Andrew Shorthouse

With beads of sweat glistening on the speaker finder’s brow like a morning dew, our speaker Jonathan “Jonny” Jones eventually arrived like a whirlwind to deliver the most superb lecture, drawing on his time as a teacher leading a group of Rotherham school kids to the WWI battlefields and war graves, and the inspiration behind … Read more

Paul Adey, a retired company director in the motor industry, continued with his hugely informative talk from last year. Vauxhall Motors was a gem of a name, unlike some of its cars. The story goes that King John granted lands in the 13th century to Fulk le Breant. His seat along the Thames was Fulk’s … Read more

We were privileged to share, at first hand, Richard Blair’s (pictured left) many recollections of life with his father Eric Arthur Blair, otherwise known as George Orwell (1903-1950), best known for his allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945), the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), and his non-fictional work including The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) and … Read more

Roger Browne entertained us brilliantly once again, this time on the history of jazz and how it came to UK from the United States. His talk was laced with some terrific live piano playing on his own keyboard, mainly blues, ragtime and trad jazz. Born in Blackpool, he taught himself to play the piano by … Read more

Alan, a retired consultant anaesthetist at Barnsley Hospital, gave us another great talk on how a group of his friends and colleagues (Fig 1) successfully tackled Mount Kilimanjaro. Ironically, the older you are, the more likely you are to succeed in reaching the summit. Between 30 and 75 per cent fail to reach it, depending … Read more

Jo Meredith’s talk was a real eye-opener for many Probus members who had never set foot in the Sheffield General Cemetery. Jo was a town planner and landscape architect in local government and subsequently ran her own bookshop in Gloucester before selling up and becoming a tour guide. She has been a volunteer at the … Read more