They came, they soared, they conquered

Because back in 1934 when enthusiasts from the Birmingham area chose the Long Mynd as a promising location for the emerging new flying sport they found themselves embroiled in a legal action with a local squire who owned the grouse shooting rights.

Max Wenner claimed the gliders scared off the grouse, which would disappear for weeks.

The aviators lost the legal battle, but won the war. They quickly found a new flying site a bit south of the original and have never looked back.

Club chairman James Moore said: "We are one of the 12 original gliding clubs in the UK. There are very few clubs of this age."

At 1,400ft above sea level it is the highest gliding club in Britain, as well as one of the oldest, with a heritage going back to the 1930s dawn of the British gliding movement.

Members will gather at the club to celebrate the 90th anniversary with a dinner on October 19, which will incorporate the annual flying awards. It is the closest available date to the exact anniversary of a meeting held at the Mikado restaurant in Birmingham on October 17, 1934, when the Midland Gliding Club was formally founded and Charles Espin Hardwick became the first chairman.

It is one of a series of anniversary events marking various stages in the club's formation, which will include hosting the UK Vintage Glider National Rally next May.

Illustrious former members include Amy Johnson, the famous pre-war aviator who set many long distance flying records, and Prince Bira, a Thai prince who was a Formula One racing driver and whose cockpit companion when gliding was his West Highland terrier, Titch.

Today the club has around 100 full members and between April and September runs courses giving allcomers the opportunity to experience the thrill of flight more affordably than with powered aviation.

It is often said that if you can drive a car, you are capable of flying a glider, but in fact you can fly a glider well before you can legally drive – the minimum age for flying a glider solo has been dropped from 16 to just 14.

A recent investment by the club has also increased opportunities for those with disability. With support from local charity Energize and grant funding from Sport England, it has bought a new K21 training glider which can be flown from the front seat using hands only – normally the rudder pedals are operated by the feet.

However the gliding movement generally is going through what might be called a wet patch.

"Gliding is having a few very difficult years because of the weather," said James.

"It's been a lot wetter. The days we can't operate because it's raining have increased. There have been times when we can't fly because the airfield has been wet and we can't risk damaging it. And in the summer the thermals have not been as good as in previous years."

As for the attractions of this form of flight, James says: "Gliding is, and has always been, a brilliant way to lead you to a career in aviation. There is also evidence that shows that if you learn to glide you will be a better pilot, particularly in the age of computers flying aircraft where pilots are just monitoring computers. Gliding teaches you how to fly for real."

One example of gliding leading to bigger things is Holly Harris of Church Stretton.

"Holly went solo at the Mynd at 15. She became an instructor at 18 and was 20 when she gained her commercial pilot's licence – an extraordinary achievement.

"You have other people like Andy Holmes who grew up at the Mynd and is now the captain of an A320 for British Airways. They both have benefited hugely from gliding.

"As a recreational sport, one of the things of huge value that gliding teaches young people is team working. Like no other sport, in order to fly you have to operate as part of a team.

"It also helps young people with how they interact with people of different ages and different life experiences.

"For a recreational pilot, somebody like me, it is something that is challenging, and there is always something to learn. It's hugely beautiful and the views from the Mynd, particularly when looking into Wales, are intoxicating – fabulous."

It was in the summer of 1934 that the Long Mynd attracted the interest of Midland gliding enthusiasts led by wealthy Birmingham stockbroker Espin Hardwick, the chairman of the new British Gliding Association.

They were looking for somewhere reasonably local to enjoy the emerging sport in which Nazi Germany was leading the world and knew that in westerly winds the Mynd's long, west-facing ridge would deflect the air upwards, and that gliders would be able to stay aloft in the upcurrent.

The farmer, Alfred Morris, of Snead Farm, Wentnor, cleared a launching strip 80 yards long by seven wide and on August 11 Hardwick's Falcon glider, which was piloted by Fred Slingsby, a pioneer manufacturer of British gliders, was catapulted off the side of the Long Mynd by rubber rope in a flight to assess the potential of the site.

It is a method which is, incidentally, very occasionally still used as a nod to the past, although overwhelmingly launches are by winching.

That historic day gliders were aloft for about two hours. When the enthusiasts returned a second time the word had got round, and the 700 or so spectators got in the way of launches and landings so badly that gliding had to be suspended.

The grouse didn't like it and neither did Max Wenner, who held the shooting rights on adjoining land, part of 5,000 acres he owned on the Long Mynd. He launched a legal action, which was fought by Hardwick mainly at his own expense.

It came to a climax in March 1935 at the Chancery Court. Wenner was granted an injunction to stop the gliding. But the enthusiasts were not beaten. Within days they obtained the lease of a new site overlooking the village of Asterton.

It proved an excellent choice and soon gliding records were being set as pilots found new ways of soaring, using thermals – rising columns of air – to gain height and travel cross-country, and later discovering and exploiting invisible wave formations in the sky which can take gliders to the height of commercial jets.

A hangar went up in 1936 and gradually the club complex as we know it today began to take shape.

It was thought that the war ended gliding activity on the Long Mynd for the duration, but a recently discovered photo in our archives has proven that wrong.

Published in May 1943, it shows a gliding school which catered for a weekly party of 12 students and was mainly to give tuition to Air Training Corps officers and civilian instructors.

"Gliding at this club was stopped at the outbreak of war, and it was not until a few weeks ago that the club's motorless and silent machines took to the air once more," explained the caption.

As for Wenner, who lived at Batchcott Hall, near Leebotwood, he died in mysterious circumstances when he plunged thousands of feet to his death from a civilian airliner when returning from Germany in January 1937.

Hardwick was the pivotal figure in the early years of the gliding club and in the early 1950s was behind the building fund which realised his dream of a permanent clubhouse being built. He lived just long enough to hear of its coming into use, but illness prevented him seeing it and he died on May 18, 1954, at his home in Little Aston, Birmingham.

His Falcon glider, bar the struts, was ceremonially burned on Bonfire Night. The struts are hanging in the club's briefing room.

The club that Hardwick and others created is today held in high regard in the gliding community internationally for its historic associations, its stunning scenery, and the variety and quality of its soaring opportunities.