22nd March - Richard Phillips

15th March Gerry Rickman, Cheryl Blamey, John Wray and Gerald Martin

"Lymington Town Twinning"

The fun of the international experience was very evident in the talk which was lead by Chairman of the Lymington International Town Twinning Association Gerry Rickman.  With a superb selection of slides, he and his fellow "Twinners" took us through the delights of each town with which Lymington is paired.  Gerry reminded us that the Association began about 25 years ago with one town and now has three in its portfolio.

Club Member Cheryl Blamey began with her description of Vitré in Brittany with plenty of stories of the trips and hospitality Lymingtonians had received and given over the years. She invited us all to come on the forthcoming visit to the town near Easter.

Vivid descriptions of the goings on in Mosbach Germany were given by John Wray.  He took us round the marvellous architecture and showed us with a short movie how much the younger people enjoyed their visits.

Gerald Martin took over the Almansa (Spain) story at short notice after the illness of his colleague.  He gave an eccentrically amusing account of the town, its industry - represented in Lymington by shoes sold by a well know store, and marvellous fiestas held annually.  These events are characterised by fantastic costumes and parades in the streets often lasting days. 

Gerald also told of the 18th Century Battle of Almansa

Overall our European friends work very hard at enjoying themselves, as do the Town Twinners of Lymington with whom everyone is invited to join.

click below to visit the

Lymington International Twinning Association Website

Internet links

Vitré | Mosbach | Almansa

8th March Adam Reay

1st March Nick R Thomas

The Life of Patrick (Call My Bluff) Campbell

Nick gave us a wonderful evening - transported back to the days of "Call My Bluff" when Paddie Campbell stole the show with his stutter.  We managed to play three rounds during the evening and uniquely, LTSC got every word wrong!  Campbell's life story was gently and amusingly told by Nick and punctuated with readings from his articles and books.  His writing style was unique was much appreciated by the audience.  Anecdotes of Patrick Campbell's eccentricity abounded as did the tranquillity of his humour.

Nick gave a marvellous talk and enchanted his audience.  We have asked him to come back next year with his thought on Groucho Marx!

22nd Feb Shirley Critchley

From the Andes via the Amazon to the Atlantic

 on boats made of reed.....an expedition with Colonel John Blashford-Snell to see if the journey could have been made many thousands of years ago

15th Feb Lt Col Peter Chitty

"Behind the Lines - Cold War Confrontation"

Peter Chitty was an Intelligence Officer with the British Commission to the Russians in East Germany during the Cold War.  He told a fascinating tale of his life with Britsmith - an organisation which was stationed in East Germany and whose job it was to spy on the GDR.

Life seemed to vary from the ordinary - coping with the deprivations of a Soviet style existence, to the frantic, with tales of daring escapades, being beaten up, thrown in jail and trying to avoid the guards and his shadows or "narks".  Peter told a gripping understated story which would have made the basis of a good television drama - a sort of Spooks but 30 years ago.

He generously asked for a donation to the British Heart Foundation

08th Feb Pam Bennett

"Smuggling on the South Coast"

Pam told us of the less glamorous side of smuggling as well as the one we know and love from books.  She told us of the Battle of Muddeford and the Battle of New Milton, both of which were pitched fights of the 18th century between the hate Revenue Men and the Smugglers.  It was surprising what profits were made - Pam told a lovely story of the coffin of a ships master which was carried up the High Street in Lymington containing enough contraband to pay off the entire ships company and passengers, the funeral director and even the doctor and still turn in a profit.  These were vicious an lawless days far from the romantic view we have today.

01st Feb John Goode

"A Life on the Ocean Wave"

Legendary sailor and all round goode egg JG gave a fabulously entertaining talk about life at sea and what brought him into sailing.  His upbringing was not privileged, but he had salt in his veins from previous generations, and he went to sea at 12 in the days of merchant sailing ships.  There doesn't seem to be a port he has not entered, or a maiden he has not deflowered, but eventually he met his Rosie of whom he spoke very affectionately.  (She is very nice - I have met her).  He brought his violin by way of illustration and treated us three times to some amusing and excruciating playing.  He is passionate about many topics, anchoring rights, the MCA and most authority in general.  All are properly aired in the wonderful magazine Sailing Today which he edits and which, of course, we all devour avidly every month!  He gave us some sad private news about Sir Patrick Sinclair, his legal mentor and friend, and told us about some of the campaigns he is fighting.

John's other passion is for Southern Sailing, a trust which he runs differently to other sailing schools because he teaches sailing as well as exam passing.  His boats regularly go aground in search of that extra inch of water, in fact one boat ended up in a farmers field.

His final story was of dirty daring and highly dubious goings on when night fell at the Trafalgar 200 celebrations.  He was on Suhali with Sir Robin Knox-Johnstone and a canon, but I won't spoil the story for any other club fortunate enough to hear John.

Typically he asked that his fee go to Lymington Sailability.

25th Jan Don Coles 

Action…  Formula One

Don gave an excellent illustrated talk about his time photographing Formula 1 racing.  He was given access to the pit lanes as an amateur, and ended up by doing commissions for many of the teams and officials.  The Solent Room was like an Art Gallery as members and guests looked at the prints.  We were further treated to showing of Don's slide show mix with music bringing the whole experience to life.  A couple of members of the audience chipped in with their experiences of F1, Rex Woodgates who was a member and returned as a guest actually built three of the cars in Don's photographs.

A good "boys" evening well rounded off by Peter Allan's vote of thanks.

18th Jan John Teather

The Weather and the BBC

About 70 members and visitors came to hear John's hugely entertaining talk.  He took us through the world of television weather a consummate style, dropping in "bons mots" and anecdotes about the various weather people along the way.  It is clear that weather is a passion for John and in particular global warming about which he gave us very grave warnings.  John's tenure as Editor of BBC Weather coincided with a golden age of broadcasting and it was very obvious why when listening to him.

11th Jan John Morrow

The Southern Ocean the wrong way

John Morrow, a Club Member, had the experience of a lifetime on the Sidney - Capetown leg of the last Global Challenge.  From the Solent in a Wayfarer to the Southern Ocean in the winning yacht BG Spirit, John Morrow will share some of his experiences sailing the wrong way through the world's toughest ocean".

04th Jan Tops'l Men

Sea Shanties
….Some of the history and much of the singing

The Tops'l Men did us proud - we nearly shook the roof off with singing especially Rule Britannia!

The evening began with a slow start though, since Andy the Shantyman and lead singer was still in Portsmouth just leaving work at 1920.  Not good for the organisers blood pressure.  Group Leader Dick Snell with his new recruit Paul did a brilliant job at starting without Andy, and the audience, about 50 members and non members sat enthralled with the stories told by Dick about the origins of sea shanties.  After about 10 minutes the singing began and after 2 bar breaks and many pints the throats were at last lubricated enough to make the singing loud enough to be heard in Yarmouth.  Several notables were seen singing "lustily" - the Commodore, former and present Captains of Cruising and a very noisy crowd from Keyhaven and Hurst who will be most welcome again.

The evening ended with a rendition of "Heart of Oak" and then all the Ladies were asked forward to sing the verses of "Rule Britannia"

many thanks to Dick, Paul and Andy for entertaining us so well.

click here to download the Sea Shanty words

7th Dec Jeff Tall
'The History of the Submarine'

It was a dark and stormy night - just the night for submariners to reveal the secrets of the deep and surface sailors to stay ashore and curl up with a drink around the fire.  Nevertheless around 40 hardy souls braved the lashing rain to hear a gripping story invention, courage, poor judgement and foolhardyness.

We learned the difference between a submersible and a submarine, how the origins of the submarine were way back before the Great Fire of London, and the role of submarines in the two World Wars.

Jeff had a great presentation with graphics, photographs and sound effects and demonstrated that the greatest leveller of the British class system was the bucket - everyone had to use the same vessel when under water!

Finally representing very firm views born of his time as a submarine commander, Jeff told us how the Cold War was a real war to the submariner and gave us just a glimpse of how that war was conducted.  We hope that will be the subject of his next talk when he comes back in 2006

30th Nov Martin Western
'The Upper Nile, 5,000 of history'

A fascinating look at the worlds' longest continuous civilisation and its artefacts and nature.

It was highly timely that Martin had come to speak with us since "Egyptmania" fuelled by the BBC Television series on Egypt was at its height.  Martin is an award winning photographer and brought along many of his slides, telling us of his river tour of the upper valley of the Nile.  We saw not only the Pharonic artefacts, but also marvellous wildlife pictures too.  Martin told his story with humour and knowledge of the area having researched the subject for many years.  We had a good turn out for the talk with nearly 70 members and guests coming along.

23rd Nov Bryan Pinchen
'Spineless Friends and Foes - a humourous A to Z'

Those who did not come to this talk missed an hilarious and interesting evening.  On the very night that David Attenborough's new series about invertebrates started on BBC Television, Bryan came to talk to us and revealed that he had worked on the project.

He explained that he was a freelance Ecologist and spent most of his time working for councils, the police, wildlife trusts etc identifying insects and telling them what to do about perceived problems.  Then he went through an A to Z of creatures - sometimes struggling to find an insect to talk about which matched the letter, but giving its characteristics and whether they were "good or bad" guys.  Their mating habits featured large, as did many a cow pat or dung heap.  We all learned that invertebrates are fascinating creatures, all integrating into the ecology of the world, and that although they do not have a sense of humour, it was better if we did when talking about them.

Just one fact - wasps are good for the garden - they eat 1500 varieties of household and garden pests!!!

9th Nov Nick R Thomas "The life of a freelance comedy writer"

This was Nick's first visit to the club, we hope it won't be his last!  The talk was a mixture of anecdotes, word pictures and audio clips telling of this 20 years as a comedy writer.  Nick wrote for Roy Hudd in the News Huddlines, and Weekending as well as many other shows.  The first half finished with a wonderful clip "the Boris Yeltsin diaries" which illustrated the point of topical sketches - humour whilst making the political point. 

There is no doubt about the precarious existence of a gag writer, but Nick has also developed into a public speaking coach and speech writer too.  He gave us all a free leaflet of his top 10 tips to keep in mind whilst speaking in public.  Nick promised to come back with another talk next year

2nd Nov David Rowling (RSPB) " Birds of the New Forest"

Another club regular, David gave the last of his three talks to the club taking us through some of the birds we can expect to see in the New Forest.  He showed about 150 pictures which were a delight to see and described the salient features of each of the subjects.  There were nearly 70 members and guests present, many of whom had questions.  The Talks fund gave a donation to the RSPB (New Forest Local Group) in recognition of Davids wonderful evening

26th Oct Keith Colwell (RNLI) - 'GMDSS - What Does it Mean?'

Keith Colwell is a regular at the club, bringing the wisdom of the RNLI to the members,  This year's topic - GMDSS was "somewhat dry" as one member put it, but brought to life by Keith.  He told us all about the mysteries of the system, digital selective calling ("just like a telephone"), Navtex, Inmarsat, PLBs, EPIRBs and SARTs - acronyms to remember!  What is more he brought dummy sets to try so we knew what he was talking about.

All through the talk, Keith was bombarded with questions and comments, and at the half time break we all had a go at the training radios which he brought to play with.  There were leaflets, key rings, CD Roms, books all to take away.

At the end of the session it Keith and Joe Blatchford, his willing assistant for the evening was beseiged again after a very popular talk.

Around 35 people came to listen and view, and at the end of it all David gave a vote of thanks from us all.  The talks fund has sent a donation to the RNLI.

19th October Roland Stott - 'An Armchair Walk through Lymington'

This was noted local historian Roland Stott's second talk at LTSC.  He attracted a big audience of nearly 75 people which almost filled the Solent Room to capacity with his fascinating walk down the High Street.  We started with the "mathematical tiles" of the Wistaria building, progressed down Church Lane to the house of Denis Wheatley and then on down the High Street by way of St Thomas' Church and the many local shops.  The medieval origins and original beams of one shop were very evident on Rolands slides.  He finished at the Quay with pictures prior to the sea wall and flood of 1989.

A lively question and answer session followed, with the passion of the audience for the subject coming to the fore.

The Commodore Simon Ward was on hand to give a vote of thanks to Roland for his excellent talk and slide show.

12th Oct Commander Dom Young - 'Facing Napoleon, the countdown to Trafalgar

This was the third talk which Dom had given to LTSC and a new one.  In a year of Trafalgar commemorations, Dom gave us a sometimes humorous account of the  political and military background to the hero of the Nile's final exploit, which resulted in the legend of his daring living on for 200 years.

Martin Walbank gave the vote of thanks and a donation to Dom's charity was given by LTSC talks

5 Oct Rev. Stewart Timbrell - 'Clerical Errors'

This was the third time that Stewart had been to the club, but the first time we had heard his talk on "Clerical Errors"

He gave us a highly entertaining and embroidered account of this life as a young curate in Lancashire, including his first visit to a school when he took his ferret to assembly and it escaped.

Another wonderful story was his illustration of prayers using balloons in boxes. There were stories of grave-digging and funerals and even the tale of a little old lady whom he visited and persisted in giving him senapod tea. 

Anyone who missed this talk was deprived of a real treat, but about 75 LTSC members and guests turned up filling up the Solent Room to comfortable capacity.  I am sure they heard the laughter ring out over in Yarmouth.  Stewart will be back to entertain us next year.

LTSC talks gave a donation to Stewart's Hospital Charitable fund.