Our guest speaker this month was Brian Groom. This was his second visit to one of our meetings in three years. Brian started work as a journalist at The Goole Times newspaper, then spent most of his career at the Financial Times, plus starting up ‘The Scotsman’, a Sunday paper. His self-imposed target was to tell us about our country from before the Stone Age up to today – in forty-five minutes. Not enough time to tell us why he was once sacked by Andrew Neil though – perhaps on a future visit?

Brian referred to his latest book, with: ‘These Isles - A History of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland’ to guide us through the changes and events over time. The extracts served to bring the history to life, along with the detail included in his presentation. This report will feature just some of the events along the way.

The oldest human footprints outside Africa, along with tools found in the area, were exposed briefly in 2013 on the beach at Happisburgh, Norfolk. They are dated to between 850,000 and 950,000 years ago. Brian told us that 90% of human history occurred before the Stone Age.

Stonehenge is made from stones thought to have been transported 140 miles from Preseli in Wales. Yorkshire became permanently settled after the retreat of the last Ice Age around 9000 BC. Todmorden's name is generally believed to derive from Old English, meaning "Totta’s boundary-valley". It combines the personal name Totta with mǣre (border/boundary) and denu (valley), likely referring to a boundary valley between Lancashire and Yorkshire

The Romans invaded Britain successfully in 43AD, or CE as now known. They overcame resistance from the Celtic people, with leaders including Boudica, and stayed for around the next 350 years. Gradually they expanded through what we now call England and Wales, to the border of Scotland, then known as Caledonia. But the Romans never managed to occupy that country in a sustained way.

The Romans left Britain in the fourth century, and migrants began to arrive from Germany – these became known as Anglo Saxons. Their population grew over the years, and the north gained greater autonomy as a result.  A number of Kings ruled over separate areas of the north, and some even ruled parts of the south of England.  Christianity began around this time too.

After William the Conqueror's invasion in 1066, a French speaking ascendancy spread across the islands over the next three centuries; bringing social political and economic change. Yorkshire suffered from King William’s brutal ‘Harrying of the North’. The Normans built almost 1000 castles in England and more than 300 in Wales, with others in Scotland and Ireland. That said, Scotland was never fully conquered by the Romans.

Moving on to the Tudor period, Brian said that most, if not all, of the British Isles were subordinate in some way to the English Crown.

The Reformation was taking place across Europe and Henry the Eighth broke with the Catholic Church due to his marital problems. This led to the Church of England being formed. After the Reformation, most of the country eventually came to accept Protestantism in differing forms. A thorn in Queen Elizabeth’s side was her cousin Mary Queen of Scots. She had spent 19 years in captivity and was aged 44 when she was beheaded in February 1857. She wore a crimson petticoat, the colour of Catholic martyrdom. The axeman had to use two strokes to separate her head from her body and, according to one witness, her lips moved for some minutes after the head was cut off.

Mary's son James the 6th of Scotland subsequently became the King James the 1^st of England. He survived the gunpowder plot by militant Catholics to blow up the House of Lords and himself. Guy Fawkes allegedly said the intention ‘was to blow you Scotch beggars back to your native mountains.’

Tensions exploded in the 17th century wars of the three kingdoms. Civil wars sparked off by disputes over religion, power and money. King Charles the first was executed. Several of the battles happened in the north of England including Marston Moor near York in 1644, when the Royalist army was destroyed. England and Wales may have lost up to 4% of their population through fighting and disease – a higher proportion than in the First World War, and deaths were higher still in Scotland and especially in Ireland. Oliver Cromwell received lasting enmity after atrocities at Drogheda and Wexford.

On the 1st of May 1707, England and Scotland united in the new Kingdom of Great Britain, bringing rejoicing and relief in London. But there was a more sombre mood in Scotland where there had been riots and protests before its decision to adopt the treaty, which ended its own independent existence after almost five centuries.

In 1745, Prince Charles Edward Stuart (better known as Bonnie Prince Charlie) launched an unsuccessful attempt to reclaim the throne his grandfather, King James VII of Scotland and II of England, over half a century earlier. But at the same time there were career opportunities for ambitious middle and upper crust Scots, who gained positions of power in politics and civil service.

From the mid-18^th century methodism had a big impact, particularly within the church of England, had a big impact in speaking North Wales and became a fortress of non-conformity for two centuries. Welsh hymns and songs became an art form.

Around the same time, Ireland was largely controlled by a protestant ascendency established by land redistributions the century before. Most of the farmland was worked by Catholic peasants. Catholics formed three quarters of the population of the country but owned just 14 percent of the land. They were also barred from most aspects of government. In the North, a group in Belfast took up the cause of the Catholics around the same time. Towards the end of the century, protests began which would affect the whole of the country, before and after partition.

Brian covered many, if not all, of the history and events that our members were familiar with and, indeed involved in during their lives. These included the world wars, Victorian times, entertainment and just about everything up to date. He told us about a personal contact with one of the most famous, or infamous, that we all knew about - the Brighton bombing attempt to murder the then Prime Minister. As part of the investigation, the police contacted and interviewed Brian as he had spent the night at the hotel in a room near to where the device had been left three weeks earlier.

During questions after the end of the talk, Brian was asked if he had a particular event that was especially important or significant. He chose the year 1066. Before this date, our country was more connected, or in sync, with our North European neighbours such as Denmark and Sweden. During and after the Norman period, the links to the south of Britain increased, for the most part a positive event despite Brexit. Members may have not have agreed fully about this but still appreciated the, slightly longer than, forty-five minutes of this absorbing presentation.