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GUEST SPEAKER PROGRAMME 2024 / 2025 SEASON AT THE GUILDHALL, HULL
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15th October 2024
'I'm not lost'
Peter Slack
Peter Slack is a third-generation hill farmer on a family farm in North Derbyshire, farming with his wife and two sons. Peter joined the local Young Farmers Club where through entering speaking competitions he found he could bring the Peak District and its characters to life and entertain audiences.
‘I’m not lost’ follows the trials and tribulations of a Peak District Hill Farmer, as he navigates the lifestyle of hill farming with the weather, livestock and the many visitors to one of the most popular National Parks in the UK.
22nd October 2024
Margaret Thatcher
Tony Harris
Margaret Thatcher was the most divisive Prime Minister our Country has ever known. On the one hand she was celebrated as the first female to become PM but on the other she was despised by unions and workers who found her cold and unfeeling. Wherever you stand on the Maggie issue there’s no doubt it’s an incredible story told to us by one of our favourite speakers.
In the past Tony Harris has brought Henry VIII and Winston Churchill back to life for us: now he dons the two-piece blue suit and brings his handbag to the Town Hall as Mrs T. We’ll learn what she kept in the bag, why she didn’t pursue a career in music and all the highlights (and low lights) of her time in Westminster.
29th October 2024
Oarsome: 'The Row for Amy'
Andrew Osborne
Andrew Osborne completed 3000+ miles solo trans-Atlantic ‘Row for Amy’ It’s hard to believe he spent 11 weeks (78 days and 10 hours) in a small boat. Andrew lost his daughter Amy to an undiagnosed heart condition six years ago at the age of 25. She became one of the 12 young people who die each week in the UK from this cause. Like Amy, 80% don’t experience any symptoms. The family, which grew up in the East Riding of Yorkshire, established a memorial fund with the charity CRY – Cardiac Risk in the Young – to raise funds to provide screening for children and young adults.
So far, he has raised over £150,000 sponsorship which will fund screening of around 1500 state school children who could be living with the same ticking time-bomb that killed his beloved Amy.
5th November 2024
Hull: The ‘Third Port’ of England
Dr Nick Evans
Hull born Dr Nick Evans is Senior Lecturer in Diaspora History at the University of Hull. A multi-award-winning scholar, aspects of his work on migration are exhibited across the world.
For most of Hull’s 725 years as a major maritime centre every ebb and flow of the tides has brought outsiders coming to trade, settle or work in the region. This illustrated talk seeks to explore aspects of this rich history by considering the role that migrants have played in making the port a world trading centre.
From medieval Scots, to black Elizabethans, Georgian Jews, to Victorian German sugar bakers, the diversity of these migrants reveals the international trading profile of Hull as the fabled third port of England.
12th November 2024
My Passion for Deer
Julian Stoyel
Julian’s entire life has been centred around animals. Growing up on a farm, his mother had Arab horses and he was brought up with a deep respect and understanding of animals.
With over 30 years’ experience with deer, Julian now runs his own business ‘Red Oak Deer Genetics’, and is passionate about improving the genetics of exotic species using Artificial Insemination (AI) and Embryo Transfer (ET).
Working with experienced vets across the world, he strives to protect the genetic line of some of the rarest and most endangered deer and antelope. Julian is also one of the most prominent breeders of pure English red deer bloodlines in the U.K.
19th November 2024
Clubland: How the Working Men’s Club Shaped Britain
Pete Brown
Pete Brown is a British author, journalist, broadcaster and consultant specialising in food and drink. Across twelve books, his broad, fresh approach takes in social history, cultural commentary, travel writing, personal discovery and natural history, and his words are always delivered with the warmth and wit you’d expect from a great night down the pub.
A cultural historian and award-winning beer writer, Pete turns his attention to a phenomenon that has shaped modern British culture without anyone really noticing – Clubland. Launching the careers of global stars like Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey and Steve Davies, the Working Men’s Club movement has an astonishing untold history.
26th November 2024
York Minster ‘After the Fire’
Martin Needler
The story of the reconstruction of the South Transept of York Minster after the fire on 9th July 1984.
Martin Needler is a Chartered Quantity Surveyor who, during his working life, had an expertise in connection with historic buildings.
His illustrated talk will explain his involvement in the greatest Gothic structure north of the Alps in relation to the fire which destroyed the roof of the South Transept of York Minster in 1984.
14th January 2025
Killing Victoria
Dr Bob Nicholson
Dr Nicholson is an historian, writer, and broadcaster. He loves to unearth surprising new stories about the history of Victorian Britain. Bob has written for History Today and BBC History Magazine and presented items for Radio 4 and Radio 3.
He wrote and presented the documentary series Killing Victoria for BBC Sounds, which explored the lives of seven men who tried to assassinate The Queen.
21st January 2025
Cecil Beaton: The Royal Portraits
Claudia Acott Williams
Claudia is a collections curator at Historic Royal Palaces and an independent historian and broadcaster. Currently the Curator of Kensington Palace, she is responsible for the presentation of the palace interiors and the displayed and stored collections.
In this lecture, Claudia looks back in time to tell a very modern tale: the creation of a public image. Offering a fresh appraisal of Beaton’s portraits of the British royal family, Claudia will explore not only the finished images but also the sittings in which they were created, revealing Beaton’s central role in shaping the public face of the House of Windsor and the ways in which he collaborated with his royal subjects.
28th January 2025
Locations of Danger or Delight?
Dr Ruth Larsen
This talk explores the ways in which elite women wrote about the garden in the period 1600-1830, and how they negotiated the reputation of the garden as a location for male desires.
Dr Ruth Larsen is a Senior lecturer in History and the programme leader for the undergraduate History programmes at the University of Derby. Ruth teaches a number of modules at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, covering a wide range of topics, including the history of the body, material culture studies and research methodologies. Her research expertise is in eighteenth and nineteenth century British history and she has published widely on gender history, the history of the aristocracy and the country house.
4th February 2025
Flying with Diabetes
Douglas Cairns
Douglas was a RAF jet flying instructor at the age of 25 when he was suddenly grounded by type 1 diabetes. Douglas changed career to the asset management industry. However, his passion for flying continued unabashed and in 2001 he returned to aviation with a private pilot licence to fly with insulin treated diabetes in the USA.
Douglas’ talk will cover a number of his challenging diabetes awareness-raising flying projects, including a round the world flight in 2002 in a Beech Baron, a record-setting flight to the North Pole in 2011 and landing on the polar ice at Russia’s Borneo Ice Camp. He will also cover a 24-hour non-stop record through 29 USA states in 2018, and a few additional record-setting solo and formation flights in the UK and across Europe.
11th February 2025
Older and Wider
Judith Holder
Judith is a bestselling comedy writer, TV producer, podcaster and speaker. She originated the hugely successful BBC series and stage shows ‘Grumpy Old Women’ and currently hosts a successful weekly podcast ‘Older and Wider’ with her best friend and partner in crime Jenny Éclair.
‘Older and Wider’ speaks on the subject of ageing with a large drizzle of mischief and affection as the ‘baby boomers’ continue to reinvent older age. Acting more like a band of teenagers with liver spots, they’ve got all the money; they’re going to live till they’re about 103 and they have the highest divorce rate in the UK. You’re more likely to find them at Zumba or Glastonbury than on a bowling green these days, and shop in Zara rather than M&S – so ignore or underestimate them at your peril!
18th February 2025
Inn and Out at the Top
Neil Hanson
Neil is a successful author with 70 published books to his name. A hugely engaging storyteller and award-winning speaker, Neil has entertained audiences at every type of occasion throughout the UK and right across the USA, Australia and New Zealand.
His talk “Inn & Out at the Top” is a laugh-a-minute tour of the quirks and foibles, highs and lows of his time running Britain’s highest inn back in the 1970s and 1980s. Neil’s account of grappling with tight-fisted farmers, eccentric characters, bizarre local customs, naturist weekends, “lates and lock-ins”, police raids, rats in the attic, close encounters with magistrates and planners, and the shooting of a famous double-glazing commercial, is suitable for all audiences.
25th February 2025
Expedition Cyclops: West Papua
James Kempton
In the summer of 2023, James Kempton led an international and multidisciplinary team in Expedition Cyclops, a scientific research project to the Cyclops Mountains of Papua, Indonesian New Guinea. In 1961, a new species of egg-laying mammal, an echidna, was discovered there, but the animal had not been seen again by science in the following 62 years.
Expedition Cyclops was an attempt to rediscover this animal, called Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna, which was feared extinct, as well as being a mission to uncover the evolutionary origins of New Guinea’s enigmatic fauna.
Join us for our next guest lecture at hull guildhall
One hour talks, many illustrated, are given by professional speakers on a wide variety of subjects. We would be delighted to see you there and can assure you of a warm welcome.
Doors are normally open at 6.45pm but access may be delayed if lecture preparations are not complete. The audience are requested to please be in their seats before 7.25pm as all talks start at 7.30pm prompt.
Annual subscription for this season is only £50 which covers entry into all lectures.
The President's Dinner
The Annual President’s Dinner will take place on the 16th January 2024, following the ‘Nutcracker Ballet’ lecture by Nigel Bates.
Application forms can be downloaded here.
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