Some time ago I, as an A Category instructor, was on loan to 664 VGS in Northern Ireland. The cadet I was given to check was excellent and I sent him off for his first solo in a Vigilant. It was a textbook solo. Afterwards, as he was recovering from his elation, I told him that I had noticed that he seemed to stay apart from his fellow cadets. I asked him to explain why. He said that he was a different religion to them. He also said that his mother knew that he was an Air Cadet but that he dare not tell his father. I asked him what his hopes were for the future. He said that he would go to the mainland and apply to join the Royal Air Force.
What guts this cadet had and almost certainly still has. Surely we are not going to let him and others like him down by closing their gliding school.