COMBAT AND COMPETITION.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

COMBAT AND COMPETITION
Buckingham, when he heard about it, was most upset.
"I'm so sorry for you David. Its all my fault. I should never have
allowed you to associated yourself so closely with Elliottsof Newbury."
Afterwards Horace always swore that Philip Wills was behind it all.
That setting up the Shaw Slingsby Trust had put him under great
pressure to keep Slingsbys profitable and in business. Which in turn
made it essential to keep the company's products in the limelight,
flying for Britain, and the original make up of the team could have put
that plan at risk.
Of course Horace was being quite unfair. Hardly surprising, he and
Philip never got on, and it would have been difficult for him to grasp,
had he even wished to do so, that the selection process had become
much more complex in recent years. In the days of Camphill, give or
take a few problems with team entries, it had been reasonable to select
a team straight off the top individual placings at the end of a
Nationals.
Now there were more contests, some of them overseas, and many
record breaking flights to take into account. To make matters worse
the World Championships, with Open and Standard classes, were not
as yet reflected in the British competition structure.
But, whatever the complexity and the processes involved, the old
adage still applies. To be fair and to be seen to be fair. Selection
followed by de-selection should never happen to any pilot. Provided
that the person concerned remains sane, fit, available and within the
law!
Horace's comment on the Shaw Slingsby Trust putting Philip under
pressure was nearer the mark. When Major Shaw the owner of Slingsby
Sailplanes died in 1959 the trust was created to acquire the share
capital and prevent the company from falling into the wrong hands.
The trust itself was to be registered as a charity, and the profits of
Slingsby would be ploughed back into the gliding movement, like the
funds of the Kemsley Flying Trust.
Things began to go wrong almost from the start. Within a year
Viscount Kemsley was dead and the KFT was being wound up. So
Shaw Slingsby was on its own, the sole and vitally needed source of
loans to help the clubs in future, and Slingby's profits were negligible.
Worse was to come. The Inland Revenue took exception to its status as
a charity and eventually an obituary appeared in Sailplane and
Gliding, which included the words:
.....the Revenue has now concluded that it cannot continue, on highly
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