Everything else is going to hell, but trampoline sales are buoyant. "They're not cheap, but they're cheaper than foreign holidays and that's why everybody's buying trampolines for the garden during these harsh economic times," says a spokeswoman for the Stockport-based Trampoline Sales Ltd. But she would say that wouldn't she? John Lewis trampoline sales went up 55% last year and it expects them to rise even more this summer.
What's the appeal? "I love everything about trampolining," says Samantha House, 18, who bounces competitively for Great Britain. Trampolining improves posture, muscle tone, coordination and balance, and increases energy levels. It also stops your kids watching CBeebies.
Diversity, the dance troupe who won Britain's Got Talent, ascribe some of their success to their trampoline in Dagenham. "They're always on the garden trampoline," said a neighbour last week. "That's where they learned how to do backflips."
In their heyday Duran Duran reportedly cavorted with naked models on one, which is obviously sexist and wrong, but still. Have you ever caught your nipples in a trampoline spring? Bet it really hurts. Bob Dylan bought one for his kids during his Nashville Skyline era. The first version of Lay Lady Lay was called Bounce Lady Bounce (only kidding).
Trampolines are this summer's must-have. Even posh hotels such as The Ickworth in Suffolk have them so you can work off your stress at how much staying there costs. Happy days!
But here's a headline to ruin the dream of a long, hot bouncy summer: "Drunken trampoline shenanigans harming children". Doctors in Dundee have noticed an alarming rise in accidents caused by boozed-addled parents crushing their trampolining children. Andrew Bogacz of Ninewells Hospital wrote in the British Medical Journal last week: "Adults, please note that lager, wine, and trampolines do not mix." Well, that's my summer plans in tatters.
Latest figures from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) show 11,500 hospital admissions a year after trampoline accidents. Some 80% of the injuries are caused by more than one person bouncing at the same time.
"The boom in trampolining has almost certainly led to an increase in accidents," says Peter Cornall, RoSPA's head of leisure safety, "but that does not mean parents should not buy trampolines for their children."
But which trampoline? An enclosed trampoline (£329 from Argos) may stop you and your little monsters hurtling into the hydrangeas. The Tent Trampoline (£49 for an 8ft model from gardengames.co.uk) is - in a very real sense - a tent on top of a trampoline and looks like a sleepover-turned-nighttime dash-to-casualty waiting to happen. And then there's the new Xtreme Bounce Board, which enables snowboarding nuts to practise their moves on a trampoline. For many of us, then, 2009 promises to be a blissful summer. For a few, though, it will end in plaster.
