News broke this morning of legendary singer Meat Loaf's death on Thursday January, 20 but did you know the American singer has a secret and insane connection to Battersea?

In 1994, as part of a publicity stunt, a giant bat was dangled from a crane in front of Battersea Power Station to promote Meat Loaf's latest album.

However, Mark Garside, who was 25 and working for the advertising agency told Battersea Nub News how things went up in flames…literally.

The agency made a huge bat out of fibreglass, it was so large it had to be constructed in pieces and assembled on site.

The entire structure was black apart from two glowing red eyes, the effect had been achieved using two bicycle lights.

At the time one of the world's most famous permanent jump facilities, Adrenalin Village, was located at Chelsea Bridge in Battersea and would be used to hang the structure in the air.

Someone had been hired to do the pyrotechnics with the intention of Meat Loaf using a dynamite plunger prop to set off the pyrotechnics creating a spectacular effect in front of the iconic building.

But Mark told us how things didn't exactly go to plan.

He said: "It all went off and everyone went 'wow' and then everyone went off into a side room for the press conference.

"We were stood outside congratulating ourselves on the success and then we noticed that there was a small flame that spread and the whole thing caught on fire and there was nothing we could do, with it burning over the bridge."

Obviously panic started setting in when they realised what a huge accident it could cause and were sent scrambling to find the crane driver to assist.

Mark continued: "We managed to get the crane driver to swing the bat around and dunk it into the Thames to put it out.

"When it was pulled it out, it was this black smoking bat but the red bicycle eyes still worked."

When Meat Loaf and the press came out of the conference no one was any the wiser to the catastrophe that had just been averted other than it looked like a cool effect smoking in the air.

Mark's son, Zoom, posted the iconic photo on his Twitter.

We wonder if Meat Loaf ever knew what happened to his bat that day in Battersea?

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