101 Talks...

I have just completed the one hundred and first talk. The first one was given to Rayleigh Grange U3A in June 2010. That was on Henry John Hatch. The most recent, yesterday, was to the Chelmsford U3A in the splendid new MASC premises. The subject was Dr Thomas Smethurst.

I started the whole process at the suggestion of Mary Sharpe, a very nice lady I met at Madingley Hall - the Cambridge College of Continuing Education. I was attending one of the weekend courses there, and we got chatting. I had just published Henry's Trials and was fretting about how to publicize the book on a very modest budget. During the next break she presented me with a piece of paper absolutely crammed with ideas. One of the most fruitful was to give talks to the U3A. 

The talks did generate book sales, but soon they acquired a momentum of their own. With all of our modern media, television and the internet, possibly the very oldest and still the most highly effective form of entertainment - practiced by Homer, no less - is the simple process of one person just telling a story to an audience, whether the audience be one, one hundred or one thousand.