Talk/Event

8 September 2026, 7:30PM Simon Davison Based on the 1876 ‘nonsense’ poem ‘The Hunting of the Snark’ by Lewis Carroll, local film director Simon Davison will talk to us about his 2023 film, which he made with the view that the poem is a nonsense response to the battle between science and religion in the 1860s. For centuries the Church’s doctrine that civilisation was created at the time of Noah’s Ark had prevailed: but, with the publication of Charles Darwin’s ‘Origin of the

13 October 2026, 7:30PM Lucy Moore Historian Lucy Moore’s book on pioneering anthropologists was chosen by Waterstones as a pick for ‘Best Book of 2022’. In this illustrated talk based on her book Lucy will discuss the careers of four early 20th century anthropologists who worked, variously, in Australia, the Trobriand Islands, and in Zambia, sharing how, while they pioneered a new way of thinking by undertaking field work as participant observers, their approach came laden w

10 November 2026, 7:30PM Claudia Suckling Previously Chief Executive of the William Morris Society, architectural and art historian Claudia Suckling will talk to us about William Morris, one of the towering figures of British art and design. Morris established a visual aesthetic that is still familiar to us today, whether in furnishings and wall paper, or just as a design shorthand. Designer, craftsman and radical socialist, William Morris pioneered a new approach to design

12 January 2027 Graham Waterton Local author Graham Waterton never fully understood what happened with his Uncle Brian in the Second World War; but, a chance remark from his mother in recent years led to a personal quest and to discovering the fascinating story of how Brian Slade as a schoolboy falsified his age to enlist in the RAF at the start of the Second World War, eventually becoming Britain’s youngest bomber pilot. He was affectionately known as ‘The Boy Slade’. Graha