General Meeting: July 2026 Marcus Alton worked for many years as a BBC producer, news reader and chat show host and has written several books and articles about his hero Brian Clough. His talk mainly featured a series of recordings from the Clough era that he came across during lockdown, and we were able to listen to parts of them. They opened a fascinating insight into the personality and character of Cloughie as Marcus referred to him. Brian Clough had a long and distinguished career as a footballer in the England squad and later as manager to Derby County and… Read More

General Meeting: June 2026 Those of us who were able to attend our June social, wonderfully organised by Gayle Harris, had an excellent time. A mock trial of an actual local 1897 murder case was presented to us as if we were in a court of law, and the audience were organised into juries who had to weigh up the evidence and decide on a verdict. We were introduced to the case by Mark Reynolds as the narrator, whose introduction was peppered by puns from TV crime dramas for us to recognize and groan at. Then we were treated to… Read More

General Meeting: May 2026 Due to our speaker cancelling at short notice Janet managed to find a replacement, Martin Rowley who gives a number of talks on various topics and ours was the Criminal Justice System. Martin’s delivery was fast and punchy and accompanied by a plethora of information and statistics on a rapidly moving screen. The main thrust of the talk was to increase our awareness of the inbuilt unfairness, corruption and criminality at every level of the system, including the Police, the Prison system, governments, corporate businesses, the Probation service, MPs and titled individuals and more. We were… Read More

General Meeting: April 2026 Dr Ann Featherstone gave us an entertaining, very well researched talk about the difficult working conditions of waitresses in 1908, a time when the Women’s Suffrage was at its high point. Waitresses at the time were poorly paid for long shifts, fed poor quality meals, had to pay for their uniforms, and worst of all, were allowed no tips to supplement their pay. They could also be dismissed on the spot if customer complained, which is what happened at an ABC cafe in central London in April 1908. However on this occasion, led by the head… Read More