January 11 was a long time coming for Roy Sims, aged 78, when he achieved a 60-year ambition and piloted a glider again solo at the Bath, Wilts and North Dorset Gliding Club near his home in Mere.

He first flew solo in 1953 at RAF Hawkinge, near Folkestone, Kent. Roy has been a member of the Kingston Deverill club for four years, and has flown many times with an Instructor, but conditions were never quite right for him to fly solo. The weather on Saturday was calm and perfect, and he took a training flight and then relived that edgy sensation of climbing into the two-seater glider alone.

His launch, flight and landing were all executed perfectly, and he returned to the ground with a beaming smile.

Roy moved to Mere in 2001 and has devoted much energy to the town where he is a councillor, a civilian police volunteer, serves on the Cancer and Carnival committees and is active in Neighbourhood Watch. His next ambition is to fly a single-seater glider.