Swanton Morley
A couple of points,
Firstly, a quote from a post of mine on a gliding school thread.
"An S.A.C. Dixon used to hang around and often drove the winch. He borrowed a Prentice one night and took it to Belgium to visit his girl friend. I think the R.A.F. then sent him to the funny farm."
It was summer time and he went in the early hours and just after dawn put it down unharmed on a concrete farm road close to his destination. He was reasonable glider pilot.
Secondly at T.I. a couple of years later the duty officer rang the duty sgt at 3.00 a.m. claiming a Varsity had gone missing. Obviously bearing in mind this incident he (an education F.O.) had earlier counted the number of Varsities outside and now there was one less. Needless to say it was found now inside for maintenance.
Now back to the thread, the varsities were generally fueled for 8h40m ready for morning use. The distance to the 1st threshold was not great and if you knew how no problem to start on your own as 1 fitter discovered. Having finished his job he decided to test it but couldn't be bothered to fetch his mate. Result th, th, th, fires, loud crack, engine stops. It wasn't chocked and bits of trolley ac scattered over 300- yards. the cable was by the guard room!
That's the only thing about this story Agnoni had to disconnect the trolley ac or did he have help? Though I doubt if many would have initially taken much notice of an a/c being started up.