On 18th March 2026, Peter Ward presented a talk called Strawberries a Grower's Journey. Peter was a soft fruit grower in Donnington for 50 years. He explained that he was an innovator in growing strawberries in Shropshire, had the first and very successful "pick your own" farm. Being in Shropshire meant that he could fill a production gap between the early strawberries from Kent and the later fruit from Scotland. With the help of a Kent growers collective, Peter became a supplier for the most demanding supermakets such as M&S and Tesco. Peter not only looked over his life but showed the audience how the industry is changing with James Dysons massive automated glasshouse production.

Are you interested in the world? We present sessions on a variety of subjects.

Recent topics include:

Life in the Country 200-300 Years Ago.

The Tao Te Ching,

The Enigma Machine and Codes

Brewing By Traditional Methods.

The History of the Problems in the Middle East.

The Ancient Ways that Paved our Future (How our Paths, Tracks, and Roads Came to Be).

Thomas Telford in Shropshire

The Plant Age.

The UK Oil and Gas Industry (including the Piper Disaster).

The Science of Climate Change.

Mendeleev, the Periodic Table and how atoms work.

The Fibonacci Sequence;

'Cyclic Events' (the interaction of the Rock Cycle, Hydrological Cycle, and the Nitrogen Cycle.

The interconnection of things in nature and the way trees communicate.

The derivation and make-up of Soils,

Organic Soils, their Care and Management.

DNA and inherited memories.

'The Dutch Farming Crisis - Enlightened Governance or Totalitarian Overreach?'

UFOs with a wonderful lead onto Ball Lightning –

'Patterns of Life, Patterns of Nature - Interconnections and Interrelationships'.

The Price of Plenty (Early Man, Fire, Tools, Stone Axes, Survival, then profligate use of Resources?);

 ‘How the Iron Men of Shropshire Put the World to Work’

'Electric Dreams - UK Energy Policy plus The ULEZ Blade Runners - The Roundhead Spirit Returns To Haunt His Majesty Khan Of London'

‘Regenerative Farming’.

‘Our Farm Management Philosophy at Patshull’

‘The Norman Conquest’.

The Joys of AI?

The Science of Climate Change.

Norman Pagett will present ‘The Plant Age’.

'Operation Veritable' Feb-March 1945. The Road to the Rhine and Victory - Dad's Journey.