IN front of a crowd of 150,000 people and beneath a blazing sun, an Evesham man dressed as Mrs Thatcher pushed George Bush into Hyde Park's Serpentine lake on a flying Big Ben tower.

Justin and Marcus Mumford, from Hinton, Juliet Mathers from Hampton, Justin and Marcus's brother-in-law Rob Naylor and friend Andrew Gaydon were taking part in the Flugtag flying challenge in London.

The friends were chosen from more than 10,000 applicants to take part in the midsummer madness, which was sponsored by the makers of Red Bull energy drink.

Although the team's flying machine only managed to travel 2.6 metres forward as it plummeted six metres into the water, team 'Time Flies' still managed a creditable 14th place out of 40 entrants.

Justin described the day as awesome, even though his team's craft nose-dived and broke up when it hit the water. "It was a bit of a family day out for us - great fun and the beer tasted good afterwards.

"It is not every day you get the chance to dress as Maggie Thatcher and push George Bush over a cliff so I thought I should make the most of it."

The event was judged by a panel of celebrities, including Avid Merrion, Mel Blatt, Christine Hamilton and Felix Baumgartner, who recently set a world record by free-falling across the English Channel. It also included Bam Margera from cult American TV show Jackass, which features young adults performing ridiculous and often dangerous stunts. He said: "Some of the guys today really went for it and it was pretty impressive, the Jackass crew would be really proud of all of them."

Justin, aged 29, said that his team was looking to take part in other similar events. "Hopefully we will make it into our thirties, if we do not do anything as stupid as this in the meantime."

The team was one of several singled out by documentary makers who followed their progress as the craft was designed, built and thrown off the platform. Their moment of glory will be relayed to a grateful nation at 12.30pm on ITV1 this Saturday, August 9.