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Bed Pans and False Teeth

On the First of November 51 members attended the Forum’s meeting at the Church Rooms, the largest attendance so far this season.

The guest speaker was Denise Adlard, a retired nurse from Denholm near Bradford whose talk was titled Bed Pans and False Teeth – 47 Years in the NHS, although she promised not to talk about false teeth and to only make passing mention to bed pans.

Denise had wanted to be a nurse from the age of four and at seventeen obtained a post as a student nurse at the Bradford Royal Infirmary in the face of opposition from her father.  She recalled that this was the only occasion when her mother stood up for her against her father.

On completion of her training she qualified as a District Nurse but then trained as a midwife at St. Luke’s Hospital.  She described her first home birth when, as a trainee, she delivered the baby on her own which was strictly against the rules.

She returned to district nursing in Bradford where her district included the Holme Wood estate, at that time reputed to be the most deprived estate in Europe.  She related her brushes with the local police, usually caused by speeding between cases, and she also related her problems with unfriendly dogs.

What were the most important lessons which nursing taught her?

How to be scrupulously neat and tidy and to do complicated tasks with a steady hand.

Mike Earle proposed a vote of thanks to Denise for giving the Forum a very entertaining morning.

Industrial Archaeology

On the 27th of September the Forum welcomed its guest speaker Mike Bowers from Boston Spa.  Mike is a retired school teacher whose lifelong interest has been the history of industry and he titled his talk Industrial Archaeology.

The basis of his talk was a selection of his slide collection taken over the last fifty years most of which featured scenes from his native Derbyshire where much of the early developments of the Industrial Revolution took place.

The first source of power was water which was exploited by the ancient Egyptians and featured in the Domesday Book and Mike’s slides featured derelict water wheels of various designs.

The textile industry began in the weavers’ cottages and the first factory as we would understand it was built by Richard Arkwright in Cromford, Derbyshire.  Although Arkwright employed child labour he was a relatively benevolent employer compared with some of his contemporaries;

Arkwright provided housing for his workers and schools for their children.  Early factories had armed guards to protect them from groups such as the Luddites who saw the machines taking away their jobs.

Mike’s presentation moved on to the iron industry in Shropshire and Sheffield before concentrating on the development of transport, particularly canals and wagon systems powered by fixed engines.

After questions and comments from the Forum members Mike Earle thanked Mike Bowers for a fascinating talk.

Percy Shaw inventor of the Cats Eye road stud

At the Forum’s meeting held on the 20th of September Speaker Finder John Spinner re-introduced an old friend, Chris Helmes.

The subject of his talk was Percy Shaw – the man who put the Cats-eye on the road.

Percy Shaw was born in Halifax in 1890, one of a poor family of 14 children. As a child he moved to the nearby village of Boothtown to a house where he lived for the rest of his life.

He left school aged 13 and, after a number of dead-end jobs, he and his father set up a business doing any small jobs and repairs required.  His social life involved a regular visit to the Old Dolphin pub in Queensbury and it was whilst travelling home on his motor cycle that he realised the need for road markings visible in the dark.

It is not clear how he devised the cats-eye but he set up the Reflective Roadstud Company which was an instant success.  He became a local celebrity due to his eccentric lifestyle, always dressing scruffily and restricting his social life to visits to the Old Dolphin; his one luxury being a Rolls Royce car.

He achieved national fame when he was the subject of an interview by Alan Whicker and received an OBE in 1965 for services to exports, dying in 1976 age 86.

Chris circulated a cats-eye for us to see its unique features including self-cleaning and ability to withstand heavy traffic and the forum members plied him with many questions.

Chairman Mike Earle proposed a vote of thanks enthusiastically supported by all the members.

Stories and Legacies of the First World War in Leeds and Yorkshire

The Forum convened on the 13th of September after its summer break.

Members stood to remember a former committee member Doug Emmingham who passed away during the break.

The first speaker for the season was Professor Alison Fell from Leeds University whose subject was Stories and Legacies of the First World War in Leeds and Yorkshire.

Professor Fell ran a project in 2014 with schools, museums and other organisations to establish six research groups covering various subjects related to how the war affected our area.

The majority of local men who joined the army were either drafted into the Leeds Rifles or the Leeds Pals Regiment.  Although a large number of them died in France many also fought in Gallipoli alongside Australians and New Zealanders.  The death rate for British troops was 12%, lower than is generally believed.

Alison related the problems experienced by large employers such as Tetley’s Brewery who lost many skilled workers to the army and related the story of a university academic with a German name although he was British citizen.

The last subject which Alison raised was the settlement of 250,000 Belgian refugees, a large number of who settled in Leeds and were treated as heroes but became less popular as the war progressed.

Duncan Verity proposed a vote of thanks which was enthusiastically supported by Forum members.

My Gallant Hussar

The Forum’s guest speaker on the 5th of April was Anne Batchelor, a retired schoolteacher from Seacroft.  Anne’s hobby since retirement has been historical research and she described to the Forum the story of her research which commenced with an enquiry about her great-grandfather called George Batchelor who is buried in a graveyard in York.

An enquiry into Mr. Batchelor was confused with another man of the same name buried in the same graveyard in the same year (1906) as Anne’s ancestor.  Anne became interested in this second person who had been a soldier in the 18th Hussars and won the DCM medal in the Boer War, hence the title of her talk ‘’My Gallant Hussar’’.

She established a connection for him to Hemel Hempstead and a letter in the local paper resulted in a phone call from a lady in Southampton and enabled Anne to trace Mr. Batchelor’s descendants to California and, although she was unable to visit them, she had many telephone conversations with George’s son until his death at a very old age.

During a stay in hospital Anne wrote a book about her research which sold three thousand copies although it is now out of print.

Mike Earle thanked Anne for an absolutely fascinating talk well told.

After the Forum’s Annual General Meeting on the 12th of April our meetings recommence on the 13th of September.

Choosing Sides

The forum’s Vice-Chairman Duncan Verity has assembled a collection of video presentations mainly dealing with the aviation industry.

On the 22nd of March he introduced one of his videos titled Choosing Sides.

The subject of the video was the crash of an airliner travelling from Heathrow to Belfast which suffered an engine failure en route and was diverted to East Midlands Airport but crashed onto the side of the M1 on its approach.  The video started with a very realistic reconstruction of the crash followed by details of the crash investigation and the conclusions of the investigation team.

The aircraft was a Boeing 737-400 which was only one month old carrying 118 passengers and 8 crew members, 47 of whom lost their lives.

One of the plane’s two engines caught fire but the pilots shut down the healthy engine and didn’t realise their mistake until it was too late.  The cause of the fire was found to be a broken fan blade in the engine but the crew’s error was blamed on the layout of the control panel.

The high loss of life was blamed on the method of anchoring the passenger seats and poor design of the overhead lockers.

A lively discussion followed with a forum member reporting that he had been a passenger on an aircraft in South Africa which suffered a similar failure although in this case it successfully returned to the airport.

The School Inspector Calls

On the 8th of March the Forum held its annual open meeting when 110 members and guests filled the Church Hall, no spare seats being available.

The speaker for this special occasion was the well-known Yorkshire author and raconteur Gervase Phinn who titled his talk The School Inspector Calls.

In his introduction John Spinner described Gervase as the James Herriot of school inspectors and his talk proved that this description did not flatter him.

Gervase introduced us to, among others, Benedict, a six year old with a remarkable vocabulary, and described an inspection he undertook at his old primary school when he met his favourite teacher and the former headmistress (now 104 years old).

Each story caused great amusement but had a serious message about child care, literacy or general education.  One of Gervase’s favourite subjects is spelling and he asked us who we thought was the best speller of modern times.  We were surprised by the answer – Enoch Powell.

We learnt one or two tips on how to improve our spelling and then Gervase progressed to malapropisms before completing his talk with two poems about his parents.

A member of the audience asked whether he had ever been involved in the theatre and he revealed that he had spent some time in youth theatre playing a variety of classical roles.

The Forum Chairman Mike Earle thanked Gervase for his most entertaining talk and the audience joined in with loud and appreciative applause.

Veni Vidi Vietnam

On the 22nd of February 45 members of the Forum attended the meeting at the Church Centre, the highest turnout for this season.

The guest speaker was Geoff Queen from Kettlewell whose talk’s title was based on a quotation from Julius Caesar.  The title was ‘Veni Vidi Vietnam’ which indicated that he was going to tell us about a visit to Vietnam.

In fact we learnt about a visit by Geoff and his wife to all three countries which once formed French Indo-China, namely Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos, the talk being illustrated by Geoff’s excellent slides.

They found the people in all three countries to be welcoming, kind, forgiving and deeply religious.  They first visited Cambodia where any visitor is made aware of the rule of the Khmer Rouge who attempted to establish a pure socialist state by a policy of murdering all intellectuals and dissenters.

They then moved on to Vietnam, by far the most populous of the three counties where they were impressed by the recovery from the Vietnam War.  A feature of life is the large number of small motor cycles and the problems for pedestrians in avoiding them.

In contrast they found Laos to be much more peaceful with a large proportion of monks in the population.

Finally on the journey home they visited Bangkok and Dubai.

Mike Earle proposed a vote of thanks to Geoff for a fascinating talk.

Geoff Queen donates all speaking fees to Great Ormond Street Hospital and last year his donations totalled over£10,000.

Scotch Whisky – A Bottled History

The guest speaker for the Forum’s meeting held on the 15th of February was Mark Southon who had travelled to Wetherby from Bawtry.  His talk was titled Scotch Whisky – A Bottled History and Forum members were delighted to see a bottle of whisky and some tiny glasses on a table at the front of the meeting.

Although Scotch whisky has been distilled since the late 15th century spirit distillation has been around since the ninth century BC.

Whisky itself was invented by Irish monks in the sixth century.

Mark gave us a potted history of Scotch whisky, the name being derived from a Gaelic word meaning the water of life.  We learned of the difference between malt, grain, blended and single malt whiskys.  The history of whisky is closely tied to smuggling, taxation policies and American prohibition.

Mark explained why Irish whiskey includes an ‘e’ which does not appear in the Scotch version.

After a particularly lively question and answer session Chairman Mike Earle proposed a vote of thanks and then members took enthusiastic advantage of an invitation to enjoy a small sample of the amber liquid from the bottle that we had noticed on the table.

From Prison to Palace

At the Forum’s meeting on the 8th of February the Speaker Finder John Spinner introduced our guest speaker Veronica Bird OBE whose talk was intriguingly titled From Prison to Palace.

Veronica spent 36 years serving in the prison service rising to the rank of Governor.  She trained in Holloway Women’s Prison before serving in a number of women’s institutions around the country and, after the introduction of equal opportunities legislation, she became Deputy Governor at Armley Prison, one of the first females to achieve this rank in a men’s prison.

She retired as Governor of New Hall Women’s Prison near Wakefield.   Veronica gave us a few statistics such as the fact that of the 86,000 or so prisoners in the UK around 36,000 cannot read or write.  She then related some incidents from her career and compared conditions in prisons from when her career started to the present day.

On her retirement from New Hall Veronica was awarded the OBE and she described the investiture and how the Queen bestows the medal.  Princess Anne is closely involved with the rehabilitation of prisoners and Veronica closed her talk with the amusing story of a visit the Princess made to New Hall whilst Veronica was the Governor.

After Forum members had posed a number of questions Chairman Mike Earle thanked Veronica for a fascinating talk about her interesting life and the people she had encountered.