Glossop Guild for enquiring minds
Autumn Term Courses
October 2017 ~ December 2017
French Film & Society, 1935-45 ~ 5 Evenings Course
Tutor: Alan Sennett
This course will look at cinema, politics and society in France from the rise of the Popular Front in the mid-1930s to the Occupation and the Liberation. It makes extensive use of film clips, setting them in their historical context and offering commentaries and interpretations.
5 Tuesday evenings 3rd, 10th, 17th, 24th, 31st October 2017
Bradbury Community Centre, Market Street, Glossop, SK13 8AR
7.30pm ~ 9.30pm Fee £32.50 (Members £27.50)
Peak District Folk Tales ~ 5 Evenings Course
Tutor: Mark Henderson
Wednesday Evening 4th, 11th, 18th, 25th October & 1st November 2017
Bradbury Community Centre, Market Street, Glossop, SK13 8AR
7.30pm ~ 9.30pm Fee £32.50 (Members £27.50)
Those who attended the one-day school I gave last Summer will know some of the ground to be cover in this course, but not all of it. During these five classes we’ll look in more detail at the characteristic structures of folktales (particularly “Olrik’s Laws”) and the ways in which they evolve, taking examples both from legends that are restricted to the Peak District and from more widespread tales with Peak District variants. Connections between our local oral tradition and more global ones will be examined, using both ancient and more recent tales as exemplars.
This course has been cancelled.
The Black Mere Pool Mermaid
Black Mere Pool, Kinder Scout High Peak
Marple - Model for the Industrial Revolution ~ 5 Mornings Course
Tutor: Judith Wilshaw
Thursday mornings ~ 5th, 12th, 19th, 26th October & 2nd November 2017
​Bradbury Community Centre, Market Street, Glossop, SK13 8AR
10am ~ 12 noon Fee £32.50 (Members £27.50)
Marple is extraordinarily interesting historically. This course will explain how the geographical attributes of the area allowed early people to settle here, fostered the development of industry, and led on to modern day conditions. Each session will start with a lecture (talk?) copiously illustrated with maps, diagrams, historic and modern photographs. There will be plenty of time for questions and discussion. A bibliography will be provided, and books of local history interest will be on sale.
Our final meeting will be a full day field outing to visit some of the places we will have talked about during the lecture sessions starting at 10 a.m. to 12 noon exploring Mellor Mill, Marple Bridge.
Lunch will be taken at the Roman Lakes cafe then 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. in the afternoon will be devoted to a walk around the centre of Marple, to consider how it developed with the railways, canal and textiles.
Mellor Mill or "Bottoms Mill" built 1793
Wednesday 4th October 2017 is 60th anniversary of Russia's launch of the Sputnik. It is timely therefore to consider the current state of space exploration, is it for science or is it for defence? Is it a good use of resources? – exploration or colonisation? – co-operation or competition? (in his 2nd term of office, President Kennedy was reported to be planning to approach the Russians for a joint programme to reduce the massive costs). What are the super-powers current ambitions?
Space Exploration - Co-operation or Competition? ~ Evening Course
Tutor: Martin Porter
Thursday 5th October 2017
​Bradbury Community Centre, Market Street, Glossop, SK13 8AR
7:30pm ~ 9:30pm. Fee £7 or (£9 On the door)
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Saturn V, NASA
The Development of the Great Central Railway ~ Evening Course
Tutor: Bob Gellatly
The Great Central Railway existed in name from 1897, when the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway changed its title to the Great Central Railway, to the Grouping of the railways in 1923.
We will look at the following:
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The origins of the MS&L in the context of the existing railway network and the need for further development.
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The London Extension to Marylebone opened in 1899.
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The infrastructure, particularly Woodhead Tunnel and Immingham Dock.
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The development of locomotives and rolling stock.
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Developments by the LNER, particularly Wath Yard and the Woodhead route electrification.
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Demise under British Railways.
Thursday Evening 19th October 7.30pm - 9.30pm
Bradbury Community Centre, Market Street, Glossop, SK13 8AR
7.30pm ~ 9.30pm Fee £32.50 (Members £27.50)
Loughborough Station
Master Writers of the Great American Song Book ~ Day School
Tutor: Les Berry
Saturday Day School 14th October 2017
The Masonic Hall, 14 Henry Street, Glossop. SK13 8BW
10am ~ 3pm Fee £32.50 (Members £25)
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Les Berry (vocals) Stuart Riley (bass) Jeff Kemp (keyboard)
Enjoy a performance based course featuring songs by major figures of the song writing art. This will be an introduction to the work and careers of Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, George and Ira Gershwin, and Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. We shall examine their careers and styles as well as reconsidering a selection of their marvellous songs. The music is drawn from the golden age of American popular song roughly 1910 – 50. You will certainly know many of the songs but not necessarily the fascinating stories behind them.
Isaac Rosenberg First World War Poet ~ Day school
Tutors: Creina Mansfield & Frank Vigon
Saturday Day School 4th Novenber
Bradbury Community Centre, Market Street, Glossop, SK13 8AR
10am ~ 4pm Fee £32.50 (Members £25)
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Isaac Rosenberg was an English poet and artist. His Poems from the Trenches are recognized as some of the most outstanding poetry written during the First World War.
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Isaac Rosenberg is the exception to what we know about the First World War poets—save for his talent which matched the greatest. He was no public-school educated officer, but a private soldier who had struggled since his childhood to find the means to express himself artistically.
‘I am determined that this war, with all its powers of devastation, shall not master my poetry; that is, if I am lucky enough to come through all right. I will not leave a corner of my consciousness covered up, but saturate myself with the strange and extraordinary conditions of this life, and it will all refine itself into poetry later on.’
[Letter to Laurence Binyon, autumn 1916 ]
The History of Human Rights ~ 5 Evenings Course
Tutor: Till Geiger
Monday 6th, 13th, 20th, 27th November & 4th December 2017
Bradbury Community Centre, Market Street, Glossop, SK13 8AR
7.30pm ~ 9.30pm Fee £32.50 (Members £27.50)
In 1948, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights established in Article 1 that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” Despite this wide acceptance of this principle, most countries restrict the rights and entitlements of migrants. In many cases, migrants are not allowed to work, entitled to health services and are sometimes even detained for long periods of time as some would argue in violation of their human rights.
This course examines the emergence of human rights as an international concern after the First World War and discuss the evolution of the international human rights regime and the public debate particular with regard to international migration since the 1950s before addressing the current migrant crisis and EU citizens’ rights post-Brexit from the perspective of human rights.
Archaeology & History of Britain 400-1000 AD ~ 5 Mornings Course
Tutor: Birgitta Hoffmann
5 Wednesdays 8th, 15th, 22nd, 29th November & 6th December 2017
Bradbury Community Centre, Market Street, Glossop, SK13 8AR
11am ~ 1pm Fee £32.50 (Members £27.50)
This course will focus on the archaeological discoveries that have changed our understanding of the Early Medieval British History in the last thirty years.
8 November: A Roman Britain that does not end
15 November: Early Scottish Archaeology: Monasteries and hill-forts?
22 November: Keeping in touch with the Mediterranean.
29 November: Anglo-Saxon archaeology beyond Sutton Hoo
6 December: Viking towns in the North of Britain.
Helmet found at Sutton Hoo burial Site, East Anglia
Photo: British Museum
Manchester People, Places & Inventions ~ 5 Evenings Course
Tutor: Ed Glinert
Wednesday 8th, 15th, 22nd, 29th November & 6th December 2017
Bradbury Community Centre, Market Street, Glossop, SK13 8AR
7.30pm ~ 9.30pm Fee £32.50 (Members £27.50)
Each lecture will concentrate on a different theme: The Pankhurst family, Alan Turing, L S Lowry, The Peterloo Massacre and 10 Manchester Inventions’ . Ed. Glinert is a Manchester Blue Badge Guide.
The Arrest of Emmeline Pankhurst
To Kill a Mocking Bird, (Robert Mulligan, USA 1962) ~ Day School
Tutors: Creina Mansfield and Alan Sennett
Saturday 18th November 2017
Partington Theatre, Henry Street, Glossop
10am ~ 4pm. Fee: £32.50 (Members £25)
Two children watch as their principled lawyer father takes a stand against intolerance in a racially divided Alabama town in the 1930s. Agreeing to defend a young black man who is accused of raping a white woman he faces opposition from many white the townsfolk. Running alongside the story of the trial is the children’s hit and run relationship with Boo Radley, a shut-in who the children and Dill’s Aunt Rachel suspect of insanity and who no one has seen in recent history. Cigar-box treasures, found in the knot hole of a tree near the ramshackle Radley house, temper the children's judgment of Boo. But fear keeps them at a distance until one night, in streetlight and shadows, the children confront an evil born of ignorance and blind hatred and must somehow find their way home. The film is based on Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel set in the rural American south during the depths of the Depression.
The History & Geology of the Torrs ~ Evening Course
Tutor: Pete Webb
Thursday Evening 7th December 2017
​Bradbury Community Centre, Market Street, Glossop, SK13 8AR
7.30pm ~ 9.30pm Fee £7 or (£9 on the door)
Nearly 100 feet below the town of New Mills lies the Torrs Gorge, an area of fascinating geology and heritage.
Here the Rivers Sett and Goyt come together, their power was harnessed for over 200 years by mills. The course will explore the geology of the area and how this was exploited very effectively over the previous two centuries.
Morning Walk Around the Torrs, New Mills. Guide: Pete Webb
Discover mill ruins, weirs, cobbled tracks and archways of bridges towering dramatically overhead in this now tranquil idle.
Saturday 9th December 2 hour morning walk around the Torrs free to course members. TBA
The Torrs - New Mills, Derbyshire
Donald Trump's America ~ 5 Evenings Course
Tutor: Mick Moran
5 Tuesday Evenings ~ 7th, 14th, 21st, 28th November
& 5th December 2017
​Bradbury Community Centre, Market Street, Glossop, SK13 8AR
7.30pm ~ 9.30pm Fee £32.50 (Members £27.50)
Donald Trump’s extraordinary Presidential victory is widely pictured as an aberration. It is not. President Trump is as traditionally American as hamburgers and Coca Cola –two products which, incidentally, he enjoys consuming. The course will examine the roots of Trump’s victory, in American history and in the changing character of modern America. It will be run according to my tried and trusted method: a mixture of presentation designed to inform, and frank exchange in the group designed to illuminate and challenge.
If you prefer to book by post you can download a booking form by clicking the button here.
Would you like to lecture at Glossop Guild?
We are always looking for new stimulating subjects for our courses. If you have experience as a lecturer or are an expert in a specialist subject and think you could help the Guild, please get in touch with us using the contact page.