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Details of our Next Meetings
Meetings start at 10:00 am, Ending at Midday
Please note that Speakers and Presentations may change at short notice
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Details will be published on this page as they become available
See HERE for our schedule & below for details
Meetings are usually held on the Third Wednesday of the month

Doors open at 09:45 - Presentations start at 10:20 am
with Refreshments between 09:50 and 10:20
Entrance Charge £2.00 (cash only please)
All Hall meetings are at Harman’s Cross Village Hall

20th May 2026 - Michelle Spruce

Podiatry & Iron Deficiency - The Hidden Epidemic

< Awaiting Details >

15th July 2026 -  Elizabeth Cozens

The Great Wildebeest Migration

< Awaiting Details >

18th March 2026 - Richard Cottrell

Dr John Snow - Pioneer in three fields of Medicine

John Snow (1813-1858) made significant contributions to physiology while still a medical student and went on to become the founder of modern medical anaesthesia.

John Snow’s work, as one of the first physicians to study and calculate dosages for ether and chloroform, was famous for administering chloroform to Queen Victoria during the births of her children

But perhaps Snow’s greatest achievement was to overthrow two millennia of medical orthodoxy and prove that water, not bad smells ('Miasma'), was the route of mass transmission of Cholera. .

Snow's famous investigation was into the 1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak in London, where he identified contaminated water from a public pump as the source of the disease.

Needless to say, he was vilified by the establishment until his death, when leading figures started to try to steal the credit for this discovery

Broad St Pump & Miasma

17th June 2026 - Steve Skinner

Hydraulic Power

The story of the development of hydraulic fluid power is a fascinating one to people interested in industrial history, not just from the point of view of the technology itself but also the myriad of applications for which it has been used.

15th April 2026 - John Hale

Life Story – DNA - The Race for the Double Helix

A Feature Length Star-Studded Documentary & Award Winning Drama made by BBC Horizon - with its sound track designed by John Hale.

American James Watson, who died in November last year aged 97, and Englishman Francis Crick (1916-2004) race to find the structure of DNA before Linus Pauling, Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin can find the key to unlocking the secret.

Jeff Goldblum and Tim Piggot-Smith are outstanding as Watson and Crick - the team that eventually goes on to build the model of DNA - but it is Alan Howard and Juliet Stevenson that really steal the show in portraying the relationship between Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin.

Crick and Watson, together with Maurice Wilkins, won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Medicine for their discovery of the structure of DNA. Rosalind Franklin died in 1958, aged 37, and was not eligible as Nobel Prizes are not awarded posthumously.  

Anyone who loves history or science will be enthralled. The realism of this period in the 1950s is depicted with tremendous detail. A fascinating look at a real and immensely important scientific discovery.

This was one of the most significant scientific discoveries of the 20th century with the film, Directed by Mick Jackson, winning the 1988 BAFTA TV Award for the Best Single Drama.

“This is a fantastic film about one of the watershed scientific discoveries of the 20th century. Life Story - Race For The Double Helix is just that, a fantastic race to see who will discover the "secret of the gene."
Watson       Crick        Wilkins      Franklin