Monthly Archives: February 2016

A Trip Down Memory Lane

At the start of the Forum’s meeting on the 24th of February the Forum stood in silent memory of former member Brian Franklin who died recently in a care home on the Isle of Wight.

Our guest speaker for the meeting, introduced by John Spinner, was Keith Barber from Morley. His talk was entitled A Trip Down Memory Lane and was an illustrated nostalgic look at the 40s, 50s and 60s.

Keith was born in Hunslet in 1940 and started school in 1944 when schoolchildren had to endure gas mask and shelter drills.  He shared with us reminiscences of back to back houses with shared outdoor toilets, one cold water tap and a tin bath in front of the fire.  We were reminded of the stringent rationing in place which did not completely disappear until 1954.  Children had few (if any) toys but were very inventive in the street games they played.  The only home entertainment was the radio until television appeared in the 50s and this had only one channel for evenings only and in black and white, of course.

After the members had added some of their own memories Chairman Mike Earle proposed a vote of thanks to Keith for providing a thoroughly entertaining morning.

Family History

For the Forum’s meeting on the 17th of February the Deputy Chairman Colin Gaden took the chair.

The guest speaker for the meeting was Mike Greatorex from Harrogate who has devoted a large proportion of his retirement to researching his family history and this formed the subject of his talk entitled “Family History: The Trials and Tribulations”.

Mike gave us guidance into the procedures to be followed if we wanted to delve into our own families’ backgrounds such as obtaining birth and marriage certificates, how to access census and other useful records and the importance of speaking to other family members.  Mike then described some of his research into his own family.  His father had mentioned that his own father had been born in Philadelphia but knew no more details and this spurred Mike into deeper research.  Mike made a number of contacts in the USA who revealed Greatorex  relatives in New York state and Alabama including a lady who had married four times (once bigamously) and a soldier who had sold his kit.  Mike invited questions from the members and it was obvious that many of us were very interested in his subject from the number of questions raised.  Colin Gaden drew the meeting to a close by proposing a vote of thanks which was well supported.

Chile North to South

On the 3rd of February we welcome, for her second visit, Pat Alker from Denby Dale.  Pat and her husband support the running of a school in rural Ethiopia which was the subject of the talk on her previous visit.

This time, however, she entertained us with a description of an exotic holiday she enjoyed with her husband, the talk being titled Chile North to South.  She established the fact that no members of the Forum had ever visited Chile and we quickly realised what an unusual country it is, being over 2000 miles in length but an average of just over 100 miles width.  After landing in the capital Santiago her tour group moved to the Atacama Desert, the driest place on earth where rainfall has never been recorded.  What little moisture the area receives is from a morning mist fed by the nearby Pacific Ocean which is enough to support some scrub and a few birds.

They then moved to the central Lake District which is an unpassable barrier to motor transport such that anyone wishing to travel by road to the south must divert into Argentina.  The final part of the journey took them to Punto Arenas in the far south where the attractions included glaciers and penguins.

The talk was illustrated with pictures of the spectacular scenery and unusual birds and animals but the local population were reluctant to be photographed.

The Forum Chairman, Mike Earle, thanked Pat for a fascinating talk.