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| 11/05/2015
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| The Flying Men of Pocklington |
Our May meet is held a Allerthorpe Lakeland Park, SW of Pocklington, which is a watersports venue and also has a lovely cafe to boot.
Friday early was bootiful, but Friday evening descended into boot of the welly variety weather with torrential rain. Was this going to be a repeat of the 'Wading Man of Pocklington' of 2014?
The history behind this meet is all due to one man - Thomas Pelling, who was the infamous 'Flying Man'. Going back almost 300 years, Mr Pelling toured various towns and villages to show off his skills by 'flying' across the town square, sadly his visit to Pocklington in 1733 ended in tragedy when he fell to his death at the foot of the church tower.
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The people of Pocklington have celebrated this event for the last 11 years with all manner of events taking place in the town.
Saturday morning was a nice lie in as the forecast was just not playing ball, and as the day progressed the wind got stronger and stronger. Alex Smith predicted a slot that evening and he was correct, although the wind direction was not inline with any of the arranged launch fields. We had a quick search for a site to the NW of Pocklington and came up trumps with a 2 acre field. The only pilots taking up the challenge being Team Read/Wetters and Team Smith/Traviss. Martin and Trevor plumped for a site closer than the rapidly arranged site and flew G-COSY along a great track towards the church, landing eventually at Kilnwick Percy. Alex and Phil set off a met balloon - direction bang on for Pock, then launched G-OATV and instantly took a left - away from Pock, grrr!
Trevor then decided to get out his little 'un and inflated it in West Green!! G-SEAT drew a little crowd and reminded the people of Pock that balloons do fly at the Flying Man Event!
Sunday lie in was on the cards but a quick check of the weather at 6am proved another flyable slot had anyone been interested!
We had a lovely turn out with Team Chamberlain/Skilbeck, Team Hill/Greensides, Team Stringer, Team Graham (who decided not to bring his balloon and had to go to the pub on Saturday night to watch the footy as he was so gutted to miss a slot! Never mind Kev, you have a future glider pilot on your hands, and the new caravan got an outing!), Team Smith/Traviss, and Team Read/Wetters.
The quiz (on a theme of growing old disgracefully, or not at all like the ill fated Thomas Pelling) was won by one point by Phil Traviss, and the Flying Man tankard trophy was quite rightly won by 'Our Kids' Read. Martin modelled his newly won Flying Man t-shirt to which some rude person commented that he needed to take it to Camerons for a panel sewing in, to be rebuffed immediately with a comment of 'hark who's talking'!!!
Thank you all for coming along again, same place, same time, next year? Yes indeed!
For more info on any of our meets, check out our website (www.prba.org.uk) or email meets@prba.org.uk or telephone Elaine/Alex on 07974 316123 |
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