Dickson primary glider at Coneysthorpe.
Gliding and sailplane flying was very popular during the early 1930s with small gliding clubs being formed across Yorkshire. During 1930 the Malton Gliding Club came into being when a few like-minded men formed the club. This brief webpage also serves as a very basic history of the club as I can find no information anywhere about what would have been my most local gliding club. Several of the men involved obtained drawings to construct a Dickson primary glider and over the course of some months the glider was built locally in 1930. John Spiegelhalter appears to have been the main person behind the project and having spoken to people who remember him, he may have lived on Broughton Rise in Malton. With this street having large properties there would probably have been space to make the glider here had that been the location. Other local men involved included K.Wray, T.Wray and W.Parker who, along with Spiegelhalter, had no flying experience. The club secretary was Mr John Noel Gladish who had served in the RFC and RAF in the First World War and then done civilian aeroplane flying with the Scarborough Aero Club. By Sunday, 22nd March 1931 the locally-built glider was complete and the club had found a site at Coneysthorpe to fly from. The glider was catapault launched using large elastic straps and a team of man holding the glider in the taught straps. On this date Gladish made the initial flight then other club members made flights at Coneysthorpe but it sustained damage on what a newspaper reports were on "one or two occasions". After the flying carried out on this date I have not located any other reference to the Malton Gliding Club. This may be because around this time, clubs who did not affiliate with the national organisation around this time made operating difficult.
John Noel Gladish is worthy of making mention here, he was born in October 1898 in Retford, Nottinghamshire. He had served in the Army with the 3rd Sherwood Foresters before transferring to the RFC, he then later served in the RAF with 33 Squadron. In the inter-war years he flew with the Scarborough Aero Club, then later moved to York and was a member of the York Gliding or Aero Club. He later moved south and in 1968 renewed his pilot's licence, in doing this he became the world's older holder at aged seventy. He flew up until his death in 1986 in Kent, aged 87.
John Spiegelhalter was from a family of jewellers or clock and watchmakers who lived in Malton.