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On 16th September local author Norman Pagett presented From Field to Plate a talk on agriculture and farming from pre-history to the present day. Humankind, like every other species, evolved to hunt for food, and possessed the knowledge of where to find it through an affinity with the land. We used fire to cook our food, from this came subtleties of language, writing and exchange of money and complex ideas. We found that land delivered capital and material wealth, and what we call resources. All animals engage in conflict, but only humans engage in large scale wars and mass killing. Our wars are fought over resources. Over millennia, we've mostly lost our ancient land-knowledge, and have become totally dependent on fuels and machines to provide our food, which is delivered in endless variety. |
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On 20th May 2026 Doug Newlyn presented A History of Forensic Science. Doug explained how various techiques were developed and gave examples of how they were used to solve crimes. The techniques included some that were of limited use. The lesser known subjects were
The better known subjects were
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On 15th April 2026 researcher and author, Norman Pagett, presented a talk which covered how the Shropshire landscape was formed over the past 4 billion years. This in turn led on to the formation of iron, other minerals and coal which were the basic elements on which the iron maufacturing started. The industrial revolution was born and flourished. Manufacturing of ceramics and other industries developed. Norman explained how transport links, with roads (mainly Roman in origin), and the canal network, enabled goods to be delivered to the rest of the country and to othere countries, via ports such as Liverpool Norman gave the appreciative audience plenty to think about and discuss. |
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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. |
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Other previous topics include:
History
Life in the Country 200-300 Years Ago.
The Enigma Machine and Codes
The Ancient Ways that Paved our Future (How our Paths, Tracks, and Roads Came to Be).
Thomas Telford in Shropshire
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
‘The Norman Conquest’.
International History
The History of the Problems in the Middle East.
'Operation Veritable' Feb-March 1945. The Road to the Rhine and Victory
Science
The Joys of AI?
The Science of Climate Change
Mendeleev, the Periodic Table and how atoms work
The Fibonacci Sequence
UFOs and Ball Lightning
General Interest
The Tao Te Ching,
Brewing By Traditional Methods.
The UK Oil and Gas Industry (including the Piper Disaster).
Biology and Agriculture
The Plant Age.
'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.
Organic Soils, their Care and Management.
The Dutch Farming Crisis - Enlightened Governance or Totalitarian Overreach?
Regenerative Farming
Farm Management Philosophy at Patshull