{MONTHLY OPEN MEETINGS}
We have monthly meetings of general interest, a great opportunity to listen to entertaining speakers and to find out what else is going on in our U3A. These meetings are open to all you do not have to be a member of Crediton u3a to attend
Meetings are usually on the third Wednesday of the month , at the Boniface Centre in Crediton Starting at 10.00 am Tea or coffee and biscuits included all for the price of £2.00
Please respect others’ vulnerabilities and worries by keeping a distance. We want everyone to feel comfortable but we know that some feel more comfortable and safe among crowds than others. Please also come warmly dressed as increased ventilation may well reduce the room temperature.
We now have reserved seats at the front of the hall for the harder of hearing.
On Saturday 21st of September we ran small stall in the Crediton Farmers Market to offer information about both our branch of the u3a and the u3a organisation in general. The stall was run by volunteers and they handed out leaflets to many of the people at the market and had a number of quite encouraging inquiries about possibly joining.
This years stall at the farmers market
Forthcoming events
Events so far this year
August’s Talk: ‘Bird Migration, how they do it and what we don't know’ by Roger Avery
Like many phenomena in nature, the regular movement of billions of birds from place to place around the world – migration - is something we tend to take for granted. We expect to see swallows in the spring and wild geese in the autumn. But it represents a staggering achievement. The longest migration known is by arctic terns, which breed in the Arctic during summer but in autumn travel at least 15000 miles to the Antarctic. Then they make the return journey during the Antarctic autumn. An individual tern may travel more than half a million miles during its lifetime. Bar-tailed godwits may travel from Alaska to New Zealand, and incredibly, some individuals do the journey non-stop. In this talk I’ll concentrate how these and other birds find their way.
Perhaps the simplest type of navigation is for juveniles to be taught the way on their first migration by older birds, which are mostly relatives. This happens in Bewick’s swans. Birds which have bred in the western Russian tundra move in family groups to northwest Europe to overwinter.
But there are many other birds in which this couldn’t happen. Adult swifts, for example, are malnourished after spending the summer feeding their chicks, so the well-fed youngsters leave on migration first while their parents catch up. They have to rely entirely on instincts which they’ve inherited. How do they navigate?
Well, they don’t use one mechanism, they use many. Some of them use senses that we don’t have so they’re particularly difficult to study. Many birds can determine where they are by measuring the altitude of the sun in the sky, but for this to work they need to use their biological clocks – a subject in its own right! – to tell the time of day. In some circumstances they can use information provided by the plane of polarization of sunlight. If they’re flying at night, they can use the stars. Many birds have a kind of stellar map. This was first demonstrated by putting birds which were about to migrate into a planetarium. If they were shown a sky which was “wrong”, they got confused. They also have a compass. Actually, they have two, one located in the brain and one located in the eyes. They operate on different systems, both are extremely complex. Perhaps surprisingly, some birds can use smell to determine their location. This has been well-studied in homing pigeons, and also in migratory fishes like salmon and eels.
Birds aren’t the only animals which might make migrations. Some mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fishes, butterflies, moths and beetles also do. If you have a garden pond, and frogs breed in it in the spring, they will have used many of the mechanisms described above to find it when migrating in from the surrounding gardens or countryside.
July’s Talk: Grace Darling. Saving Lives at Sea – James Taylor
James told us about Grace, her family and the history of lighthouses using pictures from the time. Grace came from a family of lighthouse keepers; her grandfather and father being lighthouse keepers off the coast of Northumberland. Grace and her parents and eight siblings lived in the Longstone Lighthouse which was on a small rocky island, Longstone, part of the Farne Islands.
In the early hours of 7th September 1838, Grace looked out of her window and saw the Forfarshire wrecked on nearby rocks. Some survivors had managed to climb out of the boat onto the low-lying rock. The weather was too rough to call out the local lifeboat from nearby Seahouses. (At the time lifeboats were small rowing boats and could not cope with rough open seas.) So, her father decided to try to rescue some of the people themselves. Grace and her father rowed out together (pictures show her rowing on her own but this is part of the myth.) Grace held the boat steady while her father helped 5 survivors on board. They then returned to the lighthouse. Grace and 2 survivors got out and the boat returned to the wreck, picking up four more survivors. The Seahouses lifeboat made it to the wreck but by that time, there were only bodies to retrieve, including two children. This lifeboat also had to take shelter in the lighthouse as the sea became very rough. There were 62 people on the Forfarshire. Nine people made it into the ship’s lifeboat and were picked up later by another boat.
When the news came out about Grace’s role in the rescue, she became a national hero. She and her father were awarded the Silver Medal for Bravery by the RNLI. Over £700 was raised by subscription as a reward for her. Her bravery and virtue struck a chord with the public and she became a popular subject for paintings, songs etc. Perhaps one reason for her popularity was that she was the first heroine from a humble background.
Grace was 23 years old at the time of the shipwreck. She died only three years later of TB, having never spent her reward.
June’s Talk: A rose by any other name’ by Dr Justin Newland
Justin’s talk focused mainly on the history and symbolism of the rose rather than their cultivation. Roses have been valued pretty much as long as we have had settled civilizations. Most wild roses originate in Asia particularly Persia and China, although we also have our own species of wild roses in Europe. Wild roses have 5 petals. Our modern many-petaled roses have been formed from centuries of cross-breeding and selective breeding. Our English dog rose is pink; the yellow roses originated in Asia.
As well as cultivating roses for their beauty, we use them to make rosewater; used in perfumes and cookery. The distillation of rosewater also originated in Persia. We have found rosehips (the fruit of the rose) useful as they are rich in vitamin C. I can remember being given rosehip syrup as a child and finding it most delicious. Roses are widely used as symbols. They are associated with a range of ideas from feminine beauty to socialism. The red rose is particularly associated with passion. In fact, Rose Day occurs on February 7th, just before Valentine’s Day.
Rosebuds are seen as a symbol of youth and new beginnings.
We often use the symbol of roses in literature. I think we can all quote at least 2 examples. However, you may not know of the legend of the blue rose. This is a Zoroastrian myth. The story says that the original rose was blue and had no thorns. Then evil came into the world and the rose gained thorns symbolising two sides of life; beauty and suffering. People no longer cultivated the rose and so forgot how to do so. Thus, blue roses are associated with forgetfulness. Rose symbols, including rosettes, are found everywhere in our lives. There is a tradition of carving roses into the woodwork of confessional boxes in catholic churches. The confession is secret and underneath the carved roses. So any secret meeting became ‘sub rosa’ or beneath the roses.
Mays Talk: May’s talk: Caravaggio: Genius and Chaos by Prof Peter Edwards
Peter started his talk by placing Caravaggio in his historical context. He was born in 1571 in Milan. The Renaissance movement in Italy lasted approximately 200 years from late 1300s to the late 1500s. By the time Caravaggio was an adult painter, the prevailing style was Baroque and it’s in this style that Caravaggio painted. To contrast the two styles, Peter showed us the same subject , Judith and Holofernes by Cranach and by Caravaggio. Caravaggio’s picture gives a feeling of more movement. The dark areas are darkened further, a technique called Tenebrism. His style shows dynamic realism.
When Caravaggio was five, his family moved out of Milan to the town of Caravaggio to escape the plague. However, most of his family succumbed. His mother died when he was 13, leaving him an orphan. Caravaggio moved back to Milan and was apprenticed to Peterzano, who today is largely remembered as Caravaggio’s teacher. Italy was a violent place at this time and Caravaggio was no different. He drank, he brawled and he had to flee Milan for Rome after assaulting a police officer in 1592. In Rome, he worked for Cesari, the pope’s favourite painter. It was here that he began to establish his reputation and painted one of his most famous paintings, the Cardsharps. This painting shows another Caravaggio characteristic, he didn’t use models, preferring to use people he found on the street, including peasants and prostitutes. Eventaully, his violent lifestyle caught up with him. He killed Tomassoni, a gangster, probably over Fellide Melandroni, who was mistress to both. So, he fled to Naples and
after more violent behaviour, to Malta. The last months of his life were bizarre; he fled Malta for Sicily and then Naples again. He made a plea of mercy to the pope in regard to the murder charge, painting David and Goliath as a peace offering. Goliath’s head is thought to be a self-portrait. On the journey back to Rome by boat, he seemed to have stopped off at Porto Ercole, where he was later found dead on the beach. He died in July 1610, and the pope pardoned hi posthumously.
April’s Talk: Smallpox, Silverware and 600 years of History’ by Martin Pailthorpe
Martin told us about the local history research he has carried out in his local village of Kings’ Nympton, focusing on the smallpox outbreaks in the area in the 18th century. Smallpox was a serious disease for many centuries. Voltaire noted that in France 60% of contacts became infected and of those 20% died. Many others were left badly scarred or blind. For a long time, in Europe there was no effective treatment. However, Lady Mary Wortley Montague, an aristocratic English lady, saw a practice called variolation while on her travels in the Ottoman Empire. Here, pus was taken from a sore on a patient with a mild case of smallpox. This was then scratched onto the skin of a healthy person. This person would contract a mild form of the disease that left few scars. The infection provided immunity to further infection, although it did carry some risk.
In 1755, the local landowner, James Buller, read an article about variolation. As there was smallpox in the area, he decided to try the process out on himself. On the 28th November, he was inoculated with the virus and by the 18th November, he had recovered after a mild infection. He offered the same opportunity to the local villagers and about 80 people took advantage of his offer. However, the local vicar, Rector Southcomb, took a dislike to the scheme. He threatened to evict anyone living on church land who dared to have the treatment, saying the inoculation was a sin. There then followed a series of extremely irate letters between Buller and Southcomb. In one of the letters Southcomb accuses Buller of destroying the body and the soul! Eventually, Buller succeeded in getting Southcomb removed from the parish. To celebrate the success of his work, Buller gifted a silver plate and cup to the church, engraved with a statement supporting variolation.
Today smallpox is no longer out in the world (although some laboratories have a stock of the virus). This is largely due to mass vaccination with a weakened virus isolated by Edward Jenner in 1798. This treatment is much safer than variolation, causing few symptoms. Today we no longer need to be vaccinated. However, people of our age may have small scars on our arms where we once were vaccinated, many years ago.
March’s Talk: Earth Energy Lines around Crediton by Peter Knight and Alan Murray from The Devon Dousers
The talk started with a description of dowsing. We were told that dowsing can be carried out with a forked twig, two metal L-shaped rods, a pendulum or even one’s bare hands. A change in motion or position indicates a positive result. Dowsing can be used to detect water, minerals, archaeological remain and pipelines under the ground. Most people can dowse provided they believe in the likely success of the process.
Dowsing can also be used to detect the earth’s energy lines. These are similar but not identical to Ley Lines. (Although the difference still eludes me, sorry!) Peter and Alan described two Energy Lines that they believe run through Cornwall, Devon and Somerset. They are called the Michael and the Mary Lines. These run more or less parallel to each other up the centre of Devon and Cornwall. However, they are not straight lines and often wander to go through significant places. The Michael Line goes through many churches called St Michael and the Mary Line goes through many churches called St Mary. Sometimes they cross over, and these places also seem to be significant, e.g. Glastonbury Tor. The lines appear to cross under Crediton’s Holy Cross church too.
February’s Talk: Mining and Society by Robin Kear
Robin’s talk defined mining as the extraction of ores and other economically viable minerals. These could be metals. Gemstones, industrial materials and even energy. As a vital primary industry, it operates on the principle that resources must be mined if they cannot be grown, However, mining is a relatively small portion of the global GDP.
Robin’s presentation traced mining from ancient obsidian tools and Stone Age monuments to its formalisation in the 16th century. It addressed the industry's historical side effects, such as lead and arsenic poisoning. Some mineral properties, like tin allotropes, influenced major historical events including Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow and Robert Falcon Scott's expeditions.
For previous events in 2024 please click on Talks in 2024 button below
For previous events in 2025 please click on Talks in 2025 button below
For 2023 years meeting reports please click on the "Events in 2023".