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.
September Lecture - Monday 4 September 2023
Is this the way to Santiago? Alan Chape
Tommy, a loud middle-aged American with a toothbrush moustache who so irritated Alan Chape in early encounters along the Camino de Santiago, symbolises the epiphany the retired lecturer from North Yorkshire experienced during a few days into the great pilgrimage. Camaraderie along the 500-mile, 28-day hike from the French Pyrenees, quiet religiosity of humble chapels, magnificence of mountain and plateau scenery, he told us, suddenly made me a Christian". Not, we judged, that he had been an especially bad guy before then. It happened at the village of Trinidad de Arre: "It changed my life. I'm different but fundamentally the same person," he said. Tommy, whose noise did not abate, was an early beneficiary; "I learned not to be judgemental," said Mr Chape. It is far too late to query St James's resurrected arrival to preach in Hispania after his executed body had been placed by angels in a rudderless boat and pushed into the eastern Med. As our profound and easy-going speaker said, "faith can move mountains".
Is this the way to Santiago? Alan Chape
Tommy, a loud middle-aged American with a toothbrush moustache who so irritated Alan Chape in early encounters along the Camino de Santiago, symbolises the epiphany the retired lecturer from North Yorkshire experienced during a few days into the great pilgrimage. Camaraderie along the 500-mile, 28-day hike from the French Pyrenees, quiet religiosity of humble chapels, magnificence of mountain and plateau scenery, he told us, suddenly made me a Christian". Not, we judged, that he had been an especially bad guy before then. It happened at the village of Trinidad de Arre: "It changed my life. I'm different but fundamentally the same person," he said. Tommy, whose noise did not abate, was an early beneficiary; "I learned not to be judgemental," said Mr Chape. It is far too late to query St James's resurrected arrival to preach in Hispania after his executed body had been placed by angels in a rudderless boat and pushed into the eastern Med. As our profound and easy-going speaker said, "faith can move mountains".
April Lecture - Monday 17 April 2023
A River, and Trains, Run Through It - Philip Harvey
When 63 years ago Philip Harvey began work on his remarkable hymn to English provincial life in late Victorian times - the wonderfully detailed model of "Amberdale and the railway which runs through it" - he was re-creating a society distantly familiar to millions of people still not in their dotage (one of his grandmothers was born in 1875), a society ultimately dependent on the horse and the train. It is summer 1895, in a surely northern river valley of farms, villages, a market town and a larger semi-industrialised one. Bridges, viaduct, colliery, mills textile and grain, churches and, above all, rolling stock for enthusiasts to die for. People (finger-nail high) and animals (some of them disrupting timetables) go about their routines and their gentle pleasures. Mr Harvey, who has had distinguished career as a Cleveland Bridge civil engineer, has constantly expanded and mechanised his masterpiece in the 35 or so years since he first showed it to us - colour slides then, computer video now - gave a lyrical commentary that borrowed from Houseman and Gray to a rapt audience. He continues to add detail and motion to scenes that evoke an England that has disappeared for ever but remains instilled in the national imagination. .
A River, and Trains, Run Through It - Philip Harvey
When 63 years ago Philip Harvey began work on his remarkable hymn to English provincial life in late Victorian times - the wonderfully detailed model of "Amberdale and the railway which runs through it" - he was re-creating a society distantly familiar to millions of people still not in their dotage (one of his grandmothers was born in 1875), a society ultimately dependent on the horse and the train. It is summer 1895, in a surely northern river valley of farms, villages, a market town and a larger semi-industrialised one. Bridges, viaduct, colliery, mills textile and grain, churches and, above all, rolling stock for enthusiasts to die for. People (finger-nail high) and animals (some of them disrupting timetables) go about their routines and their gentle pleasures. Mr Harvey, who has had distinguished career as a Cleveland Bridge civil engineer, has constantly expanded and mechanised his masterpiece in the 35 or so years since he first showed it to us - colour slides then, computer video now - gave a lyrical commentary that borrowed from Houseman and Gray to a rapt audience. He continues to add detail and motion to scenes that evoke an England that has disappeared for ever but remains instilled in the national imagination. .
March Lecture - Monday 13 March 2023
Beguiling Bridges, Home Edition - Keith Holmes
Tears, laughter, a naive security operation, cardboard milk packets and North-East pride pricked. We're talking bridges, of course. Keith Holmes, "story-teller with a camera," told often charming tales of English road, rail, river and other crossings. Underneath the Arches always moistens your reporter's eyes and Bud Flanagan, we heard, wrote his 1927 song of 22-carat nostalgia after seeing a homeless man huddled under Derby's prized but Beeching-redundanted Friar Gate bridge; Tess of the D'urbervilles makes everyone cry and ancient bridges that Hardy would cross over the Frome (one still promises transportation to luddites addicted to bridge vandalism) also invoked The Mayor of Casterbridge. We didn't laugh at Hungerford Bridge over the Thames to Charing Cross station, built in 1867 to replace an 1841 Brunel suspension footbridge, but groaned when told that the bigger-than-Big Ben clock face on the nearby Shell Mex white monolith was nicknamed Big Benzene. Back in Dorset, Tess and Hardy knew the six-arch Elizabethan bridge at Wool across which "secret" tanks were delivered to Bovington camp; when one arrived in 1917, villagers had to draw curtains, turn backs. Colonel Blimp trusted that no-one peeped when a Mark V demolished a parapet and overturned. Tetrapak gave £2.5m towards the controversial new footbridge high above the gorge to Tintagel Castle. And, among much intriguing else, myth-buster Holmes exploded that design of Sydney Harbour Bridge preceded that of the Tyne lookalike.
Beguiling Bridges, Home Edition - Keith Holmes
Tears, laughter, a naive security operation, cardboard milk packets and North-East pride pricked. We're talking bridges, of course. Keith Holmes, "story-teller with a camera," told often charming tales of English road, rail, river and other crossings. Underneath the Arches always moistens your reporter's eyes and Bud Flanagan, we heard, wrote his 1927 song of 22-carat nostalgia after seeing a homeless man huddled under Derby's prized but Beeching-redundanted Friar Gate bridge; Tess of the D'urbervilles makes everyone cry and ancient bridges that Hardy would cross over the Frome (one still promises transportation to luddites addicted to bridge vandalism) also invoked The Mayor of Casterbridge. We didn't laugh at Hungerford Bridge over the Thames to Charing Cross station, built in 1867 to replace an 1841 Brunel suspension footbridge, but groaned when told that the bigger-than-Big Ben clock face on the nearby Shell Mex white monolith was nicknamed Big Benzene. Back in Dorset, Tess and Hardy knew the six-arch Elizabethan bridge at Wool across which "secret" tanks were delivered to Bovington camp; when one arrived in 1917, villagers had to draw curtains, turn backs. Colonel Blimp trusted that no-one peeped when a Mark V demolished a parapet and overturned. Tetrapak gave £2.5m towards the controversial new footbridge high above the gorge to Tintagel Castle. And, among much intriguing else, myth-buster Holmes exploded that design of Sydney Harbour Bridge preceded that of the Tyne lookalike.
February Lecture - Monday 13 February 2023
Net Zero, the 169-million-year Perspective - Stuart Jones
We were in at the start and we're going to hasten its end; of global warming that is. We, the North-East, kicked it off with our 19th-century mining and by burning the coal in the railway locos we pioneered. Now, says Dr Stuart Jones, this region is a leader towards net zero. He is a geologist, associate professor at Durham University - and it showed. Members, from a generation before the university experience became a civil right, could narrow their eyes and imagine they were in a scene from Good Will Hunting. Some data, formulae and Periodic Tablery passed us by, but we got the drift. Especially that, in the scramble to find viable alternatives, this region excels. Durham and Newcastle universities have major initiatives. Geothermal is one alternative energy source: hot water from deep below. The UK has enough for a century via abandoned mines. Dawdon colliery, Seaham, is set to energise factories as well as the 1,500-home Garden Village whose layout has begun. Gateshead has eligible old mines; there's a drillable source near St James's Park, Newcastle; so too at Eastgate, Weardale. "We're nearly there," he said. "Perhaps big news in 18 months." Teesside will become a renewables hub and plans an undersea CO2 "prison". Electric cars? There's lithium for their batteries that may be minable from Weardale granite. Our scientists are on the case.
Net Zero, the 169-million-year Perspective - Stuart Jones
We were in at the start and we're going to hasten its end; of global warming that is. We, the North-East, kicked it off with our 19th-century mining and by burning the coal in the railway locos we pioneered. Now, says Dr Stuart Jones, this region is a leader towards net zero. He is a geologist, associate professor at Durham University - and it showed. Members, from a generation before the university experience became a civil right, could narrow their eyes and imagine they were in a scene from Good Will Hunting. Some data, formulae and Periodic Tablery passed us by, but we got the drift. Especially that, in the scramble to find viable alternatives, this region excels. Durham and Newcastle universities have major initiatives. Geothermal is one alternative energy source: hot water from deep below. The UK has enough for a century via abandoned mines. Dawdon colliery, Seaham, is set to energise factories as well as the 1,500-home Garden Village whose layout has begun. Gateshead has eligible old mines; there's a drillable source near St James's Park, Newcastle; so too at Eastgate, Weardale. "We're nearly there," he said. "Perhaps big news in 18 months." Teesside will become a renewables hub and plans an undersea CO2 "prison". Electric cars? There's lithium for their batteries that may be minable from Weardale granite. Our scientists are on the case.
January Lecture - Monday 9 January 2023
In the Kingdom of Sweets - Nigel Bates
Ballet novices learned an enthralling lot when Nigel Bates, a percussionist with London orchestras and former music administrator at Covent Garden, told the inside story of The Nutcracker: not least that it is the choreographer who sets the ball rolling. When Marius Petipa was asked to adapt a Hoffman tale as part of an 1892 St Petersburg 1892 double-bill (the ballet climaxed after midnight following an opera), he told Tchaikovsky precisely what was required. But the composer, at the height of his powers, went his own way and, for instance, for a dance sequence where 30-odd movements or whatever were required, he wrote for 130. Petipa lived with that, the dancers suffered for it - and the rest is history, The performance itself had mixed reviews but the music was lauded. It was 1934 before London provided the first full production outside Russia and it was George Balanchine's 1954 New York show that elevated the ballet to universal popularity. Too popular, for some jaded musicians: "another Christmas, another Nutcracker," said one, " takes you nearer to death". In the USA, community productions are the seasonal equivalent of pantos. We marvelled at technology that provides spectacular effects, not least dramatic enlargement of the Christmas tree to provide scale for a miniature dance scene. The evening was made by Mr Bates's video, on Polam Hall's large screen, of a Royal Ballet performance. And he wielded a mean tambourine to accompany a Covent Garden recording.
In the Kingdom of Sweets - Nigel Bates
Ballet novices learned an enthralling lot when Nigel Bates, a percussionist with London orchestras and former music administrator at Covent Garden, told the inside story of The Nutcracker: not least that it is the choreographer who sets the ball rolling. When Marius Petipa was asked to adapt a Hoffman tale as part of an 1892 St Petersburg 1892 double-bill (the ballet climaxed after midnight following an opera), he told Tchaikovsky precisely what was required. But the composer, at the height of his powers, went his own way and, for instance, for a dance sequence where 30-odd movements or whatever were required, he wrote for 130. Petipa lived with that, the dancers suffered for it - and the rest is history, The performance itself had mixed reviews but the music was lauded. It was 1934 before London provided the first full production outside Russia and it was George Balanchine's 1954 New York show that elevated the ballet to universal popularity. Too popular, for some jaded musicians: "another Christmas, another Nutcracker," said one, " takes you nearer to death". In the USA, community productions are the seasonal equivalent of pantos. We marvelled at technology that provides spectacular effects, not least dramatic enlargement of the Christmas tree to provide scale for a miniature dance scene. The evening was made by Mr Bates's video, on Polam Hall's large screen, of a Royal Ballet performance. And he wielded a mean tambourine to accompany a Covent Garden recording.
December Lecture - Monday 5 December 2022
Curating a Gardening Masterpiece - Paul Cook
We were shown the sumptuous colour brochure, as it were, its prose written and voiced by the man paid to get footfall along rose-shaded footpaths.. No matter. Many of us had already popped down the road to the wild moorland outskirts of genteel Harrogate to sample his product at Harlow Carr gardens and had ourselves decided it was not snake oil. If you must carp, Paul Cook, curator of the Royal Horticultural Society's northern showpiece, turned over his splendid pages a tad too quickly on our big screen; we wanted to dwell on the the beauty and yes, artistry, wrought over the past three-quarters of a century from such unpromising circumstance.. That, of course, was a main point of the RHS decision back then to spread its wings from the balmy and fertile South and show what might be possible with inferior soil in a more challenging climate. In a way, the successful experiment echoes the foresight of those who sent scientists to polar regions in the footsteps of adventurers: they discovered economic potential, climate-change early warnings and a career path for David Attenborough, while the RHS found that amid the Pennine limestone determined and dedicated curator/horticulturalists could even exceed the triumphs of many gardeners a bit farther north in the ten-homes-to-the-acre estates of Darlington.
Curating a Gardening Masterpiece - Paul Cook
We were shown the sumptuous colour brochure, as it were, its prose written and voiced by the man paid to get footfall along rose-shaded footpaths.. No matter. Many of us had already popped down the road to the wild moorland outskirts of genteel Harrogate to sample his product at Harlow Carr gardens and had ourselves decided it was not snake oil. If you must carp, Paul Cook, curator of the Royal Horticultural Society's northern showpiece, turned over his splendid pages a tad too quickly on our big screen; we wanted to dwell on the the beauty and yes, artistry, wrought over the past three-quarters of a century from such unpromising circumstance.. That, of course, was a main point of the RHS decision back then to spread its wings from the balmy and fertile South and show what might be possible with inferior soil in a more challenging climate. In a way, the successful experiment echoes the foresight of those who sent scientists to polar regions in the footsteps of adventurers: they discovered economic potential, climate-change early warnings and a career path for David Attenborough, while the RHS found that amid the Pennine limestone determined and dedicated curator/horticulturalists could even exceed the triumphs of many gardeners a bit farther north in the ten-homes-to-the-acre estates of Darlington.
November Lecture - Monday 14 November 2022
What did the Romans do for our Gardens? Gillian Hovell
Pliny the Younger (61-102 AD), if you read between the lines of archaeologist Gillian Hovell's lightly learned exposition on how the Romans influenced the institution that is the English Garden, was a prototype Alan Titchmarsh (b.1949). Both were prodigies (lawyer Pliny a senator at 20, Titchmarsh from one O-level to early TV acclaim) and are famed as authors, dabbling poets, confidantes of emperors and arbiters in their specialties; unrecorded, though are any awards to Pliny for penning embarrassing sex scenes. And on gardens both of them wax lyrical and wise - although the Ilkley lad is almost certainly more hands-on. Ms Hovell quoted impressively from memory the ancients' paens to horticulture in times biblical, Egyptian, Persian and Greek before concluding that it was the Romans who pulled it all together to the benefit of gardens from Chatsworth and, wonderfully, Drummond Castle to tiny gems in suburban Darlo, not least in water artistry and box hedges; the very (Latin) word topiary evokes a Roman ambience. Surely unfairly, however, she put it all down to imperial "showing off" in pursuit of power. Cicero, more romantically, said: "If you have a garden in your library, nothing is lacking".
What did the Romans do for our Gardens? Gillian Hovell
Pliny the Younger (61-102 AD), if you read between the lines of archaeologist Gillian Hovell's lightly learned exposition on how the Romans influenced the institution that is the English Garden, was a prototype Alan Titchmarsh (b.1949). Both were prodigies (lawyer Pliny a senator at 20, Titchmarsh from one O-level to early TV acclaim) and are famed as authors, dabbling poets, confidantes of emperors and arbiters in their specialties; unrecorded, though are any awards to Pliny for penning embarrassing sex scenes. And on gardens both of them wax lyrical and wise - although the Ilkley lad is almost certainly more hands-on. Ms Hovell quoted impressively from memory the ancients' paens to horticulture in times biblical, Egyptian, Persian and Greek before concluding that it was the Romans who pulled it all together to the benefit of gardens from Chatsworth and, wonderfully, Drummond Castle to tiny gems in suburban Darlo, not least in water artistry and box hedges; the very (Latin) word topiary evokes a Roman ambience. Surely unfairly, however, she put it all down to imperial "showing off" in pursuit of power. Cicero, more romantically, said: "If you have a garden in your library, nothing is lacking".
October Lecture - Monday 10 October 2022
Wild Images, Wildlife - Doug Allan
Hard to pick the highlight of Attenborough cameraman Doug Allan's super show. For some, anticipating our November 14 visit from a top archaeologist, it could even have been an outlier in his mainly polar presentation: the awe-inspiring shot of a 16,000ft Andean peak on which was found the burial place of three Inca high-flyers. Most, though, would vote for the polar bear and her cubs emerging into daylight for the first time after five months - gestation and breastfeeding - in the darkness of the family's Arctic snow hole. He captured the magic moments from 35 yards away but in intimate close-up enabled by what he described as a computer with a lens at the business end. Or another bear close-up: from the cosy inside of a 1937 Arctic hut built on Karl Kong's Land for Norwegian scientists he photographed the huge face pressed against the window. Or the methodical, ruthless, teamwork of beluga whales to unseat their prey, giant seals, from ice floes. Inevitably, there was a climate-change denouement: satellite pictures that showed ice cover down from 7.2 million sq km in 1984 to 4.7 this year.
Wild Images, Wildlife - Doug Allan
Hard to pick the highlight of Attenborough cameraman Doug Allan's super show. For some, anticipating our November 14 visit from a top archaeologist, it could even have been an outlier in his mainly polar presentation: the awe-inspiring shot of a 16,000ft Andean peak on which was found the burial place of three Inca high-flyers. Most, though, would vote for the polar bear and her cubs emerging into daylight for the first time after five months - gestation and breastfeeding - in the darkness of the family's Arctic snow hole. He captured the magic moments from 35 yards away but in intimate close-up enabled by what he described as a computer with a lens at the business end. Or another bear close-up: from the cosy inside of a 1937 Arctic hut built on Karl Kong's Land for Norwegian scientists he photographed the huge face pressed against the window. Or the methodical, ruthless, teamwork of beluga whales to unseat their prey, giant seals, from ice floes. Inevitably, there was a climate-change denouement: satellite pictures that showed ice cover down from 7.2 million sq km in 1984 to 4.7 this year.
September Lecture - Monday 26 September 2022
Patons Plural, a Singular Tale - Chris Lloyd
Paton and Baldwins had 3,000 workers, mainly women, at their giant wool factory in Darlington; but the site at Lingfield Point now has 3,500 at smaller enterprises there, led by the Student Loans Co. So Chris Lloyd told us about the knitting-wool firm which at the height of its 1947-1980s stay here would take on 30pc of the town's girl school- leavers. Halifax was shocked when Paton left after 185 years (Baldwin of Alloa joined 100 years in) quit tall hillside mills for 145 acres of flat farmland here. A state of the art, one-storey plant (world's largest textile factory had a 12-acre glass roof, acres of staff sports grounds, an Italianate garden, the Beehive ballroom (in the 1,200-a-sitting dining hall) and its own power station. The latter steam-powered the whole operation and steam-fuelled a fireless locomotive (no smoke to dirty the pristine product) Titbits: wool-cleaning gunk sold to make cosmetics, a 2.5-mile conveyor belt, all machinery UK-made, 50 buses to collect workers, 60pc exported and Bond star Roger Moore a model for P&B knitting patterns. Cheap imports and man-made fibres forced closure with production moved back to Alloa - and Yorkshire.
Patons Plural, a Singular Tale - Chris Lloyd
Paton and Baldwins had 3,000 workers, mainly women, at their giant wool factory in Darlington; but the site at Lingfield Point now has 3,500 at smaller enterprises there, led by the Student Loans Co. So Chris Lloyd told us about the knitting-wool firm which at the height of its 1947-1980s stay here would take on 30pc of the town's girl school- leavers. Halifax was shocked when Paton left after 185 years (Baldwin of Alloa joined 100 years in) quit tall hillside mills for 145 acres of flat farmland here. A state of the art, one-storey plant (world's largest textile factory had a 12-acre glass roof, acres of staff sports grounds, an Italianate garden, the Beehive ballroom (in the 1,200-a-sitting dining hall) and its own power station. The latter steam-powered the whole operation and steam-fuelled a fireless locomotive (no smoke to dirty the pristine product) Titbits: wool-cleaning gunk sold to make cosmetics, a 2.5-mile conveyor belt, all machinery UK-made, 50 buses to collect workers, 60pc exported and Bond star Roger Moore a model for P&B knitting patterns. Cheap imports and man-made fibres forced closure with production moved back to Alloa - and Yorkshire.
April Lecture - Monday 4 April 2022
Castles and Country Houses in the North East - Richard Pears
"Surplus to family requirements" is shorthand often used to explain the abandonment or demolition of once-splendid stately piles: sometimes that's inheritance tax avoidance or simply a dynasty fallen on hard times. Not that Dr Richard Pears of Durham university used the phrase in his review of dozens of North-East castles and country houses, most of them, thankfully, still going strong in changed roles. Streatlam Castle, near Barnard Castle, and Halnaby and Clervaux, both near Croft, are "no longer required" examples. Ruins of ancient fortresses, we learned, are often in that state not because of destructive conquest but through the ravages of time; there was a tradition of military chivalry that often allowed besieged castles (e.g. Bamburgh in the War of the Roses) to survive intact after enlightened negotiation - the Ukraine calamity is horrifying proof we are in a different era. Titbits from a lecture that will fuel sightseeing trips for many weekends include: a village demolished to create a plebs-free zone in front of Raby; overspending on landscaping at Gibside and Hardwick at the expense of the actual building; Lambton Castle undermined by the Londonderrys' own coal mining; Windsor as inspiration for massive circular towers added to Warkworth, Durham and Alnwick; and Jacobean Gainford Hall (surely Miss Haversham's abode) newly restored and, we add, for which Lord Barnard seeks a tenant.
Castles and Country Houses in the North East - Richard Pears
"Surplus to family requirements" is shorthand often used to explain the abandonment or demolition of once-splendid stately piles: sometimes that's inheritance tax avoidance or simply a dynasty fallen on hard times. Not that Dr Richard Pears of Durham university used the phrase in his review of dozens of North-East castles and country houses, most of them, thankfully, still going strong in changed roles. Streatlam Castle, near Barnard Castle, and Halnaby and Clervaux, both near Croft, are "no longer required" examples. Ruins of ancient fortresses, we learned, are often in that state not because of destructive conquest but through the ravages of time; there was a tradition of military chivalry that often allowed besieged castles (e.g. Bamburgh in the War of the Roses) to survive intact after enlightened negotiation - the Ukraine calamity is horrifying proof we are in a different era. Titbits from a lecture that will fuel sightseeing trips for many weekends include: a village demolished to create a plebs-free zone in front of Raby; overspending on landscaping at Gibside and Hardwick at the expense of the actual building; Lambton Castle undermined by the Londonderrys' own coal mining; Windsor as inspiration for massive circular towers added to Warkworth, Durham and Alnwick; and Jacobean Gainford Hall (surely Miss Haversham's abode) newly restored and, we add, for which Lord Barnard seeks a tenant.
March Lecture - Monday 7 March 2022
Aristocrats of the Air: Bird Flight Explored - Keith Offord
They found a Farne Islands arctic term ringed 30 years earlier, these birds circumnavigate annually. So this one had clocked over a million miles, truly an Aristocrat of the Air, ornithologist and fine photographer Keith Offord's title for his talk on the secrets of flight. It's all to do with air flowing over the wing at lower pressure than that passing below it, and the wing area/weight ratio. He showed a photo of a 150m year-old Bavarian fossil of a lizard at the evolutionary stage where legs became wings; it sounds even more sensational expressed as dinosaur becomes, say, robin. But for many the fascination was the pin-sharp images of flight and snippets of bird-lore like the vulture variant that drops sizable cow bones from great height to access its marrow diet; the swift variant that spends seven-eighths of its life in the air, landing only to lay eggs (what then is the percentage aloft for the male?); ducks waterproof themselves with an oil expressed from their body; cormorants, though, have to sit hours with wings stretched to dry feathers that lack this stuff so reducing buoyancy in the name of underwater athleticism. Legally protected, hen harriers' nests may be approached only by licensed researchers; Offord is one such and shows a photo of his scalp nastily wounded by a harrier parent during a prolonged, yes, harrying.
Aristocrats of the Air: Bird Flight Explored - Keith Offord
They found a Farne Islands arctic term ringed 30 years earlier, these birds circumnavigate annually. So this one had clocked over a million miles, truly an Aristocrat of the Air, ornithologist and fine photographer Keith Offord's title for his talk on the secrets of flight. It's all to do with air flowing over the wing at lower pressure than that passing below it, and the wing area/weight ratio. He showed a photo of a 150m year-old Bavarian fossil of a lizard at the evolutionary stage where legs became wings; it sounds even more sensational expressed as dinosaur becomes, say, robin. But for many the fascination was the pin-sharp images of flight and snippets of bird-lore like the vulture variant that drops sizable cow bones from great height to access its marrow diet; the swift variant that spends seven-eighths of its life in the air, landing only to lay eggs (what then is the percentage aloft for the male?); ducks waterproof themselves with an oil expressed from their body; cormorants, though, have to sit hours with wings stretched to dry feathers that lack this stuff so reducing buoyancy in the name of underwater athleticism. Legally protected, hen harriers' nests may be approached only by licensed researchers; Offord is one such and shows a photo of his scalp nastily wounded by a harrier parent during a prolonged, yes, harrying.
February Lecture - Monday 14 February 2022
The Old North, Part Two - John Moreels
Not the least of the fascinating glimpses of the North East of yore we were given by the Ward Philipson archive were 19th-century photos of the great Geordie celebration that takes over Newcastle's Town Moor each summer. Imagine, that riot of youthful bacchanalia, The Hoppings, sprang from 1882 revels sponsored by the Temperance movement. But John Moreels, who unwittingly acquired the archive of many thousands of images in a Tyneside business takeover, showed evidence that the exhortation to "sign the pledge" was not a general crusade against dubious working-class pleasures: another photo showed bookies manning a stall there. Other Hoppings scenes suggested that the campaign might save you from alcoholism but it tolerated the risk to life and limb posed by a rickety big wheel and other Casey's court structures. Mr Moreels's show majored on great northern projects, notably Tyne and Tees bridges and the huge Whessoe site in Darlington, but illustrated snippets about smaller North-East institutions like Ringtons and United also charmed. A Smith family founded the tea delivery firm but their major investor insisted the horse-drawn carts bore his name; and the bus company struggled when founded in seasonal Lowestoft so in 1912 moved a fleet (including a converted army lorry) to Durham where miners bussed to work all year round.
The Old North, Part Two - John Moreels
Not the least of the fascinating glimpses of the North East of yore we were given by the Ward Philipson archive were 19th-century photos of the great Geordie celebration that takes over Newcastle's Town Moor each summer. Imagine, that riot of youthful bacchanalia, The Hoppings, sprang from 1882 revels sponsored by the Temperance movement. But John Moreels, who unwittingly acquired the archive of many thousands of images in a Tyneside business takeover, showed evidence that the exhortation to "sign the pledge" was not a general crusade against dubious working-class pleasures: another photo showed bookies manning a stall there. Other Hoppings scenes suggested that the campaign might save you from alcoholism but it tolerated the risk to life and limb posed by a rickety big wheel and other Casey's court structures. Mr Moreels's show majored on great northern projects, notably Tyne and Tees bridges and the huge Whessoe site in Darlington, but illustrated snippets about smaller North-East institutions like Ringtons and United also charmed. A Smith family founded the tea delivery firm but their major investor insisted the horse-drawn carts bore his name; and the bus company struggled when founded in seasonal Lowestoft so in 1912 moved a fleet (including a converted army lorry) to Durham where miners bussed to work all year round.
December Lecture - Monday 6 December 2021
All Human Life, Tears of Sorrow and Joy - Jim Holmes
There will be no misery, we were told by Middlesbrough-born Jim Holmes, 30 years a photographer with international aid organisations. Mainly, there was not - after he showed scene-setting, upsetting panoramas of Aceh, Indonesia, devastated by the tsunami which struck south-east Asia in 2004 causing damage as far away as the Horn of Africa. It was a story of hope, the resilience of the people who refuse to despair, and of the "humanitarian vision" behind the West's billions of pounds of aid plus individual generosity: from direct debits and Christmas-card buying to TV extravaganzas like Comic and Live Aid. There were encouraging photos of Aceh's remarkable recovery. And often moving pictures of cheerful bit-players in a story of struggles against adversity. One apparently off-the-cuff shot of two naked small boys splashing happily, courtesy of Water Aid, included a carefully placed red bucket; child nudity is now an ultra no-no for Oxfam et al. His most personally rewarding assignment? Coverage in Laos of a peasant woman's first five years of motherhood. When the birth was imminent she called on a mobile he had lent her and managed "baby!" She named her little girl Lang, the local diminutive of "foreigner", in his honour.
All Human Life, Tears of Sorrow and Joy - Jim Holmes
There will be no misery, we were told by Middlesbrough-born Jim Holmes, 30 years a photographer with international aid organisations. Mainly, there was not - after he showed scene-setting, upsetting panoramas of Aceh, Indonesia, devastated by the tsunami which struck south-east Asia in 2004 causing damage as far away as the Horn of Africa. It was a story of hope, the resilience of the people who refuse to despair, and of the "humanitarian vision" behind the West's billions of pounds of aid plus individual generosity: from direct debits and Christmas-card buying to TV extravaganzas like Comic and Live Aid. There were encouraging photos of Aceh's remarkable recovery. And often moving pictures of cheerful bit-players in a story of struggles against adversity. One apparently off-the-cuff shot of two naked small boys splashing happily, courtesy of Water Aid, included a carefully placed red bucket; child nudity is now an ultra no-no for Oxfam et al. His most personally rewarding assignment? Coverage in Laos of a peasant woman's first five years of motherhood. When the birth was imminent she called on a mobile he had lent her and managed "baby!" She named her little girl Lang, the local diminutive of "foreigner", in his honour.
November Lecture - Monday 8 November 2021
Chelsea Flower Show - Adam Frost
The more than 200 who applauded Adam Frost's story of a "complicated" childhood and tales of ducking and diving before becoming a designer of inspirational gardens at Chelsea Flower Show would probably have enjoyed it even more if he had inherited the accent of a different grandfather. One was a Durham pitman whose own father died in a mining accident; but the presenter of course spoke (fluently, without notes but a bit too quietly) in the East End tones and vernacular that distinguishes (both senses) him in the usually RP world of television gardening. His upbringing, with parents who swapped partners with another couple, was largely left to four much-loved grandparents. If there were an England team of bad fathers, he said, his dad might not have made the first XI but would certainly be in the squad. But there was also a moving tale about his inclusion of that father's more positive influences, like architectural detail and impressive rockery, in one of his seven Chelsea-winning gardens. That could even have been a life-lesson he shared with the Queen, garrulously and perhaps lacing it with rhyming slang, during their eight-minute chat amid his tall blue irises and rock pools; Her Majesty did not hurry away.
Chelsea Flower Show - Adam Frost
The more than 200 who applauded Adam Frost's story of a "complicated" childhood and tales of ducking and diving before becoming a designer of inspirational gardens at Chelsea Flower Show would probably have enjoyed it even more if he had inherited the accent of a different grandfather. One was a Durham pitman whose own father died in a mining accident; but the presenter of course spoke (fluently, without notes but a bit too quietly) in the East End tones and vernacular that distinguishes (both senses) him in the usually RP world of television gardening. His upbringing, with parents who swapped partners with another couple, was largely left to four much-loved grandparents. If there were an England team of bad fathers, he said, his dad might not have made the first XI but would certainly be in the squad. But there was also a moving tale about his inclusion of that father's more positive influences, like architectural detail and impressive rockery, in one of his seven Chelsea-winning gardens. That could even have been a life-lesson he shared with the Queen, garrulously and perhaps lacing it with rhyming slang, during their eight-minute chat amid his tall blue irises and rock pools; Her Majesty did not hurry away.
October Lecture - Monday 11 October 2021
Antiques at Auction plus TV Tales - Caroline Hawley
Caroline Hawley, a favourite on daytime TV who started in antiques as a teenager and now with her husband runs a international auction house from East Yorkshire, told of a "there but for grace of God go I" moment on the Flog It! show. At Normanby Hall, Leicestershire, in 2013 she was confronted by an impressive but anonymous warrior's shield well outside her (considerable) field of expertise. The valuation task went to a co-star, Michael Baggott, who ventured "around £500". The shield fetched £30,000 at auction, bought online by Sydney Museum, delighted to have happened upon a fine example of Aboriginal craftsmanship. In an informative and entertaining talk, nuggets included the sharp fall in prices for elegant chaises-longes of yester-century, alongside a boom for Ercol furniture (e.g. a1970s light-wood sofa bed fetched £500); poor prices for "brown furniture" including grandfather clocks; mid-20th century Danish furniture is doing well, as is galvanised ware such as planters. There are always surprises though, as Mrs Hawley explained: "It only takes two determined bidders to make a successful auction".
Antiques at Auction plus TV Tales - Caroline Hawley
Caroline Hawley, a favourite on daytime TV who started in antiques as a teenager and now with her husband runs a international auction house from East Yorkshire, told of a "there but for grace of God go I" moment on the Flog It! show. At Normanby Hall, Leicestershire, in 2013 she was confronted by an impressive but anonymous warrior's shield well outside her (considerable) field of expertise. The valuation task went to a co-star, Michael Baggott, who ventured "around £500". The shield fetched £30,000 at auction, bought online by Sydney Museum, delighted to have happened upon a fine example of Aboriginal craftsmanship. In an informative and entertaining talk, nuggets included the sharp fall in prices for elegant chaises-longes of yester-century, alongside a boom for Ercol furniture (e.g. a1970s light-wood sofa bed fetched £500); poor prices for "brown furniture" including grandfather clocks; mid-20th century Danish furniture is doing well, as is galvanised ware such as planters. There are always surprises though, as Mrs Hawley explained: "It only takes two determined bidders to make a successful auction".