Aunty Audrey was very generous. For our wedding 40 years ago she bought us a set of blue flowery patterned folding canvas chairs, and a matching sun lounger. Over the years they were well used.

When we moved to France, we gained a small balcony. My husband is a sun-worshipper, he loves sitting on our 3 metre long, (just measured it, and its only 2 and a bit metres) and 1 metre wide small balcony.

Our house is not unique, every new build flat has a balcony. We like walking round the conglomeration on a Sunday afternoon looking at the progress of all the new builds. We are amazed and horrified by the balconies and their apparent lack of supporting structures.

A few years back, a construction firm was taken over by the son who had never trained as a builder. Balconies were put in that were not the required strengthened slabs but just slabs of concrete. Students had a party on one, it collapsed and several were killed. I am very wary of all these unsupported, flimsy looking balconies obligatory on every new block. Is ours safe?

It turned out that it was very dangerous!

Mr. Brodier was on our little balcony reading a book and soaking up the sun. The chairs were by then about 30 years old. Have I said that they also had arm rests? All of a sudden, the canvas under the back of his knees ripped from side to side, dropping his bottom onto the tiles and leaving him trapped inside the metal frame with his knees over the front bar and his feet nowhere near the floor.

Getting out of the metal bars would have been easy if it had not been for the double glazed patio windows on his right and the sturdy metal railings on his left. Normally, a trapped person could have been able to rock the frame until it fell sideways, enabling the prisoner to crawl free.

He was stuck, trapped, unable to move left or right. I wonder how many deaths there have been on balconies throughout the warmer world, where chairs have trapped their owners leaving them unable to escape?

Fortunately, very fortunately, I was at home and heard a little voice calling to me. ‘Help, help!’ or rather, ‘Joy, I’m on the balcony, where are you?’

When You are faced with those situations, where someone is obviously in need of help what do you do? I laughed! It’s contagious. But helping him to get out took all of my strength, as having to raise his entire body weight up and out of the frame of the chair, up to the height of the non existant seat until his feet touched the floor.

What a Super-hero I was. Recounting the story has had us both chuckling.