Spence,
Before condemning the clutch, give us some more symptoms. Was the lutch behaving badly before this problem? Before the clutches fail they usually get hard to use, and become quite 'snatchy', particularly when hot. Was it like this? Did it operate smoothly - both smooth travel on the pedal and smooth when pulling away? What about in reverse? Did it slip at all? EVen when giving it the beans in lower gears?
Were there any other symptoms? How hard was it to change gear before the incident? Had it become any harder (or easier) to change gear after the incident?
How did it drive after the incident? As it was before, but with extra sound effects, or was it clunky? Did it accelerate smoothly, or lumpily? Did it feel like anything was dragging? When the rubbers fail they will contimue to drive, but very harshly, very lumpily and with a huge lash in the system - were there any of these symptoms?
I can only echo the comments from Paul about the cost of running these cars. They were very expensive machines, and expensive machines cost a lot to maintain - even when they have depreciated to sub-ford-fiesta money (which they almost all have now.) And if it is a clutch, it's not a hard job to change if you have a set of spanners and a practical outlook on things. That will easily halve the bill to fix it.
Oli.