This was the second visit from our guest speaker, Brian Topping, who is a retired customs officer and had more stories and information about his career. He told us about the many roles and responsibilities of customs officers, carried out every day. These are often connected with other authorities, who give customs officers the power… Read more

Brian Topping - "Tales of a Customs Officer - Part 2" Read more

Unfortunately our original guest speaker was unable to join us. But Michael Astrop, the vice chair of our branch, stepped in at short notice and presented ‘Lady Killers’. Michael told us about five cases of homicide where the accused was female and, after each one, he asked his audience whether they thought she was guilty… Read more

Michael Astrop - "Lady Killers" Read more

Sheila Antrobus - Victorian Era Legacy of Antiques Read more

Our guest speaker Sheila Antrobus set the scene by describing the enormous differences between the population during Queen Victoria’s reign. The Queen and her consort, Prince Albert had nine children during their marriage, five girls and four boys. All of these children would have been brought up mainly by ‘wet nurses’ and other servants, educated… Read more

Chris Helme: "So You Want To Be A Pirate" Read more

The guest speaker at the May 2024 u3a Todmorden Members Meeting was Chris Helme, who presented ‘So You Want to be a Pirate’. He began by telling us how this particular talk came about. Chris had once thought of giving up public speaking, after cruise ship audiences didn’t like talks about his local area, and… Read more

Dave Weldrake. "Mediaeval Churches of West Yorkshire" Read more

This month's guest speaker was Dave Weldrake. He began by describing how Christianity was introduced by the Romans around the year AD312, when the Roman emperor Constantine had made Christianity the main religion of Rome. This is evidenced by the discovery of Christian mosaics in Roman Villas in Britain around this time. Dave said that… Read more