Jason Hargreaves Blog - Flight Training Synopsis

The book recounts the experience of the author learning to fly. He began by attending a course in Florida between November 2007 and January 2008, then opted to continue his flight training in the UK in the summer of 2008.

It tracks the highs and lows, exhilaration and fears which went beyond those that any amount of investigation could have prepared him for. It begins with research into the options available for learning to fly and then weeks of self-study at home, organising a VISA and the trip itself.

A brand new fleet of Liberty XL2 aircraft were being touted as the future of training aircraft by the flight school but a closed runway and a lack of instructors hampered progress. Unable to complete within the advertised three weeks timescale the author returned home for Christmas.

A series of accidents suffered by fellow students and a near-miss eroded confidence in the aircraft and school. Forced to return or suffer financial penalties, the author resumed training at the beginning of January aiming to obtain his licence in the proven Piper Warrior 161 aircraft.

Further incidents and acknowledgements by the school instructors and staff confirmed the unsuitability of the Liberty as a training aircraft and the real possibility of a fatal accident occurring. The school was profiting from the difficulties that students were encountering mastering landing the Liberty. Clauses in the training contract which were designed to weed out sub-standard students pre-Liberty, were being invoked to penalise virtually every student. The average flying time to achieve solo flight had risen from fourteen to over twenty hours.

Family life and work pressure again forced the author to return home without the coveted licence. However, the experience gained in the Warrior proved valuable as it was a widely available aircraft in the UK.

Post Florida, the book complements the experience of flight training in the USA with that gained at flying schools in the UK. The differences in cost, airspace, approach and not least the weather are all explored. There is examination of the reality of three week start-to-completion courses advertised in many other countries and comparison with the longer-term approach employed in the UK.

The book is a must read for the thousands of people who learn to fly each year and anyone with an interest in general aviation.

Copyright Jason Hargreaves 2010

Jason Hargreaves Blog - Black Magic On Deadman's Hill

The gravestones form an eerie circle around the perimeter of the graveyard. Most of them are upright but all isolated from their graves. In the centre, commanding impressive views of the surrounding countryside, stand the ruins of the church of St Mary’s. Half a mile along a quiet tree-lined lane from the village of Clophill, the churchyard at Deadmans Hill in Bedfordshire is largely unchanged from the sixties, when it was alleged to be the scene of mysterious black magic rituals.

               

The tomb of an 18^th century apothecary’s wife was broken into, in March 1963, and the bones were arranged in the church nave. On Midsummer’s eve in 1969, graves were broken into and again, bones were rearranged. No one was ever held accountable for these acts but speculation focused on black magic.

Although a church has stood on the site for around 850 years the present structure dates from the 15^th century. The church was deemed to be too small and too far out of the village. In 1848 a new and larger St Mary’s church was opened in the centre of Clophill, effectively replacing the older church as a place of worship. The new St Mary’s is a crematorium and does not cater for burials. Once a year on Whit Sunday a ceremony was held in the old church. Burials still take place there today, in a plot of consecrated ground, next to the old churchyard proper.

It was not until 1972 that the old church was declared redundant. This followed an attempted theft of the lead from the roof; the lead was removed from the roof but recovered before it could be taken away. The cost of restoring the lead was prohibitively high and so it was sold instead. This marked the end of services being held inside the church. Weather permitting the Whit Sunday service is still held in the grounds.

The County Council purchased the church in 1977 for maintenance purposes. The building is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, meaning that in the opinion of the Secretary of State it is of public interest by reason of the historic, architectural, traditional, artistic or archaeological interest attaching to it.

Contrary to the belief of some, it was the council and not devil worshipers that moved the gravestones to the perimeter of the field. This was done purely for expediency. It is much easier to mow the grass without the stones in the way. The most recent burials in the main churchyard, as identified from the gravestones, appear to have taken place at the end of the 19^th century. Sufficient time has elapsed since, to make the moving of the headstones acceptable to the authorities. Any more recent burials have taken place in the adjoining plot of land.

The resulting perimeter ring of headstones lends a mysterious air to the site, which adds to the allure to black magic activists and those seeking a late-night thrill. Legally there may have been nothing wrong with moving the headstones. However, consideration and respect for the deceased and any remaining family members, does not appear to have been adequately addressed. These reasons, when combined, may suggest that moving the headstones may have been a mistake.

The structure of the building is largely intact today, excepting the roof, graffiti dons the walls where plaques with messages of remembrance used to be. The tone of the graffiti is largely that of devil-worship. However, the poor quality and lack of coherence suggests that misguided youthful high spirits, rather than dark spirits, were responsible.

A sprinkling of empty alcoholic drink bottles and the remains of burnt out fireworks support the high jinks theory. The site is notorious for late night gatherings of youths, coming to be spooked by its atmosphere. Like many ruined religious sites, at night the scene has qualities liable to give flight to the imagination. The remoteness of St Mary’s church adds to the mystique of the place, making it attractive for young adults to hang out there.

For all the notoriety that the tales of black magic provide, a daylight visit to the church reveals a different perspective; that of quiet natural beauty and tranquillity. Marred only slightly, by a past that probably owed more to vandalism than true devil-worship and a present, which does little to alter that view, the old St Mary’s church at Clophill is a paradox of beauty and desecration.

Copyright Jason Hargreaves 2010 

Jason Hargreaves Blog - In Fields Where Lepers Once Toiled

The thought of leper colonies inspires images of Biblical times and hordes of “the unclean”, cast into enclosures separate from the general populace. The fact that the World Health Organisation (WHO) is still confronting the disease may surprise many.

Information about leprosy in the United Kingdom is hard to come by. Globally, it is clear that leprosy is not yet a thing of the past. As recently as 1992 the Catholic Church was running 793 leper colonies or leprosariums worldwide. At the end of the year 2000, the number of registered sufferers of leprosy was 600,000; over 60 percent of those were in India. Brazil followed with 13 percent and Madagascar, Mozambique, Myanmar and Nepal all had significant levels of the disease.

Closer to home, there were leprosariums in the United Kingdom at least as recently as the mid-17^th century. On Guernsey there were no fewer than three. One of the colonies was situated at the end of Perelle Bay, on the west coast, a site known for its surfing today.

In the shadow of Great Torrington in North Devon, on the River Torridge, lies the hamlet of Taddiport. The name is derived from toad pit or toad gate, toad referring to leper. There was a leper colony in Taddiport from the 13^th to the mid-17^th century. Two strip fields, known locally as leper fields, remain just outside of the settlement. They are the remnants of an extensive medieval strip field system, in which the lepers grew food.

The church of St Mary Magdalen bears witness to the past, in 1418 it was mentioned in the Registers of the Bishops of Exeter as a leper hospital. It is one of several St Mary Magdalen chapels in the Diocese, all of which were leper hospitals. The hospital building is near the village hall and was designed to look after three patients at any time. The church is small, basic in design and barely stands out from the surrounding buildings. It is difficult to spot looking down the valley, from Great Torrington. There is a Norman window set in one wall, below which there used to be a five feet tall door.

The church, land and hospital were made part of a charity, initially to fund them for the use of lepers. By the mid-17^th century there were no longer any lepers in Taddiport, Tristram Arscott was the owner of the land and buildings and he consented to their use by the poor. The charity stipulated that the buildings must be maintained and that any profit could be split annually, between the parishes of Great and Little Torrington. Land rent formed much of the income and what remains today is distributed to invalids and the old at Christmas.

Close to the church, a medieval bridge stands over the river, alongside an ancient river ford. Under one of the arches of the bridge there used to be a small alms doorway, concealing a space, where people crossing the river could leave food or gifts, without having to see the lepers.

The paucity of historical information in and around the Great Torrington area, may stem from the dramatic events of February 16^th 1646. The Battle of Great Torrington, part of the English Civil War, took place between the Royalists and Cromwell’s forces. It was a pivotal encounter, swinging the balance of the war in favour of Cromwell. At 2 a.m. a fire broke out, destroying the church in Great Torrington. The church was being used as a makeshift prison and a gunpowder store. 167 men perished in the fierce blaze that followed. As is still common today, the church was a major repository for local records; births, marriages, deaths and other parish information. Many of these records were thought to be lost in the fire.

According to the WHO, the worldwide eradication of leprosy is attainable by 2005. In leprosariums around the world, victims are still being disfigured, shunned and left to die. It is rumoured that a government sells WHO provided medications, on its black market, to those who can afford to stay healthy, rather than give them to the sick. Three and a half centuries after the disease last cast its shadow across the waters of the Torridge, the battle is not yet won.

Copyright Jason Hargreaves 2010