A tale from the way past

[JohnOSullivan]

Anyone remember what they were doing 60 years ago today??


Sixty years ago today, in 1964 the British Nationals was held over the Whitsun weekend and was blessed with great weather and several hundreds of competitors. Contests had large entries with 296 in Open Glider and over 100 in Open Power. Those were the days!

I was making one of my glider flight when I hit a boomer thermal taking the model to speck size at several hundred feet. I was following it along the runway in bare feet. When passing through the large camping area I realized the model would likely go out of the airfield. I yelled out “anyone got a pair of size 9 shoes”. A guy came up to me with shoes. I did not take my eyes off the model and he proceeded to put the shoes on my feet. I did not even see his face. Off I went following the model and eventually recovered it. Then I realized that I had no clue as to who the shoe donor was and had no means of tracking him down.

Well, I got into the 23 man flyoff and when getting ready I was chatting with noted glider flier Mike Burrows. I mentioned the shoe incident and he said to me “A clubmate of mine lent his shoes to somebody and he does not know who”. So all’s well that ends well and my good samaritan got his shoes back. I ended up 13th out of 296.

Mike Burrows went on to be one of the world’s most innovative and eccentric bicycle designers. I stuck to model airplanes. An internet search comes up with many of his successes.

https://www.cyclist.co.uk/in-depth/mike ... er-profile