The Talks programme for the current season is listed below, after some basic information.
Venue
These talks will be given at:
The Hastings Room
St Andrew's Church Centre
Roger's Lane
Stoke Poges,
SL2 4LN
There is a car park here and so parking should not be a problem. The Hastings Room is best accessed via the outer door by the sign "Lighthouse Cafe".
Day & Time
2nd Friday of the month Sep - Jun, 7.30pm.
(except where the 2nd Friday clashes with Good Friday).
Cost
Talks are free to members and £2 to visitors.
Talks are followed by complimentary tea, coffee, and biscuits.
Previous talks
To get an idea of the range of talks we hear, Click here to see our previous talks.
Talks programme for the 2024/25 season are listed below:
Fri 13 Sep 2024, 7:30pm: Origins of Writing and Number - Part 2 Brian Withington
How the first alphabets arose, with their limitations. Perfected by the Greeks, who added five vowels, and then spread it 'worldwide' by Alexander the Great, giving the West its simple, versatile, alphabetic systems of written records.
Fri 11 Oct 2024, 7:30pm: Virtual Tour of Ockwells Manor, Maidenhead Ann Darracott
Ockwells Manor House on the outskirts of Maidenhead was built by John Norreys, Esquire to the Body of Henry VI, in the mid C15th between the loss of English held lands in France but before the outbreak of the Wars of the Roses.
The talk will include a virtual tour of the house pointing out both original features and the changes that have occurred. Still in its Great Hall is a set of contemporary armorial glass of great historic and aesthetic interest. The personalities represented in the glass and the scheme that Norreys put up will be detailed.
At the end of the C19th Ockwells was being used as a farmhouse and was becoming ruinous. The process of restoration will be described as well as the present status of the house. The National Trust nearly acquired this house in the C20th. Why they didn’t will be explained.
Fri 8 Nov 2024, 7:30pm: William Herschel – Astronomer and Innovator Richard Emerson
William Herschel was one of those remarkable people who seem to have lived two lives compared with other people’s one. He came to England as a refugee from a Hanover guards band and soon became successful as a multi-talented musician and composer, for a while, more popular in this country than Joseph Haydn. But that was not enough for him. He started a second career as an astronomer, manufacturing his own reflector telescopes and using them to study the sky. In the process – and aided by his loyal sister Carolyn – he discovered a new planet, Uranus, the first since antiquity – thereby doubling the size of our planetary system. And he studied the misty and mysterious deep space objects known as nebulae and discovered some were galaxies like our own Milky Way, thereby vastly increasing the size of the known universe. He also built increasingly large telescopes – the biggest being 40 ft in length – and, for good measure, he discovered infrared and predicted the electromagnetic spectrum.
These and many other achievements will be covered in a talk by Richard Emerson, chair of the Friends of St Laurence Church, Upton. It was in St Laurence that William married a local widow, Mrs Mary Pitt, and where their son John was christened. And it is here that William and Mary lie buried – under the church tower. The aim of the ‘Friends’ is to promote the history and heritage of St Laurence and the wider Upton area and thereby help preserve it for future generations.
Fri 13 Dec 2024, 7:30pm to 10:00pm. Christmas Social event.
A sharing buffet, quizzes, etc.?
Fri 10 Jan 2025, 7:30pm: British Partisan Bernard Foot.
British Partisan – a sort of companion story to The Really Great Escape. It involves an escape from the same PoW camp and also involves the railways and the Yugoslavian Partisans, but it is a completely different type of story. The subject of the story actually joins the Yugoslavian Partisans, becomes a senior officer, and receives awards for bravery from Yugoslavia, Britain, and the Soviet Union. He contributes to the decision of the Allies to support the Partisans as the primary resistance organisation in Yugoslavia.
Fri 14 Feb 2025, 7:30pm: To be confirmed Speaker TBC.
This talk is yet to be decided.
Fri 14 Mar 2025, 7:30pm: The Profumo Affair Nigel Smales
Profumo, Astor, Ward, Keeler and Rice-Davies? Familiar names. Explore the context, cast, chronology and consequences of how a naughty, embarrassing peccadillo exploded into a multi-layered saga of upper crust, political and underworld rivalry and rumour, spies, sleaze, sexual shenanigans, mud-slinging, suicide, secrets and lies in the years before the Sixties were swinging. Listen and consider: how did it crumble traditional notions of deference, did it bring down the Government and was Ward “utterly immoral” or a convenient scapegoat to distract from a more scurrilous scandal?
Fri 11 Apr 2025, 7:30pm: Sparta: The other Greek City state Colin Oakes
When we consider Ancient Greece we perceive it through Athenian eyes, yet this was only one of the many independent City States of the time. This talk looks at Sparta as a premier power in ancient Greece that beat Athens in the Peloponnesian wars and was feared, misunderstood and admired by other states; not least for its prowess in the ancient Olympics by Pindar.
Fri 9 May 2025, 7:30pm: To be confirmed Speaker TBC.
This talk is yet to be decided.
Fri 13 Jun 2025, 7:30pm: AGM 2025 followed by: A Talk By one of our members.
Traditionally, one of our members gives a talk.