Monthly Archives: February 2017

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.

Songs and Laughter

For our meeting on the 1st of February the Forum’s Deputy Chairman Duncan Verity gave one of  his video presentations titled Songs and Laughter which featured singers and comedians from the 1970s to the present date.

The comedy clips all featured well known comedians such as the Two Ronnies and Les Dawson.

The songs were mainly by established singers such as Cliff Richard, Michael Ball and Tammy Wynette although Duncan found two unknown Irish singers whose efforts were very well received.

Chairman Mike Earle thanked Duncan for warming up the members on a cold day.

On the 8th of March the Forum will hold an open meeting when the guest speaker will be the celebrated Yorkshire author Gervase Phinn whose talk will be titled The School Inspector Calls.

When Forum members have obtained their tickets the remainder will be available for purchase by anyone at the cost of £8 each.