Graham Snowdon

In the overall story of the vast Newton Chambers empire, to mention only the firm’s Izal products would just be scratching the surface – which the company’s toilet paper did, literally. But to get to the bottom of local historian Joan Jones’s fascinating presentation about the history of the Chapeltown conglomerate, the main focus was … Read more

Dr Patrick Harding soon established himself with the audience as a fun guy, but although fungi were certainly on the menu this was a pot pourri of tales about the hidden qualities of all sorts (and Allsorts) of everyday plants. And they were tales, rather than tedious botanical descriptions. Green fingered I most certainly am … Read more

Dr Helen Hoyle gained her first degree, in geography, at Oxford University three decades ago, eventually becoming head of geography at schools in London and Hertfordshire, but a career change brought her to our fair city where she gained an MA (Distinction) in Landscape Architecture at the University of Sheffield between 2009 and 2011. “This … Read more

Having visited the same country with my wife in February 2015, I could relate to Susan Rogers’s account of her journey to Vietnam 11 years earlier. The main differences were the direction of travel (in our case, from North to South) and more importantly the fact that, while we were on a package holiday, Susan … Read more

As a newcomer to Probus and an even newer member of the panel of bloggers, it is coincidental – and fortuitous from my point of view – that the subject matter for my maiden contribution is something with which I was already familiar. The title of Ann Beedham’s very interesting talk is also the title … Read more