Monday 14 October 2024
President’s Evening at 6.45pm, Lecture at 7.30pm
Creating gardens, why bother? Alan Mason
Alan’s title is either flippant or philosophical. Is he in Nietzsche mode or Titchmarsh in the pub? What we do know is that he is one of Britain’s best garden designers, with a reputation both here and in Europe. Some of you may remember him coming to us in the nineties to set out his grand design, his ambition, to restore the historic formal gardens at the 14th-century Harlaxton Manor near Grantham. An update, please? Half a century ago he was the young head gardener for the Lane-Fox family at Bramham Park, Wetherby, one of the finest French-style gardens in Yorkshire. Then followed nine years as garden manager at Harewood (above) to rejuvenate its Capability Brown landscape. The Harlaxton restoration of its showpiece English garden brought him national celebrity via a TV series. Several of his continental garden restorations, including one he owned in France, also made TV programmes. His work abroad includes rescuing the noted garden of the Villa Cicogna Mozzoni, with the owner of the villa writing to him: “You will remain in the history of the house. In 200 years it will tell about the British boys who came to save the Count from enormous conifer trees menacing his life and choking the ancient water staircase.” So, some Titchmarsh and some Nietzschean soul-saving.
President’s Evening at 6.45pm, Lecture at 7.30pm
Creating gardens, why bother? Alan Mason
Alan’s title is either flippant or philosophical. Is he in Nietzsche mode or Titchmarsh in the pub? What we do know is that he is one of Britain’s best garden designers, with a reputation both here and in Europe. Some of you may remember him coming to us in the nineties to set out his grand design, his ambition, to restore the historic formal gardens at the 14th-century Harlaxton Manor near Grantham. An update, please? Half a century ago he was the young head gardener for the Lane-Fox family at Bramham Park, Wetherby, one of the finest French-style gardens in Yorkshire. Then followed nine years as garden manager at Harewood (above) to rejuvenate its Capability Brown landscape. The Harlaxton restoration of its showpiece English garden brought him national celebrity via a TV series. Several of his continental garden restorations, including one he owned in France, also made TV programmes. His work abroad includes rescuing the noted garden of the Villa Cicogna Mozzoni, with the owner of the villa writing to him: “You will remain in the history of the house. In 200 years it will tell about the British boys who came to save the Count from enormous conifer trees menacing his life and choking the ancient water staircase.” So, some Titchmarsh and some Nietzschean soul-saving.
Monday 11 November 2024 at 7.30pm
The oohs and awes of Euro bridges - Keith Holmes
You’re spoiled for choice if, like Keith Holmes, you are a connoisseur of bridgey tales. He’ll know the new one from Baltimore ’24, about the lad whose turbulent love-life had him drive three times across that giant Meccano contraption over the Chesapeake just minutes before its spectacular collapse. And he’ll warm to our local golden oldies: the dare-devil RAF pilot who whizzed his Spitfire through the single arch that spans the Tees at Winston and, not far upstream in 1942, Churchill photographed on the suspension bridge as he watched live-firing commandoes wade the rapids and storm the Whorlton cliffs. If Keith plied his trade in a van, its sides would be painted “I love bridges me”. He is a photographer/raconteur who’s a regular here. A couple of seasons ago we enjoyed his stories and splendid pictures of British bridges, from the quirky to the magnificent; now he’s back with part two – those that have beguiled him in mainland Europe. There could be room for Prague’s magical Charles Bridge (above), awash with such medieval legends as the martyrdom of the court priest who defied King Wenceslas IV by refusing to tell him the confessional secrets of his queen. What will certainly be on the playlist are the bridges of Paris and romantic sights along the Seine. And there will be homage to the fine Millau autoroute viaduct in south-west France. The history, beauty and delight of bridges in Amsterdam, Lisbon, Seville, Rome and Venice all feature. We love bridges us.
The oohs and awes of Euro bridges - Keith Holmes
You’re spoiled for choice if, like Keith Holmes, you are a connoisseur of bridgey tales. He’ll know the new one from Baltimore ’24, about the lad whose turbulent love-life had him drive three times across that giant Meccano contraption over the Chesapeake just minutes before its spectacular collapse. And he’ll warm to our local golden oldies: the dare-devil RAF pilot who whizzed his Spitfire through the single arch that spans the Tees at Winston and, not far upstream in 1942, Churchill photographed on the suspension bridge as he watched live-firing commandoes wade the rapids and storm the Whorlton cliffs. If Keith plied his trade in a van, its sides would be painted “I love bridges me”. He is a photographer/raconteur who’s a regular here. A couple of seasons ago we enjoyed his stories and splendid pictures of British bridges, from the quirky to the magnificent; now he’s back with part two – those that have beguiled him in mainland Europe. There could be room for Prague’s magical Charles Bridge (above), awash with such medieval legends as the martyrdom of the court priest who defied King Wenceslas IV by refusing to tell him the confessional secrets of his queen. What will certainly be on the playlist are the bridges of Paris and romantic sights along the Seine. And there will be homage to the fine Millau autoroute viaduct in south-west France. The history, beauty and delight of bridges in Amsterdam, Lisbon, Seville, Rome and Venice all feature. We love bridges us.
Monday 2 December 2024 at 7.30pm
Wildlife on the Yorkshire coast - Steve Race
Steve, as a prolific and award-winning wildlife photographer, has lived on the Yorkshire coast all his life and reckons there’s few places better for variety of habitat – and he’s seen plenty in another role, as a director of a nature tourism company. His pictures are in demand for the RSPB (he had been their education officer at Bempton Cliffs), the National Trust, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust and national newspapers. Another of his television programmes has been Channel Five’s Yorkshire: a Year in the Wild series. Scarborough harbour is his favourite haunt to get atmospheric shots of quite exotic seabirds who winter there. He says: “If on a December visit you see a body lying on the slipway, don’t call the coastguard because it’ll be me, trying to get just the right angle in the low sun”.
Wildlife on the Yorkshire coast - Steve Race
Steve, as a prolific and award-winning wildlife photographer, has lived on the Yorkshire coast all his life and reckons there’s few places better for variety of habitat – and he’s seen plenty in another role, as a director of a nature tourism company. His pictures are in demand for the RSPB (he had been their education officer at Bempton Cliffs), the National Trust, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust and national newspapers. Another of his television programmes has been Channel Five’s Yorkshire: a Year in the Wild series. Scarborough harbour is his favourite haunt to get atmospheric shots of quite exotic seabirds who winter there. He says: “If on a December visit you see a body lying on the slipway, don’t call the coastguard because it’ll be me, trying to get just the right angle in the low sun”.
Monday 13 January 2025 at 7.30pm
And the band plays on… - Nigel Bates
We just might get a good riot tonight. Mr Bates, returning after two memorable previous mid-winter visits, calls this lecture “It’s Not Just Tchaikovsky”. He is to explore the music chosen for classical ballet over the centuries – and you are asked to remain calm throughout.
That is in case his examples include The Rite of Spring (above)and if, although it’s unlikely for a generation largely immunised against alleged dissonance, you react as the audience did at the 1913 Paris première of Stravinsky’s show. Police made some 40 arrests among the traditional and fashionably attired ballet audience and the bohemian admirers of the young composer, one side scandalised and the other exhilarated. They attacked each other and the orchestra, which played on to the end. The avant-garde score commissioned by Diagalev for his Ballet Russes broke every rule. Harsh and chaotic, said critics, and Nijinksy’s choreography was as bad. Five decades later Stravinsky said the dancing, as seen by the naïve and the stupid, was “knock-kneed and long-braided Lolitas jumping up and down”. In short, his take on Russian folk lore that has young girls selected to mark the new season by dancing themselves to death was not an instant hit. Yet a year later at a concert performance it was proclaimed a masterpiece. Mr Bates, who was in both management and orchestra at Covent Garden before the pandemic, will illustrate his point about Tchaikovsky and other composers of great ballet music by playing some of their finest tunes - via another of his career paths, award-winning video. We will not throw anything.
And the band plays on… - Nigel Bates
We just might get a good riot tonight. Mr Bates, returning after two memorable previous mid-winter visits, calls this lecture “It’s Not Just Tchaikovsky”. He is to explore the music chosen for classical ballet over the centuries – and you are asked to remain calm throughout.
That is in case his examples include The Rite of Spring (above)and if, although it’s unlikely for a generation largely immunised against alleged dissonance, you react as the audience did at the 1913 Paris première of Stravinsky’s show. Police made some 40 arrests among the traditional and fashionably attired ballet audience and the bohemian admirers of the young composer, one side scandalised and the other exhilarated. They attacked each other and the orchestra, which played on to the end. The avant-garde score commissioned by Diagalev for his Ballet Russes broke every rule. Harsh and chaotic, said critics, and Nijinksy’s choreography was as bad. Five decades later Stravinsky said the dancing, as seen by the naïve and the stupid, was “knock-kneed and long-braided Lolitas jumping up and down”. In short, his take on Russian folk lore that has young girls selected to mark the new season by dancing themselves to death was not an instant hit. Yet a year later at a concert performance it was proclaimed a masterpiece. Mr Bates, who was in both management and orchestra at Covent Garden before the pandemic, will illustrate his point about Tchaikovsky and other composers of great ballet music by playing some of their finest tunes - via another of his career paths, award-winning video. We will not throw anything.
Monday 10 February 2025 at 7.30pm
You’re the Bank Top, you’re in first class - Niall Hammond and Peter Gibson
We’re the top. We’re the Colosseum. We’re the Nile. We’re the Tower of Pisa, the smile on the face of the Mona Lisa. We’re Garbo’s salary. We’re a Shakespeare sonnet, a Fifth Avenue bonnet. We’re Mahatma Gandhi… Yup, we – Darlington – are up there with Cole Porter’s list of world superlatives. Indeed, it’s being put about by zealots of this year’s bi-centenary celebrations of the Stockton and Darlington Railway that Porter strove to fit “Locomotion No 1” between “the nose on the great Durante” and “Dante’s Inferno”. But it wouldn’t scan. Tonight, for those of us sometimes baffled by the finer points of railway lore, the rival claims of being the world’s first railway, the first powered by steam and the first passenger-carrying line will be examined before that historic inaugural journey through Darlington in 1825 is affirmed as an event that changed the world. Mr Hammond, trustee chairman of the Friends of the S&D Railway, will show us the buildings, the new and the restored historic, that are to house the great 200 anniversary show. Although 21st-century logistics ruled out a 1925 and 1975-style cavalcade this time, there’ll be plenty of steam for purists to salivate over. The National Trust is a client of this archaeologist- turned-heritage consultant. Mr Gibson, a solicitor who became MP for the town in 2019, will give the latest on the “new” Bank Top as re-development of the mainline station nears completion. As a politician he’s well-placed to comment on Darlington’s role in one of the world’s most important economic and industrial revolutions.
You’re the Bank Top, you’re in first class - Niall Hammond and Peter Gibson
We’re the top. We’re the Colosseum. We’re the Nile. We’re the Tower of Pisa, the smile on the face of the Mona Lisa. We’re Garbo’s salary. We’re a Shakespeare sonnet, a Fifth Avenue bonnet. We’re Mahatma Gandhi… Yup, we – Darlington – are up there with Cole Porter’s list of world superlatives. Indeed, it’s being put about by zealots of this year’s bi-centenary celebrations of the Stockton and Darlington Railway that Porter strove to fit “Locomotion No 1” between “the nose on the great Durante” and “Dante’s Inferno”. But it wouldn’t scan. Tonight, for those of us sometimes baffled by the finer points of railway lore, the rival claims of being the world’s first railway, the first powered by steam and the first passenger-carrying line will be examined before that historic inaugural journey through Darlington in 1825 is affirmed as an event that changed the world. Mr Hammond, trustee chairman of the Friends of the S&D Railway, will show us the buildings, the new and the restored historic, that are to house the great 200 anniversary show. Although 21st-century logistics ruled out a 1925 and 1975-style cavalcade this time, there’ll be plenty of steam for purists to salivate over. The National Trust is a client of this archaeologist- turned-heritage consultant. Mr Gibson, a solicitor who became MP for the town in 2019, will give the latest on the “new” Bank Top as re-development of the mainline station nears completion. As a politician he’s well-placed to comment on Darlington’s role in one of the world’s most important economic and industrial revolutions.
Monday 10 March 2025 at 7.30pm
A Taste of Splendour - Andrew Prince
When someone special comes to dinner you put on a bit of a show. It has been ever thus – as Andrew Prince will show us. Throughout history, he explains, eating together has evolved “in form, function and purpose”. Well, yes, in our lifetime it was always the respectable norm for the family, at least once a day, to sit together “properly” around a table. As it still is, we’re confident, for you and yours. Andrew is here to talk about, and marvel at, dining on a grand scale. Elaborate rituals have developed over the millennia, particularly in ancient Persia and Rome, culminating in the glittering and opulent state banquets of Versailles and imperial St Petersburg. In those days, Russian tables of vast length were put to more friendly use than having a Kremlin dictator glowering alone at one end. Even if, as we learned from a lecturer years ago, Catherine the Great‘s agent drove a hard bargain for the magnificent 1,000-piece dinner service she ordered from Wedgwood.
This talk will show how power-banquets in the world’s capitals displayed – and still do – the taste, wealth, influence and political strength of the host nation. We shall see much fine silverware sparkling beneath the chandeliers. Andrew knows bling. He designs crystal jewellery and a few seasons ago showed us a dazzling collection including splendid pieces made for Downton Abbey; members tried on tiaras worn by naughty Lady Mary and the formidable dowager countess.
A Taste of Splendour - Andrew Prince
When someone special comes to dinner you put on a bit of a show. It has been ever thus – as Andrew Prince will show us. Throughout history, he explains, eating together has evolved “in form, function and purpose”. Well, yes, in our lifetime it was always the respectable norm for the family, at least once a day, to sit together “properly” around a table. As it still is, we’re confident, for you and yours. Andrew is here to talk about, and marvel at, dining on a grand scale. Elaborate rituals have developed over the millennia, particularly in ancient Persia and Rome, culminating in the glittering and opulent state banquets of Versailles and imperial St Petersburg. In those days, Russian tables of vast length were put to more friendly use than having a Kremlin dictator glowering alone at one end. Even if, as we learned from a lecturer years ago, Catherine the Great‘s agent drove a hard bargain for the magnificent 1,000-piece dinner service she ordered from Wedgwood.
This talk will show how power-banquets in the world’s capitals displayed – and still do – the taste, wealth, influence and political strength of the host nation. We shall see much fine silverware sparkling beneath the chandeliers. Andrew knows bling. He designs crystal jewellery and a few seasons ago showed us a dazzling collection including splendid pieces made for Downton Abbey; members tried on tiaras worn by naughty Lady Mary and the formidable dowager countess.
Monday 7 April 2025
AGM at 6.45pm with lecture at 7.30pm
Albert and his life with Queen Victoria - Jan and Richard Crouch
The image most of us have of the queen comes from flattering portraits and screen portrayals of the young Victoria and the later photographs of the black-clad ‘Widow of Windsor’. The main image of Albert, if we ignore the romanticism of TV and film, is of the dour, prematurely middle-aged Prince Consort. Based on research from both English and German sources, Richard and Jan hope to paint a more complete picture of this complex and quite remarkable man. Albert was the “spare” younger son of one of the small statelets which comprised the Germany of the first half of the 19th century. His homeland, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, had an area not much greater than the Isle of Wight and annual revenue less than the £30,000 our parliament grudgingly voted Albert on his marriage to Victoria. The House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, however, punched above its weight in the European royal marriage market of the time and from the cradle Albert was earmarked as a possible husband for his first-cousin Victoria. He became a man with a mission; indeed, as we will hear, several missions.
Richard taught in grammar and comprehensive schools for ten years, six of those in Germany. The next 30 were in the Civil Service including 14 years in charge of several prisons. Jan’s career was in schools, the NHS and the Civil Service. In retirement they have indulged a passion for history – researching their illustrated lectures on subjects from food in two world wars to the social history of the Third Reich to aspects of our past royal family. They live in Eaglescliffe.
AGM at 6.45pm with lecture at 7.30pm
Albert and his life with Queen Victoria - Jan and Richard Crouch
The image most of us have of the queen comes from flattering portraits and screen portrayals of the young Victoria and the later photographs of the black-clad ‘Widow of Windsor’. The main image of Albert, if we ignore the romanticism of TV and film, is of the dour, prematurely middle-aged Prince Consort. Based on research from both English and German sources, Richard and Jan hope to paint a more complete picture of this complex and quite remarkable man. Albert was the “spare” younger son of one of the small statelets which comprised the Germany of the first half of the 19th century. His homeland, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, had an area not much greater than the Isle of Wight and annual revenue less than the £30,000 our parliament grudgingly voted Albert on his marriage to Victoria. The House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, however, punched above its weight in the European royal marriage market of the time and from the cradle Albert was earmarked as a possible husband for his first-cousin Victoria. He became a man with a mission; indeed, as we will hear, several missions.
Richard taught in grammar and comprehensive schools for ten years, six of those in Germany. The next 30 were in the Civil Service including 14 years in charge of several prisons. Jan’s career was in schools, the NHS and the Civil Service. In retirement they have indulged a passion for history – researching their illustrated lectures on subjects from food in two world wars to the social history of the Third Reich to aspects of our past royal family. They live in Eaglescliffe.