Hello Peter,
I flew gliders about the same time as you did.
You are right about gliding then being unregulated. It was club rules for us rather than the laws that the playboys in the fan assisted affairs were faced with. I think we stuck to our rules better than they stuck to their laws.
One of my best memories is of a week at Long Mynd with Midland Gliding Club. I went with my wife, our young son, friends and our (syndicated) Slingsby Swallow. The club was pretty self sufficient as I remember - pumped water, their own generator, a decent hangar and good launch facilities. The camaraderie at MGC was great.
Our Swallow came from Long Mynd, I believe it had been damaged on a bungee launch crash in which the lady pilot escaped with just a detached retina, or something like that. We rebuilt it, made a lightweight aluminium trailer for it and I towed it miles behind our Renault 4. Having the best ground clearance of the cars in our syndicate of 3 it was always used for retrieves despite its 850cc engine. Austin Maxis and the like couldn't make it across our ploughed East Anglian fields.
We sometimes go back to the Mynd to watch the action for a while when visiting my daughter. With her husband she has D'Arcys restaurant in the old station at Ironbridge (Morgans welcome) and her super-fit husband runs and cycles around the area a lot.
Happy days.
