April Lecture - Monday 7 April 2025
Albert and his life with Queen Victoria - Jan and Richard Crouch
Uncle Leopold, King of the Belgians, was a matchmaker between Victoria and cousin Albert, spare heir to the dukedom of the tiny German state of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. When they first met in childhood she was not impressed by the puny boy. A decade on at their next meeting, however, the hormones of the chubby fun-loving girl kicked in. She was stirred by his "splendid limbs", especially by the skin-tight pantaloons of his uniform. No VPL here. He was clearly wearing nothing underneath. She soon proposed (nay, commanded) marriage to this serious-minded youth. Both were 20 when the knot was tied and there were nine children. All this was related by Richard and Jan Crouch, who told how this apparent clash of personalities survived early years of mutual irritation to achieve happiness. Albert won over the public and was recognised by the establishment as a powerful force for cultural and intellectual progress. The success of the Great Exhibition of 1851 owed much to him. He helped avoid war with the USA over the Trent Affair in 1861. Then he died, only 42. Victoria was stricken by decades of grief. Britain ran short of black fabric. There was public unrest at the length of her self- isolation. Her life became dedicated to memorialising him. Britain is awash with statues and dedications. There’s the splendid Albert Park in Middlesbrough and in Darlington Albert Hill is the road leading to an area of industrial innovation - both are appropriate.
Albert and his life with Queen Victoria - Jan and Richard Crouch
Uncle Leopold, King of the Belgians, was a matchmaker between Victoria and cousin Albert, spare heir to the dukedom of the tiny German state of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. When they first met in childhood she was not impressed by the puny boy. A decade on at their next meeting, however, the hormones of the chubby fun-loving girl kicked in. She was stirred by his "splendid limbs", especially by the skin-tight pantaloons of his uniform. No VPL here. He was clearly wearing nothing underneath. She soon proposed (nay, commanded) marriage to this serious-minded youth. Both were 20 when the knot was tied and there were nine children. All this was related by Richard and Jan Crouch, who told how this apparent clash of personalities survived early years of mutual irritation to achieve happiness. Albert won over the public and was recognised by the establishment as a powerful force for cultural and intellectual progress. The success of the Great Exhibition of 1851 owed much to him. He helped avoid war with the USA over the Trent Affair in 1861. Then he died, only 42. Victoria was stricken by decades of grief. Britain ran short of black fabric. There was public unrest at the length of her self- isolation. Her life became dedicated to memorialising him. Britain is awash with statues and dedications. There’s the splendid Albert Park in Middlesbrough and in Darlington Albert Hill is the road leading to an area of industrial innovation - both are appropriate.
March Lecture - Monday 10 March 2025
A Taste of Splendour - Andrew Prince
In 2025 Belgium they’ve banned the swilling down of live goldfish with their Stella Artois, while in BC Persia they relished wriggling tiddlers in their watered wine. Andrew Prince, jeweller to Downton Abbey, told us of other bizarre culinary habits in his history of elite dining. Ancient Greeks and the Romans gave Michelin stars to bearded and robed Gordon Ramseys for such delicacies as snipe baked complete with entrails (juice squeezed from intestines seems to have been an aperitif). There were game birds cooked with their beaks, gilded peacocks were skinned before feathers were re-attached - and the fattened mice were very nice. Moving on, our own fashionable Georgians feasted their eyes on status-symbol pineapples so expensive they were rented out before being eaten, just in time presumably, by the final customer. All this was recounted, off the cuff and at speed. Mr Prince’s pictures showed, in vivid colours, tapestries and paintings of gluttony and random debauchery amid, even then, fabulous tableware. But our own banqueteers are no slouches: state dining, with its ranks of cutlery that one hopes will intimidate Mr Trump. Assorted gorgeous baroque silverware; although he’ll likely reposte that at Mar-a-Lago we have beautiful dishwashers soo big and detergent soo powerful we could fix all that fancy stuff in the first hour.
A Taste of Splendour - Andrew Prince
In 2025 Belgium they’ve banned the swilling down of live goldfish with their Stella Artois, while in BC Persia they relished wriggling tiddlers in their watered wine. Andrew Prince, jeweller to Downton Abbey, told us of other bizarre culinary habits in his history of elite dining. Ancient Greeks and the Romans gave Michelin stars to bearded and robed Gordon Ramseys for such delicacies as snipe baked complete with entrails (juice squeezed from intestines seems to have been an aperitif). There were game birds cooked with their beaks, gilded peacocks were skinned before feathers were re-attached - and the fattened mice were very nice. Moving on, our own fashionable Georgians feasted their eyes on status-symbol pineapples so expensive they were rented out before being eaten, just in time presumably, by the final customer. All this was recounted, off the cuff and at speed. Mr Prince’s pictures showed, in vivid colours, tapestries and paintings of gluttony and random debauchery amid, even then, fabulous tableware. But our own banqueteers are no slouches: state dining, with its ranks of cutlery that one hopes will intimidate Mr Trump. Assorted gorgeous baroque silverware; although he’ll likely reposte that at Mar-a-Lago we have beautiful dishwashers soo big and detergent soo powerful we could fix all that fancy stuff in the first hour.
February Lecture - Monday 10 February 2025
You’re the Bank Top, you’re in first class - Niall Hammond and Peter Gibson
At twin lectures marking the 200th anniversary celebrations of Darlington's founding of passenger railways world-wide, criminals cheerfully owned up: yes, we defaced the Queen's coinage - and we still have the pennies we put on the line to be squashed by steam locos at the 150th birthday cavalcade. At galloping pace, Niall Hammond, chairman of the Friends of the S&DR trustees, gave an authoritative history of it all: the entrepreneurial zeal of Quakers, parliamentary battles, the engineering and the pageantry, excitement and jovial chaos of the inaugural journey. There was immediate foreign interest. One sidelight was that the engineering brain of it all, George Stephenson, was also "a world-class embroiderer" and we saw a painting of him being just that in Edward Pease's drawing room alongside ladies in bonnets. Former MP Peter Gibson detailed the £139m "new" Bank Top station with its two new Teesside-line platforms facing Neasham Road and with footbridge-access to the mainline; Tees trains will no longer have to cross the mainline, removing a bottleneck that limits capacity on both lines. How through-passengers to Weardale passengers will proceed was not clear.
You’re the Bank Top, you’re in first class - Niall Hammond and Peter Gibson
At twin lectures marking the 200th anniversary celebrations of Darlington's founding of passenger railways world-wide, criminals cheerfully owned up: yes, we defaced the Queen's coinage - and we still have the pennies we put on the line to be squashed by steam locos at the 150th birthday cavalcade. At galloping pace, Niall Hammond, chairman of the Friends of the S&DR trustees, gave an authoritative history of it all: the entrepreneurial zeal of Quakers, parliamentary battles, the engineering and the pageantry, excitement and jovial chaos of the inaugural journey. There was immediate foreign interest. One sidelight was that the engineering brain of it all, George Stephenson, was also "a world-class embroiderer" and we saw a painting of him being just that in Edward Pease's drawing room alongside ladies in bonnets. Former MP Peter Gibson detailed the £139m "new" Bank Top station with its two new Teesside-line platforms facing Neasham Road and with footbridge-access to the mainline; Tees trains will no longer have to cross the mainline, removing a bottleneck that limits capacity on both lines. How through-passengers to Weardale passengers will proceed was not clear.
January Lecture - Monday 13 January 2025
Mary Queen of Scots explains - Lesley Smith
It was an evening of vivid phrases and a frock to die in. Mary Queen of Scots, alias historian and consummate actress Lesley Smith, told the harrowing story of her short life. It was a tour de force, a tragic tale leavened by Ms Smith's quick wit and sly asides tailored for a modern audience. Mary called her nemesis, Elizabeth I, the daughter of "a goggled-eyed whore" (Anne Boleyn), and alleged that her own first mother-in-law, Catherine de Medici, hired prostitutes to report back on the secrets of powerful men they slept with. Her first of three marriages, in Notre Dame as a virtual child bride to a French prince of similar age, was relative bliss before his murder and her return to Scotland to begin years of violence at the hands of the men in her life. Notoriously there was second husband Lord Darnley; "he was tri-sexual", we learned, if you include "he would try anything". The 19 years of peripapetic captivity in "gilded cages" - umpteen castles including Bolton in Wensleydale - ended with an horrifically botched beheading at Fotheringay. Cousin Elizabeth, who "wanted me dead but didn't want to kill me", had finally seen no other way. Near six-footer Mary died nobly at 43, calmly asking "please pay my servants". All this drama was detailed for us by a performer in gilded and bespoke Tudor finery.
Mary Queen of Scots explains - Lesley Smith
It was an evening of vivid phrases and a frock to die in. Mary Queen of Scots, alias historian and consummate actress Lesley Smith, told the harrowing story of her short life. It was a tour de force, a tragic tale leavened by Ms Smith's quick wit and sly asides tailored for a modern audience. Mary called her nemesis, Elizabeth I, the daughter of "a goggled-eyed whore" (Anne Boleyn), and alleged that her own first mother-in-law, Catherine de Medici, hired prostitutes to report back on the secrets of powerful men they slept with. Her first of three marriages, in Notre Dame as a virtual child bride to a French prince of similar age, was relative bliss before his murder and her return to Scotland to begin years of violence at the hands of the men in her life. Notoriously there was second husband Lord Darnley; "he was tri-sexual", we learned, if you include "he would try anything". The 19 years of peripapetic captivity in "gilded cages" - umpteen castles including Bolton in Wensleydale - ended with an horrifically botched beheading at Fotheringay. Cousin Elizabeth, who "wanted me dead but didn't want to kill me", had finally seen no other way. Near six-footer Mary died nobly at 43, calmly asking "please pay my servants". All this drama was detailed for us by a performer in gilded and bespoke Tudor finery.
December Lecture - Monday 2 December 2024
Wildlife on the Yorkshire coast - Steve Race
500,000 seabirds inhabit the 450ft Bempton cliffs, south of Scarborough, at the peak of the breeding and fledging season. Who counts 'em? No-one was crass enough to ask Steve Race, who specialises in photographing the birds doing spectacular, beautiful, touching and amusing things and used to be the RSPB's man at Bempton. But we all wanted to, willing him to say "All done by AI, there's an app for it." It'll be an educated guess, natch - although he personally attests to the arrival, a few years ago, of precisely one. an albatross, a stray from the southern hemisphere that liked it so much stayed north for a second season, attracting thousands of twitchers. Eight species regularly check in, including 36,000 billing and cooing gannets (up to 5kg and 6ft wingspan, 2ft less than the albatross) descendants of just 21 in 1967. There's fulmar petrels, puffins with multi-colour beaks, penguin-lookalike guillemots and razorbills, the smallest.. Counts them in, does Steve, and he counts them out. This was touted as Yorkshire Wildlife, so there were intriguing bit-parts for such as dead and alive seals at Ravenscar. But inland birds had the last tweets: dipper chicks bobbing up and down on t' moors.
Wildlife on the Yorkshire coast - Steve Race
500,000 seabirds inhabit the 450ft Bempton cliffs, south of Scarborough, at the peak of the breeding and fledging season. Who counts 'em? No-one was crass enough to ask Steve Race, who specialises in photographing the birds doing spectacular, beautiful, touching and amusing things and used to be the RSPB's man at Bempton. But we all wanted to, willing him to say "All done by AI, there's an app for it." It'll be an educated guess, natch - although he personally attests to the arrival, a few years ago, of precisely one. an albatross, a stray from the southern hemisphere that liked it so much stayed north for a second season, attracting thousands of twitchers. Eight species regularly check in, including 36,000 billing and cooing gannets (up to 5kg and 6ft wingspan, 2ft less than the albatross) descendants of just 21 in 1967. There's fulmar petrels, puffins with multi-colour beaks, penguin-lookalike guillemots and razorbills, the smallest.. Counts them in, does Steve, and he counts them out. This was touted as Yorkshire Wildlife, so there were intriguing bit-parts for such as dead and alive seals at Ravenscar. But inland birds had the last tweets: dipper chicks bobbing up and down on t' moors.
November Lecture - Monday 11 November 2024
The oohs and awes of Euro bridges - Keith Holmes
Your reporter falls on his inky sword. The prodigious bridge-building feats of Santiago Calatrava, and his spectacular other architecture all over the world, has passed this scribe by - notwithstanding his being an early survivor of a commision the Zurich-based Swiss genius probably regrets. Keith Holmes, returning with a European edition of bridges that have beguiled/amazed/charmed him, told the sorry story of the modernist Ponte della Costituzione that since 2008 has invited arriving tourists to cross the Grand Canal after descending the broad staircase from Venice railway station. Officials were soon overwhelmed by claimants hurt in falls on the original slippery glass surface of the bridge. Venice sued and a recalcitrant Calatrava paid up for this and other alleged faults and a huge cost over-run Meanwhile, for sacrilegiously brewing coffee on the magnificent Rialto Bridge upstream, a German couple were fined £850; that elaborate crossing has two abutments each supported for five centuries by 6,000 logs driven into the canal silt, Photos and great tales of bridges In Lisbon, Paris, Amsterdam, Spain and at Mostar, Bosnia,were capped by the inspiring Milllau viaduct in SW France.
The oohs and awes of Euro bridges - Keith Holmes
Your reporter falls on his inky sword. The prodigious bridge-building feats of Santiago Calatrava, and his spectacular other architecture all over the world, has passed this scribe by - notwithstanding his being an early survivor of a commision the Zurich-based Swiss genius probably regrets. Keith Holmes, returning with a European edition of bridges that have beguiled/amazed/charmed him, told the sorry story of the modernist Ponte della Costituzione that since 2008 has invited arriving tourists to cross the Grand Canal after descending the broad staircase from Venice railway station. Officials were soon overwhelmed by claimants hurt in falls on the original slippery glass surface of the bridge. Venice sued and a recalcitrant Calatrava paid up for this and other alleged faults and a huge cost over-run Meanwhile, for sacrilegiously brewing coffee on the magnificent Rialto Bridge upstream, a German couple were fined £850; that elaborate crossing has two abutments each supported for five centuries by 6,000 logs driven into the canal silt, Photos and great tales of bridges In Lisbon, Paris, Amsterdam, Spain and at Mostar, Bosnia,were capped by the inspiring Milllau viaduct in SW France.
October Lecture - Monday 14 October 2024
Creating gardens, why bother? Alan Mason
Le Nôtre, Capability Brown...Alan Mason. That's 21th-century satire, a cheap knock-off inspired by an 18th-century landscaping tilt at the ubiquitous Brown: a clever dick hoped he would die before Brown (who on 170 occasions acted on a hunch that this or that country estate was "capable" of improvement), "so that I will arrive in heaven before it has been improved". And no doubt some were vile about Versailles or catty about Chantilly. So no hard feelings towards the gardens manager who was told on reporting for work at Capability's Yorkshire masterpiece that it was not 'arewood 'ouse but Haahwood House (rhyming with Mice). His talk Garden Design - Why Bother? was as irreverently entertaining as his 15 years of TV, and the pictures evocative. The child Le Nôtre lived in a Tuileries staff house, Brown in a Northumberland village near the great house where his mum was a maid; Mason is "a Tadcaster lad" who like Capability is hands on as well as a cerebral creator. Examples from triumphs in Europe include digging out runaway conifers diminishing a Chatsworth-style water staircase (replanting with cypresses) in Italy and revivifying top French gardens. And some advice: leave room for new shrubs to grow. Implied advice: beware pretension - "patio" is really an indoor courtyard and should be "terrace". We don't want to hear that.
Creating gardens, why bother? Alan Mason
Le Nôtre, Capability Brown...Alan Mason. That's 21th-century satire, a cheap knock-off inspired by an 18th-century landscaping tilt at the ubiquitous Brown: a clever dick hoped he would die before Brown (who on 170 occasions acted on a hunch that this or that country estate was "capable" of improvement), "so that I will arrive in heaven before it has been improved". And no doubt some were vile about Versailles or catty about Chantilly. So no hard feelings towards the gardens manager who was told on reporting for work at Capability's Yorkshire masterpiece that it was not 'arewood 'ouse but Haahwood House (rhyming with Mice). His talk Garden Design - Why Bother? was as irreverently entertaining as his 15 years of TV, and the pictures evocative. The child Le Nôtre lived in a Tuileries staff house, Brown in a Northumberland village near the great house where his mum was a maid; Mason is "a Tadcaster lad" who like Capability is hands on as well as a cerebral creator. Examples from triumphs in Europe include digging out runaway conifers diminishing a Chatsworth-style water staircase (replanting with cypresses) in Italy and revivifying top French gardens. And some advice: leave room for new shrubs to grow. Implied advice: beware pretension - "patio" is really an indoor courtyard and should be "terrace". We don't want to hear that.
September Lecture - Monday 9 September 2024
Our rivers runneth over - Paul Constantine
The Environment Agency is huge, its responsibilities scary. Paul Constantine, an EA senior adviser to the government on how to keep our rivers from floating your sofa whilst you lie abed, ranked it against our rail infrastructure: his agency has 500,000 assets (from mighty Pennine dams to fiddly devices on country streams) while the railways have rather fewer). Its spending gives Rachel Reeves nightmares. His overview covered centuries of misery and grief caused by Britain's rivers and the many billions spent, often in vain, on curbing their destructive power - despite dredging, straightening, embanking and floodgating, Old Man River eventually racks us with renewed pain. The 25-mile Skerne is the problem in microcosm: despite massive works over two centuries to protect the town centre, our police station built on the flood plain will one day be awash. Just decades ago, so it would be a depleted Cocker Beck entering the Skerne, they reversed the south-to-north flow of the Baydale Beck. We live in hope. But there is a universal solution: only live on hills.
Our rivers runneth over - Paul Constantine
The Environment Agency is huge, its responsibilities scary. Paul Constantine, an EA senior adviser to the government on how to keep our rivers from floating your sofa whilst you lie abed, ranked it against our rail infrastructure: his agency has 500,000 assets (from mighty Pennine dams to fiddly devices on country streams) while the railways have rather fewer). Its spending gives Rachel Reeves nightmares. His overview covered centuries of misery and grief caused by Britain's rivers and the many billions spent, often in vain, on curbing their destructive power - despite dredging, straightening, embanking and floodgating, Old Man River eventually racks us with renewed pain. The 25-mile Skerne is the problem in microcosm: despite massive works over two centuries to protect the town centre, our police station built on the flood plain will one day be awash. Just decades ago, so it would be a depleted Cocker Beck entering the Skerne, they reversed the south-to-north flow of the Baydale Beck. We live in hope. But there is a universal solution: only live on hills.
April Lecture - Monday 15 April 2024
No ceasefire on the home front - Sir Gary Coward
Letters to the Editor columns are a national institution, Lord Hague implied last month in his column in The Times - which he began with a generous tribute to the D&S, his required reading when, as the boy William, he was campaigning to become MP for Richmond; his point was the threat posed to our local democracy by 2024 media economics - fewer reporters mean councils cannot properly be held to account. But we digress from that initial mention of The Times. In 1884, that local paper for the national great and good, published a letter that within weeks led to a dozen ladies meeting to see how to help bereft and impoverished families of British soldiers killed or maimed fighting - well, yes, colonial, wars. Within a year the Soldiers and Sailors Families Association was formed. Lieut. Gen. Sir Gary Coward, who retired as the Army's quartermaster to become national chairman of SSAFA (with A for airmen added four decades later) told us the story of military charities over the centuries. The sector has grown from medieval dependence on the consciences of the landowning squirearchy whose peasants were pressed into militias and yeomanries to today's noble cohort of 2,262 organisations. They range from the behemoth British Legion with 210,000 members, 110,000 volunteers and the £50m Poppy Appeal to such as 2007's Help for Heroes which, with other smaller groups, is under the SSAFA umbrella. That seminal letter to The Times was written by Major James Gildea (pronounced "gill-day), whose wealthy family farmed Church land in the south of Ireland; his lifelong philanthropy earned him a knighthood. Among his successful campaigns were for statues of public figures he admired, including Queen Victoria.
No ceasefire on the home front - Sir Gary Coward
Letters to the Editor columns are a national institution, Lord Hague implied last month in his column in The Times - which he began with a generous tribute to the D&S, his required reading when, as the boy William, he was campaigning to become MP for Richmond; his point was the threat posed to our local democracy by 2024 media economics - fewer reporters mean councils cannot properly be held to account. But we digress from that initial mention of The Times. In 1884, that local paper for the national great and good, published a letter that within weeks led to a dozen ladies meeting to see how to help bereft and impoverished families of British soldiers killed or maimed fighting - well, yes, colonial, wars. Within a year the Soldiers and Sailors Families Association was formed. Lieut. Gen. Sir Gary Coward, who retired as the Army's quartermaster to become national chairman of SSAFA (with A for airmen added four decades later) told us the story of military charities over the centuries. The sector has grown from medieval dependence on the consciences of the landowning squirearchy whose peasants were pressed into militias and yeomanries to today's noble cohort of 2,262 organisations. They range from the behemoth British Legion with 210,000 members, 110,000 volunteers and the £50m Poppy Appeal to such as 2007's Help for Heroes which, with other smaller groups, is under the SSAFA umbrella. That seminal letter to The Times was written by Major James Gildea (pronounced "gill-day), whose wealthy family farmed Church land in the south of Ireland; his lifelong philanthropy earned him a knighthood. Among his successful campaigns were for statues of public figures he admired, including Queen Victoria.
March Lecture - Monday 11 March 2024
Novel memories of China - Jean Harrod
One of the perks for a multi-lingual Westerner in China is be in a crowded lift and to silently enjoy chit-about your “big feet” and other physical attributes – then, as you leave, pleasantly say your goodbyes in fluent Mandarin. If, like North Yorkshire retired diplomat, crime novelist and lecturer Jean Harrod, you work in the British embassy, the facility is career-advancing as you efficiently tackle the woes of British tourists. She joined the Foreign Office at 18 and was soon in China where, as they say, there were interesting times. She travelled, learned the history, enjoyed the friendly curiosity of ordinary people, but was spied on, followed, had her apartment bugged and met elderly Christian women who hid bibles and defied a ban on prayer meetings. Margaret Thatcher came to town and Jean took documents to her hotel room and was surprised how “tiny” the PM was – and was soon helping search under the bed for high-heeled shoes; “I know you” said Mrs T years later while meeting diplomats involved in Gorbachev’s London visit. She and her diplomat husband (from Peterlee) established the Shanghai consulate and the city was the milieu for her first thriller. A new novel, set in North Yorkshire, changes the genre and a play premieres in York in the summer.
Novel memories of China - Jean Harrod
One of the perks for a multi-lingual Westerner in China is be in a crowded lift and to silently enjoy chit-about your “big feet” and other physical attributes – then, as you leave, pleasantly say your goodbyes in fluent Mandarin. If, like North Yorkshire retired diplomat, crime novelist and lecturer Jean Harrod, you work in the British embassy, the facility is career-advancing as you efficiently tackle the woes of British tourists. She joined the Foreign Office at 18 and was soon in China where, as they say, there were interesting times. She travelled, learned the history, enjoyed the friendly curiosity of ordinary people, but was spied on, followed, had her apartment bugged and met elderly Christian women who hid bibles and defied a ban on prayer meetings. Margaret Thatcher came to town and Jean took documents to her hotel room and was surprised how “tiny” the PM was – and was soon helping search under the bed for high-heeled shoes; “I know you” said Mrs T years later while meeting diplomats involved in Gorbachev’s London visit. She and her diplomat husband (from Peterlee) established the Shanghai consulate and the city was the milieu for her first thriller. A new novel, set in North Yorkshire, changes the genre and a play premieres in York in the summer.
February Lecture - Monday 19 February 2024
Princes: Little, Happy - and Missing - Philippa Langley
The meat in Philippa Langley's proof of the innocence of Richard III in the matter of the Princes in the Tower is her discovery of 500-year-old documents that the pair were alive in their adulthood and plotting on the continent for a return to England to forcibly reinstall the elder prince as the Edward V he had been until just before his planned coronation. We, a full house, seemed already convinced by the case made by this local-girl-made-good (who spoke affectionately of "Darlo") when she then presented a speculative clincher. On the day when Alexei Navalny's widow had emotionally denounced her loved one's alleged killer, the lack of a similar response by the mother of the missing princes was significant, said Philippa. So the ubiquitous Elizabeth Woodville, twice the queen consort during the interrupted reign of Edward IV, now has a role in this greatest of royal mysteries. She was well used to grief: twice widowed, she had already lost five of her 12 offspring (four in childhood, another executed) so may have been drained of emotion by the time of these latest disappearances. Philippa had already shown us on screen the documentary evidence, found in archives in Lille and Arnhem by Dutch academics. She said her missing persons inquiry began with her accepting police advice to have an open mind and to broaden the investigation ever-wider. Eight years later she has 300,000 lines of inquiry on her computer, many of them international, and 300 of them active; "only yesterday," she added, a visit to Raby Castle added another. Of an inscription on a marble memorial in Westminster Abbey that said the princes' grave was below, she said it was at depth where there were only burial centuries earlier; Elizabeth II forbade its opening to find DNA but it was hoped the new king would allow that. A Daily Mail headline, "It's mad to make this child-killer a national hero" had only stiffened her resolve.
Princes: Little, Happy - and Missing - Philippa Langley
The meat in Philippa Langley's proof of the innocence of Richard III in the matter of the Princes in the Tower is her discovery of 500-year-old documents that the pair were alive in their adulthood and plotting on the continent for a return to England to forcibly reinstall the elder prince as the Edward V he had been until just before his planned coronation. We, a full house, seemed already convinced by the case made by this local-girl-made-good (who spoke affectionately of "Darlo") when she then presented a speculative clincher. On the day when Alexei Navalny's widow had emotionally denounced her loved one's alleged killer, the lack of a similar response by the mother of the missing princes was significant, said Philippa. So the ubiquitous Elizabeth Woodville, twice the queen consort during the interrupted reign of Edward IV, now has a role in this greatest of royal mysteries. She was well used to grief: twice widowed, she had already lost five of her 12 offspring (four in childhood, another executed) so may have been drained of emotion by the time of these latest disappearances. Philippa had already shown us on screen the documentary evidence, found in archives in Lille and Arnhem by Dutch academics. She said her missing persons inquiry began with her accepting police advice to have an open mind and to broaden the investigation ever-wider. Eight years later she has 300,000 lines of inquiry on her computer, many of them international, and 300 of them active; "only yesterday," she added, a visit to Raby Castle added another. Of an inscription on a marble memorial in Westminster Abbey that said the princes' grave was below, she said it was at depth where there were only burial centuries earlier; Elizabeth II forbade its opening to find DNA but it was hoped the new king would allow that. A Daily Mail headline, "It's mad to make this child-killer a national hero" had only stiffened her resolve.
January Lecture - Monday 8 January 2024
Diverse thoughts on the diva - Nigel Bates
Nigel Bates, with artistic and management Royal Opera House credentials, told of tension and tantrums as opening night looms. Worse, there's also been unplanned drama in front of 2,000 high-paying patrons. We duly saw, on the wide screen, a slender tenor storm into the wings, not to re-appear, after a perceived slight. A non-acting and plump replacement for Act II saved the day. And we heard that Maria Callas was indeed a demanding diva but also one who shook like a leaf until the moment she went on stage. Also on screen, we saw why, after the BBC was a fly on the wall at a management meeting for the revealing 1995 series The House,the ROH has not since invited TV cameras in. A highlight was close-up video of a soaring La Traviata aria (Alicia McVeigh, with chorus ladies deliciously animated by real champagne allowed on stage for a special performance); Ballet, too, has its moments, when choreographer Frederick Ashton cast real doves in The Two Pigeons: when one of them fled into the audience, on came a standby - only for the errant bird to return on hearing its musical cue.
Diverse thoughts on the diva - Nigel Bates
Nigel Bates, with artistic and management Royal Opera House credentials, told of tension and tantrums as opening night looms. Worse, there's also been unplanned drama in front of 2,000 high-paying patrons. We duly saw, on the wide screen, a slender tenor storm into the wings, not to re-appear, after a perceived slight. A non-acting and plump replacement for Act II saved the day. And we heard that Maria Callas was indeed a demanding diva but also one who shook like a leaf until the moment she went on stage. Also on screen, we saw why, after the BBC was a fly on the wall at a management meeting for the revealing 1995 series The House,the ROH has not since invited TV cameras in. A highlight was close-up video of a soaring La Traviata aria (Alicia McVeigh, with chorus ladies deliciously animated by real champagne allowed on stage for a special performance); Ballet, too, has its moments, when choreographer Frederick Ashton cast real doves in The Two Pigeons: when one of them fled into the audience, on came a standby - only for the errant bird to return on hearing its musical cue.
December Lecture - Monday 4 December 2023
Digs at Bamburgh Castle and Durham Cathedral - Charlotte Roberts
Some of the technical stuff and on-screen paperwork could be as dry as - well, as the midsummer sweepings into the apprentice archaeologist's dustpan. But conclusions drawn by the professor in charge of major digs at Palace Green just yards from Durham cathedral and near Bamburgh castle (Bowl Hole) were fascinating: all human life and, more to the point, death were there. Charlotte Roberts, now emeritus from her senior post at the University of Durham, said her earlier career, as a fully-fledged nurse, helps a lot in identifying old bones and deciding the cause of death. In Northumberland, half of the 7th and 8th century graves yielded Scandinavian, Mediterranean and North African natives, probably pilgrims to this font of early Christianity. In Durham, the find was of 1,600 Scottish soldiers who did not survive captivity in the disused cathedral to which an original 3,000 had been marched after 1650 defeat at Dunbar. Their teeth indicated many were aged 13 to 18. If, in death, you wish to send a message to future archaeologists, ignore your dentist's advice: analysis of plaque, apparently, says a lot to these experts. Of the Scots who survived their Durham sojourn, we were told, not a few ended up in early British settlements in America.
Digs at Bamburgh Castle and Durham Cathedral - Charlotte Roberts
Some of the technical stuff and on-screen paperwork could be as dry as - well, as the midsummer sweepings into the apprentice archaeologist's dustpan. But conclusions drawn by the professor in charge of major digs at Palace Green just yards from Durham cathedral and near Bamburgh castle (Bowl Hole) were fascinating: all human life and, more to the point, death were there. Charlotte Roberts, now emeritus from her senior post at the University of Durham, said her earlier career, as a fully-fledged nurse, helps a lot in identifying old bones and deciding the cause of death. In Northumberland, half of the 7th and 8th century graves yielded Scandinavian, Mediterranean and North African natives, probably pilgrims to this font of early Christianity. In Durham, the find was of 1,600 Scottish soldiers who did not survive captivity in the disused cathedral to which an original 3,000 had been marched after 1650 defeat at Dunbar. Their teeth indicated many were aged 13 to 18. If, in death, you wish to send a message to future archaeologists, ignore your dentist's advice: analysis of plaque, apparently, says a lot to these experts. Of the Scots who survived their Durham sojourn, we were told, not a few ended up in early British settlements in America.
November Lecture - Monday 13 November 2023
No generals and a five star-rating - Keith Offord
Ornithology, yes, but also pyrotechnics. They were one and the same at master photographer Keith Offord's show about Costa Rica, the tropical paradise - socially, as well as the usual definitions -- which is unique among the motley nations crowding the narrow strip of land that 17 million years ago rose from the waters to create Central America. The explosions that brought oohs and aahs from the audience were not fireworks to celebrate, for instance, the imminent 73rd anniversary of Abolition of Army Day; they were the extraordinary - some might say gaudy - display, in sharp-focusTechnicolor, of the country's bird-life. Britain has some 250 species of birds; Costa Rica has 850 species in a country the size of Wales. We were treated to samples from many of the sub-tribes: humming birds galore, fly-catchers, ant-eaters, predators, all gloriously arrayed - think kingfisher times ten and in multi-sized profusion. Ironically, though, the official national bird is the "clay-coloured thrush", chosen because the obvious "resplendent quetzal" was bagged by a neighbouring state. Larger wildlife is also prolific, but we saw only a monkey, snakes and sloths - the latter to illustrate the joke about the weekly highlight of the lazy creature's life: descent from its tree home to defecate.
No generals and a five star-rating - Keith Offord
Ornithology, yes, but also pyrotechnics. They were one and the same at master photographer Keith Offord's show about Costa Rica, the tropical paradise - socially, as well as the usual definitions -- which is unique among the motley nations crowding the narrow strip of land that 17 million years ago rose from the waters to create Central America. The explosions that brought oohs and aahs from the audience were not fireworks to celebrate, for instance, the imminent 73rd anniversary of Abolition of Army Day; they were the extraordinary - some might say gaudy - display, in sharp-focusTechnicolor, of the country's bird-life. Britain has some 250 species of birds; Costa Rica has 850 species in a country the size of Wales. We were treated to samples from many of the sub-tribes: humming birds galore, fly-catchers, ant-eaters, predators, all gloriously arrayed - think kingfisher times ten and in multi-sized profusion. Ironically, though, the official national bird is the "clay-coloured thrush", chosen because the obvious "resplendent quetzal" was bagged by a neighbouring state. Larger wildlife is also prolific, but we saw only a monkey, snakes and sloths - the latter to illustrate the joke about the weekly highlight of the lazy creature's life: descent from its tree home to defecate.
October Lecture - Monday 9 October 2023
Richard III: My truths - Gareth Williams
We should have booed him off the (Bosworth) field of course: Richard III, aka as British Museum curator and actor Gareth Williams, in question time and still in costume after his compelling performance as the 1485 defender of his two-year reign. He had come down against a film made by Our Girl - Philippa Langley, brought up in Darlington, the heroine of the Leicester car park sensation. Now her film The Lost King about the Raby Castle-connected and Middleham Castle-headquartered champion of the Yorkist cause is being sued by a partner in the famous dig. So too is Steve Coogan who played the aggrieved party, a Leicester University academic whose allegation is that Coogan's portrayal defamed him. Dr Williams said the university, vital to the dig's success, had received a raw deal from the film. But he added unequivocally that without Ms Langley (who will address the association on February 19) Richard's body would not have been found. That last bit mollified us; that, and, as Richard clasping a a massive sword, his admirably modernised eve-of- Bosworth hopes and fears. Richard's son was born at Middleham, his mother at Raby.
Richard III: My truths - Gareth Williams
We should have booed him off the (Bosworth) field of course: Richard III, aka as British Museum curator and actor Gareth Williams, in question time and still in costume after his compelling performance as the 1485 defender of his two-year reign. He had come down against a film made by Our Girl - Philippa Langley, brought up in Darlington, the heroine of the Leicester car park sensation. Now her film The Lost King about the Raby Castle-connected and Middleham Castle-headquartered champion of the Yorkist cause is being sued by a partner in the famous dig. So too is Steve Coogan who played the aggrieved party, a Leicester University academic whose allegation is that Coogan's portrayal defamed him. Dr Williams said the university, vital to the dig's success, had received a raw deal from the film. But he added unequivocally that without Ms Langley (who will address the association on February 19) Richard's body would not have been found. That last bit mollified us; that, and, as Richard clasping a a massive sword, his admirably modernised eve-of- Bosworth hopes and fears. Richard's son was born at Middleham, his mother at Raby.