Club Appeals to Those With Tall Tales to Tell : Organizations: The founder of Britain’s first group for tall people says it’s a way for members to share practical tips.

Being tall can be a real shortcoming, emotionally and physically, according to members of Britain’s first Tall Person’s Club.

“Oddities in a world built for short people,” is how members describe themselves.

According to the 6-foot-8-inch club founder, Phil Heinricy, there’s nothing funny about tall jokes--such as “What’s the weather like up there?”

It’s unfair to have to sit with your knees pressed into your chin on airplanes, he says, or to sleep with toes dangling over the edge of hotel beds. Heinricy, 38, launched Britain’s chapter of the Tall Person’s Club in August after hearing about American groups and the European Federation of Tall Persons Club.

So far, he has more than 100 members and reports dozens of inquiries.

“We’re way behind as usual” in Britain, he said. “It’s a case of the good old tradition of stiff upper lip, you put up with things. You recognize you’re an oddity in a world built for small people. But, now that people found me, they’re coming out of the woodwork.”

Heinricy said he plans to use the club to delve into the psychological aspects of being tall and sharing practical tips such as hotels that have long beds.

“In California, they have a Tip Toppers Club, but it’s more of a social affair, a bunch of tall people who jump in the car and get social,” he said. Heinricy also wants to form a lobby group to demand that major hospitals have a few extra-long beds and that cinemas reserve a section for the long of leg.

“Many tall people try to disguise their height. They look broken, bent, and that destroys confidence in later years. Many intelligent, tall people are stuck in dead-end jobs simply because they haven’t learned to cope with it,” said Heinricy, of Hereford in western England.

There’s no minimum height requirement to join the club. The average female member is 6 feet tall and the average male member is 6-feet-5, Heinricy said.

Government statistics in 1984 showed that the average height of British women was 5-feet-3 1/2, while men averaged 5-feet-8 1/2.

Britain’s tallest man, 7-foot-4 Christopher Greener, said being tall never bothered him, but he sympathizes with those who do have problems and will be an active club member.

Trudy Longfield, 20, a 5-foot-10-inch club member, heard Heinricy talking about the club on TV.

“Finally, someone understood exactly how I felt,” she said in a telephone interview.

She grew up in Pontefract in West Yorkshire, a “small mining town where everyone is really small,” and was called “Big Bird” in grade school.

In her late teens, she said, she would “take a few swigs” before hitting the pubs just to gain confidence to cope with the tall jokes. Then, fearing a drinking problem, she stopped going out at all.