Yes indeed, Yorkshire Tyke, enjoyed your story, and of course your mention that glider pilots always have an engine-out landing and usually survive! Actually not having an engine is curiously comforting; no dangerous fuel in the wingtanks either! so no worries about the landing whether you should go round or not....any landing is the only one, so just get on with it. I learned on gliders to begin with, at Booker gliding club, which was extremely busy, with helicopters, light aircraft training and just over the horizon, the approach path for LHR, depending of course on the wind of the day....and a lot of the power traffic would carefully insert itself just under the LHR traffic and over our airfield. I can still remember being impressed how BIG a Boeing actually is when it is approx. fifty feet overhead your little craft!
As for Navigation, it was certainly handy to have the military down at the bottom of the hill,whenever I asked them if that was their airfield I was flying across, they would answer kindly Yes ma'am and confirm my position. Upper Heyford had American military crew....and I will always remember being in a glider over Aylesbury, calling Heyford to tell them where I was.....and planning to fly over Heyford to Banbury. In a Glider - I did mention that fact. So the Heyford Yank instructed me to maintain 4,000 feet when crosssing ! ! I'll try! I said. Eventually moved to Shenington Gliding Club, as a tug pilot and gliding instructor. Flew in gliding competitions all over the UK, and even in the Soviet Union! (the Women's European Championships, where I came last....) . Always fun, loved instructing and flying cross country in a glider, never won any medals or prizes, but I never bent an aircraft either, so there.