Graham Snowdon When is cutlery not cutlery? When it’s a fork or a spoon. Nick Duggan was impressed that the majority of his audience knew that only something that cuts can be defined as cutlery. But then we are a Sheffield-based club, after all, and our membership includes three former Masters Cutler. Even my Oxford English Reference … Read more
After Nick Duggan’s talk on his own cutlery collection two days earlier, the ‘made in Sheffield’ theme continued when 22 Stumperlowe Probus Club members gathered as arranged at the iconic Bessemer Converter outside Kelham Island Museum ready to start our guided tour of the Hawley Tool Collection. As Nick, the curator, pointed out, the Hawley … Read more
When Dennis Ashton last came to speak to us, just over five years ago, his subject was dog sled racing in Alaska, where he also witnessed a superb auroral display which probably gave him the inspiration for his latest talk. Dennis, a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, kept us enthralled for an hour with … Read more
Most of our members had read Catherine Bailey’s fascinating book Black Diamonds, the Rise and Fall of an English Dynasty, which maps the history of coal mining in South Yorkshire and the downfall of the Fitzwilliam family. So it was with great anticipation that we gathered at Wentworth Woodhouse – formerly Britain’s largest private residence, … Read more
We all knew how it would finish, of course, but Peter Stubbs kept us enthralled to the very end of the second part of his talk on the War at Sea, 1914 to 1918. Peter briefly recapped on his previous week’s talk, when we left the British Navy and the British public in good spirits … Read more
The title of this talk was in the form of a question which I could have partly answered before the meeting, having watched our Lib Dem councillor Cliff Woodcraft trudging round the neighbourhood in all weathers, at all hours, delivering party political flyers and newsletters. Whatever your political persuasion, there could be no doubting this … Read more