma is how much she would love the feeling of gliding through the air once the parachute opened. As she and her instructor glide into the cloud, a cool mist hitting their faces, he can’t resist one last prank. He spins them around and around in the cloud, to the sound of Emma’s screams, until they emerge from underneath.

Emma thinks she could spend an hour in this lovely, suspended state, looking out over the world. She briefly wonders what would happen if she collides with a bird up here, but that doesn’t happen. Five minutes feel like they pass in a flash, and her instructor is now preparing to land.

She’s meant to lift her legs up by the handles on her knees and land sat down, but the instructor says, “stand up”, and she lands on her feet. Before she’s noticed, he’s unclipped himself and her skydive is done.

She watches Philippa and David descend one after the other, heart still racing at the thought of what she’d just done. She heads back into the building for something to eat, anticipating the “adrenaline dump” they told her could happen a little while after her skydive.

She starts to plan her next skydive – somewhere with a view, she reckons.

If you want a piece of the action, you can sign up for a skydive to support people with epilepsy! Make a difference this National Epilepsy Week (May 24-30), take your summer to new heights and book onto our Jump in July event (July 1-31) or pick your own date in 2025 and choose from over 21 locations across the UK.