I have an old friend at Shoreham who flew the York for Skyways. He tells a story about losing an engine just after take off from Khartoum. The highest they got in the subsequent circuit was about 150 feet. As you say, certainly not to Performance A standards but at least they didn't crash! He also reckons that having the throttles in the roof was less than instinctive until you got used to the idea.