Gliding for the over 80s

My first post was about a trip on the London Eye in October 2010, which I really enjoyed.

I described the trip to my children (adult children - I'm 81 and should have called this blog An Old Englishwoman's Life I suppose.) They seemed to think it was a bit adventurous to go on the London Eye at my age. "Not really" I replied. "It wasn't as interesting as the gliding."


"What are you talking about?" they asked.

"The gliding.  A couple of years ago I went gliding. In Cambridgeshire."

News to them. Apparently I didn't mention it at the time. They were probably having some work or marriage drama or drama with the kids.

I told them I'd gone gliding with my...what do I call him? - partner, boyfriend, companion? of 16 years. All the terms sound a bit silly at my age but I was widowed twice before I met him and lost another partner to open heart surgery so I didn't want to get married and I wasn't going to move in with a man. So, let's say partner. Anyway, he came along - he's 85 now - and a friend of ours, Ron, recently widowed, came too.

Was it scary?, my kids asked me.

No.

Not even when you were towed up by the plane and it let go?

I explained that though Brian and Ron were towed up by small planes, my glider was sort of catapulted from a sort of elastic thing. "Except" I explained "it broke just before we left the ground so they had to use another one."

You mean you still went up in the glider just after the thing broke?

Yes.

Anyway, I thought it was wonderful. We got great views of Cambridge - more of the countryside though in fact. Little rivers and fields and church steeples and animals like toy farm animals. It was a lovely summer's day and of course there's no engine so it's lovely and quiet up there. You're just gliding in a little bubble. And half way through, the pilot sitting behind me told me a bit about using the controls - backwards, forwards, up , down and what have you - and then said "OK take the controls. You're flying now."

So I took the controls and flew.

My kids said "Whaaat??!!"

One of them said "Wasn't the pilot worried that you were practically eighty?"

But I said I didn't think so because he'd already told me he was 75.

Anyhow, gliding was wonderful. I was 10 when the second world war started so all through my childhood we were all very conscious of the planes, the spitfires and others on our side and the bombers on the German side, and the pilots. Later, I married the girls' father - obviously - and he was still in the  Royal Air Force. He'd served in the RAF in the war, fighting the Nazis in North Africa and up through Italy. I've flown lots of times as an adult though I never flew as a child - in those days you didn't fly anywhere on holiday. But I think one of the best experiences of flying was being in the little glider and taking the controls for a while.  I may do it again next summer if I think of it.