Glossop Guild for enquiring minds
Autumn Programme of
Venue Based Courses
October 2021 ~ December 2021
What Did the Ancient Greeks Ever Do For Us?
Tuesday afternoon lectures
Tutor: Alison Loughlin
Tuesday afternoons 5th, 12th & 19th October 2021
Bradbury Community Centre, Market Street, Glossop, SK13 8AR
2.00 pm ~ 4.00 pm Fee £20.00 Non-members £15.00 Members
A set of three interconnected lectures exploring the huge moral, political and broader intellectual legacy of the ancient Greeks. Beginning with the pre-Socratics’ earliest attempts to rationally systematise their understanding of the world, we shall trace their influence upon two pivotal figures, Plato and Aristotle. In the opening week, we shall focus on the development of a framework for understanding the natural world, the place of mathematics within that framework (Plato), and the role of causality (Aristotle) in the development of rational explanations. In the weeks that follow, we shall explore the ancient Greeks’ influence upon modern moral and political thought, focusing on the concepts of 'virtue’ and ‘democracy’.
This course has been completed.
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This lion stands at the right side of the monumental entrance of the Arsenale in Venice and is an Ancient Greek sculpture ("restored" in the late 17th century), originally at Lepsina on the road to Athens. It was brought to Venice by Francesco Morosini, who conquered Athens and the Peloponnesus in 1694.
To the Victor the Spoils: The American Occupation of Japan (1945-1952)
Wednesday evening lecture
Tutor: Kevin Harrison
Wednesday evening 6th October 2021
Bradbury Community Centre, Market Street, Glossop, SK13 8AR
7.30 pm ~ 9.30 pm Fee £9.00 Non-members £6.00 Members
A vengeful and triumphant America. What would be the future for a humiliated and defeated country? In fact, the US occupation was the genesis of a new era of Western-Japanese relations as the country was rebuilt and re-structured as a crucial ally in the rapidly emerging Cold War world of late 1940s – and the hot war in Korea that exploded in 1950.
This course has been completed.
Surrender of Japan, Tokyo Bay, 2 September 1945: Representatives of the Empire of Japan on board USS Missouri
Saving Hirohito: The Tokyo War Crimes Trials
Wednesday evening lecture
Tutor: Kevin Harrison
Wednesday evening 13th October 2021
Bradbury Community Centre, Market Street, Glossop, SK13 8AR
7.30 pm ~ 9.30 pm Fee £9 Non-members £6 Members
The Japanese Imperial Army played a crucial role in the creation, defence and occupation of the Japanese Empire in Asia and the Pacific, all in the name of its Divine Emperor, Hirohito. Japan’s defeat in 1945 brought accountability and war-crimes trials for atrocities committed by Japanese forces and the Japanese government. But how to save the Emperor from being tried as a war criminal? That was a crucial and delicate political position to negotiate. Yet it was achieved, to the benefit of American and Japanese relations.
This course has been completed.
The Devil's Decade: Literature & Politics in the 1930's
Tutors: Alan Sennett & Creina Mansfield
Tuesday evenings 7.30 pm - 9.30 pm on 19th , 26th October & 2nd November 2021
Wednesday afternoons 2.00 pm - 4 pm on 20th, 27th October & 3rd November 2021
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Bradbury Community Centre, Market Street, Glossop, SK13 8AR
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Full course fee £40.00 Non-members £30.00 Members. Half course fee £20 Non-members £15 Members.
NB please book evening courses and afternoon courses separately.
The 1930s witnessed years of deep economic, political and social crises that engendered both deeply destructive and hugely creative responses. This short course looks primarily at the political and literary reactions to the themes of political, social and economic trauma in particular.
Christmas in Wood Street, London 1930s
Politics - Tutor: Alan Sennett
The Depression (1)
Tutor: Alan Sennett
Tuesday evening 19th October, 7.30 pm - 9.30 pm
What were the causes and effects of the world economic crises 1929-32? This session will consider the international impact and the particular effects in the USA, Britain and Germany.
Fascism (2)
Tutor: Alan Sennett
Tuesday evening 26th October, 7.30 pm - 9.30 pm
What did fascist movements represent during the 1930s? While our main focus will be the cases of Italy and Germany, we will also discuss the wider impact of fascist political ideologies.
Roosevelt & The New Deal (3)
Tutor: Alan Sennett
Tuesday evening 2nd November, 7.30 pm - 9.30 pm
To what extent did the New Deal address America’s depression and why was Roosevelt able to implement many of his key policies? Did it work?
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These courses have been completed.
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Literature - Tutor: Creina Mansfield
Orwell's "The Road to Wigan Pier" (1)
Tutor: Creina Mansfield
Wednesday afternoon 20th October, 2.00 pm - 4.00 pm
George Orwell’s searing account of conditions in a working-class area in northern England, is full of insights and written in a distinctly Orwellian style. ‘We are living in a world in which nobody is free, in which hardly anybody is secure, in which it is almost impossible to be honest and to remain alive.’
Sinclair Lewis' "It Can't Happen Here" (2)
Tutor: Creina Mansfield
Wednesday afternoon 27th October, 2.00 pm - 4.00 pm
Discontent is rife in America. From the political margins appears a charismatic presidential candidate, an ‘inspired guesser at what political doctrines the people would like’. Sweeping to power, he promises wealth for all and the dawn of a glorious new era. As the president becomes increasingly autocratic, many are worried at the threat to their democratic freedoms.
Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" (3)
Tutor: Creina Mansfield
Wednesday afternoon 3rd November, 2.00 pm - 4.00 pm
The Joad family, ‘tractored off’ their land in Oklahoma, set out in a rickety old truck on a long and arduous journey to California. Dilapidated cars and trucks, loaded down with scrappy possession, clog Highway 66, as it seems the entire country is in flight to the Promised Land of California.
The Strange Case of British Art: Characters in Search of an Author - 1900-1951
Saturday Day School
Tutor: Frank Vigon
Saturday 30th October 2021
The Masonic Hall, 14 Henry Street,
Glossop. SK13 8BW
10.00 am ~ 4.00 pm
Fee £32.50 Non-members £25.00 Member
Roland Vivian Pitchforth 1895-1982
Military training 1943
Part 1 - “A Crisis of Brilliance” – The Slade School & the Cutting Edge
Part 2 - “In Which We Serve” – the First & Second World
Wars
Part 3 - “Town & Country” – Interwar from Hampstead to Newlyn – ba ba Bauhaus
Part 4 - Post War Austerity Art – Figurative versus
Abstraction & a Festival of Britain
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The period from the turn of the century until the Festival of Britain represents a dramatic leap forward in developments in artistic movements in which various “groups” come together to experiment and push forward the boundaries of innovation.
There is tension between what can be described as essentially British Art and the invasion and impact of the European developments which were either influential or rejected as “not wanted on voyage” by critics and patrons alike. This was exemplified in 1910 by Roger Fry’s curated Post-Impressionist Exhibition. The reaction was both bitter and personal, “kind people called him mad, and reminded others that his wife was in an asylum.”
The period before the First World War saw new forms of painting which were fresh and exciting coming from the truly Avant Garde young painters of the Slade School existing alongside the avant garde development of a British/international art revolution dubbed Vorticism which disappeared in the very vortex of the coming war.
The two world wars produced an unexpected development in the utilisation of art which went beyond propaganda to recording the grim realities of conflict and the social upheavals that affected the civilians on the home front.
It is impossible to avoid the impact that the wars had upon art in the interim period, art both as a reaction to the “war to end all wars” and as a shadow lengthening over the creative world as European artists were vilified and forced to leave their country of origin and flee to Britain and later America. Bauhaus came to Britain hosted by the Modernists of Hampstead, whilst experimentation flourished in other parts of London. The coming conflict induced an evacuation to Cornwall where the relocated art community honed a new form of British Art which would resonate well into the rest of the century.
In an age of austerity, Europe was devastated and Britain was trying to rebuild a new generation of young artists who were caught up in a pursuit for a new sense of direction in which the figurative paintings of predominantly British artists, contrasted and vied with the abstraction of European and American impulse
Regretfully this course has been CANCELLED at short notice due to illness. We hope to re-schedule in the spring term.
Roger Fry 1866-1934
Poetry & Pollution:
The Prospect of a Silent Spring
Tutor: Barry Wood
Tuesday Mornings 9th & 16th November 2021
Bradbury Community Centre, Market Street, Glossop, SK13 8AR
10.30 am ~ 12.30 pm Fee £16 Non-members, £12 Members
In 1962 the environmentalist, writer and activist Rachel Carson published Silent Spring. The book was an early and still relevant warning against the widespread and destructive use of chemical pesticides and other agents of environmental pollution and was also one of the first books to recognise the threat of climate change and global warming. It was also highly influential in the debate and campaign against pollution and contamination of human and natural environments and ecologies. Its impact has been reflected in poetry in varying degrees ever since its publication.
In this course we will be looking at the work of Ted Hughes, Alice Oswald, Robert Minhinnick and Simon Armitage to consider how they explore this theme and its “prospect of a silent spring”. The first session will introduce Carson’s work and take a close look at a selection of poems by Hughes and Oswald. The second session will engage primarily with selected poems by Robert Minhinnick and Simon Armitage.
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Recommended reading:-
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Rachel Carson: Silent Spring
Ted Hughes: “The Environmental Revolution” in Winter Pollen (1995);
Alice Oswald: The Thunder Mutters: 101 Poems for the Planet (2005).
Barry will distribute a selection of poems for detailed discussion.
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These courses have been completed.
From Ancient Tracks to Modern Highways
Wednesday Morning Lecture
Tutor: Judith Wilshaw
Wednesday morning 10th November 2021
Bradbury Community Centre, Market Street, Glossop, SK13 8AR
10.00 am ~ 12.00 pm Fee £9 Non-members £6 Members
Our ancestors moved about the area on routes which formed the basis of our modern footpaths. Then along came the Romans and laid out a network of such well-engineered roads that they lasted without little maintenance for the next thousand years plus. By the 17th Century repairs really were needed and the Turnpike System went some way to effecting the necessary improvements. But the required tolls were unpopular and did not bring in enough revenue to keep the roads in good repair, so gradually highway authorities were established, leading to our modern road system. This talk will explore evidence extant locally of every phase of the development.
Roman Bridge Marple
© Peter Fuller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:Creative_Commons
This course is fully booked.
Greenpeace at 50
Wednesday Afternoon Lecture
Tutor: Martin Porter
Wednesday afternoon 17th November 2021
Bradbury Community Centre, Market Street, Glossop, SK13 8AR
2.00pm ~ 4.00 pm Fee £9 Non-members £6 Members
Greenpeace celebrated its fiftieth birthday on 15th September 2021, although this date, like so much about the organisation, is controversial. Some environmental groups emerged, fully formed, from the imagination of their founders, but Greenpeace had a long and complex evolution. It used to be said that you could go in any bar in Vancouver and you’d find someone who claimed to be a founder member of Greenpeace, and they’d each tell a slightly different story. In this talk Martin will attempt to unravel how a group of idealists in an old boat trying to stop an atom bomb test turned into one of the world’s most famous international environmental organisations.
These courses have been completed.
The Catastrophe of Bare Peat
Wednesday Afternoon Lecture
Tutor: A member of the "Moors for the Future Partnership"
Wednesday afternoon 24th November 2021
Bradbury Community Centre, Market Street, Glossop, SK13 8AR
2.00pm ~ 4.00 pm Fee £9 Non-members £6 Members
The moorlands of the Peak District and South Pennines are one of the most beautiful, but also one of the most damaged landscapes in Western Europe. The Industrial Revolution brought great prosperity to cities such as Manchester, Sheffield, Bradford and Stoke-on-Trent, but also a legacy of pollution to the moorlands they surrounded, stripping protective vegetation and leaving a landscape of bare peat.
The "Moors for the Future Partnership" has been working since 2003 to protect this the most degraded landscape in Europe.
Using innovative conservation techniques it has transformed over 34 square kilometers of bare and degraded peat bogs across the Peak District and South Pennines. A monitoring programme provides evidence of the effectiveness of these techniques and is backed up by innovative communications that inspire people to care for these special places.
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The work of the Partnership is delivered by the Peak District National Park Authority as the lead and accountable body. It is supported through its partners, including the Environmental Agency, National Trust, RSPB, Severn Trent Water, United Utilities, Yorkshire Water, Pennine Prospects and receives additional advice from the Woodland Trust, Natural England and representatives of the moorland owner and farming community.
Find out how the Moors for the Future Partnership is restoring this landscape and in the process helping to slow the flow of flood water, lower the risk of wildfire, clean our drinking water, return iconic species to their natural habitat and thus bring back a vital weapon in the fight against climate change.
These courses have been completed.