Andrew Shorthouse This was a detailed and fascinating talk about the history of Westminster Palace. A memorised (rather than read) delivery using the beautifully prepared slides as prompts would have been for me the icing on the cake. I particularly liked the Dennis Skinner quotes; there are a few extra ones slotted in at the end. Thorn … Read more
David Templeman’s excellent talk was about the history of a handful of the multiple ancient suburbs of Sheffield which, prior to the industrial revolution, had remained tranquil agricultural settlements, and of some of significant beauty – difficult to imagine today. Speed’s map of Sheffield 1645 shows some of these places already established centuries before. Place … Read more
The talk began with a brief resumé of how the protestant Dutch revolt against Spanish rule lead to independence and the Golden Age. The Dutch accrued enormous wealth from trade and became Europe’s storehouse for grain and timber, the staples of food, housing and shipping. Amsterdam was the hub. It was a time of great … Read more
Chris Dorries has been Senior Sheffield Coroner since 1991. Sheffield has a high national profile with approximately 3500 cases (40% of all South Yorkshire deaths) reported to the Coroners jurisdiction annually. Half are referred for conventional in-house CT autopsy. Sheffield is only one of three UK mortuaries with its own high dose CT scanner (a … Read more
Sally was subtly introduced by Jacko, who professed not to know one end of a paintbrush from the other, yet somehow seemed fully aware of Picasso during his “Blazer Period”. No-one else knew this until he rolled up his trouser legs to expose Picasso’s “Sock Period”! Sally is an art graduate who actively avoided and … Read more
We had a fantastic talk about international communications from the speaker’s own perspective as a technical programme manager for a major multinational company which is responsible for large proportion of global internet traffic. Rob heads the company’s data centre internationally. After Tapton school and a degree from Salford University, he worked for BT Global Services, … Read more