I’m still bewitched... despite the accident

Forty years ago I did a gliding course at Duxford, near Cambridge.

It started badly.

The instructor said that in all their years Duxford had never had an accident and asked what that proved.

‘That one was due,’ I suggested, helpfully.

Now I confine my curiosity about flying to touring our Cotswold airfields (20 of them) and talking to fliers.

Since man first trod this earth he has looked upwards and longed to fly like a bird.

Gliding is the nearest you can get to that and certainly flying an unpowered aircraft successfully from one side of the country to the other and back in just a few hours is the nearest thing to bliss that aviation has to offer.

It requires years of practice, an appreciation of the sheer poetry of silent flight, and guts.

Listen to that sound. It is 7,000 glider pilots groaning as they see the air-grab that threatens the future of gliding.

Commercial and military aviation both want more of what is finite, and the space for southern-based gliding clubs is being squeezed.

Most long cross-country gliding flights pass around Brize Norton and Oxford.

So when Osprey, a development company, applied last year for a huge expansion of airspace in what has quietly been renamed ‘Oxford Airport (London)’ there was a shudder of despair.

The area around Brize is not infinite; go north and you bump against Birmingham and Daventry airspace, further east, RAF Benson, south, the Salisbury Plain danger area, and Cardiff-Bristol. Make the traffic island bigger, plus a new airport, and aviation is squeezed into yet narrower corridors and through tighter pinch points, none of which is safe for gliders.

While we are all conscious of the dangers of land being grabbed and, in a sense, lost forever, spare a thought for what is happening in the sky.

Next sunny day, when you look up and see the majestic twirling of a gleaming glider as, bird-like, it floats higher and higher with nothing but skill and magic powering it, think it might be one of the last you see.

In praise of 'real' shops

Who would own a shop? It must be 'challenging' to say the least.

The High Street is a retailing nightmare. Large chains, once so profitable and dominant, can no longer be smug as they watch each other, warily wondering who is to close next.

There are myriad reasons for this but not least the change in consumers' shopping habits.

Internet shopping shows steady growth and it is a foolish shop which does not adjust accordingly.

Gloucester retailers have responded wisely by investing time, money and skill in boosting their digital presence by 220% since early 2017.

They are using social media to promote their shops and to attract people to them.

Increasingly over the last years I am likely to buy basic goods on the internet.

I like the ease; you can sit at the computer, browse good photographs and descriptions, pay safely, and the goods are with you within a day or so.

The choice is enormous, the risks minimal, and it is hugely convenient.

So, why shop in real shops? The answer is simple. For the experience.

To shop is a pleasure (groans of complaint from those who hate it.)

Shops that survive realise that a shopper needs to enjoy their shop.

A happy shopper spends money. And it isn't just about the goods, it's about how the place feels, looks, smells.

Shopping is about ambiance and aspiration. Sadly House of Fraser in Cirencester is a huge high street let-down.

It ought to be gorgeous, the centre piece of a thriving town. The staff are wonderful, the place is a nightmare.