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On this page you can see the notes of previous monthly meetings in the current iU3A year. They are exactly as were written at the time, and will not be 'updated' as time goes by.

April — Karen Thurman, Art Conservationist, 'Photography as Art', RfL Conference Hall + Seminar 5. Art gallery owner, environmentalist, photographer and corporate escapee, Karen Thurman is most likely to be found in one of two places: in her tent in some remote Scottish location with her husband and dogs, or in her darkroom printing her images of the woodlands and forests that so move her. Her gallery and environmental movement centre around the idea that art can be used to inspire the protection of nature. Karen gives talks on various art, nature and photography-related topics around the country. Her talk "Photography as Art" looks at the development of photographic techniques and how they both drove artistic innovation and followed general art trends in the 19th and 20th centuries. This is followed by a brief discussion of the power of photography to bring about social change, then a look at contemporary photography and what makes photography collectable.

Our March speaker was Robin Weiss, who told us about the ‘Two Gentlemen of Verona’ — two physicians/scientists with strong links to Verona, who, despite living hundreds of years apart, contributed immensely to our understanding of how diseases are transmitted.

The first man was Girolamo Francastoro (1478-1553) who became aware of syphilis in 1494 when it was brought back by the Italians from the West Indies and transmitted backwards and forwards across the seas as explorations continued. The disease was virulent and reached epidemic proportions. Francastoro discovered that tiny particles could transmit infection by direct or indirect contact over long distances. He recognised that the disease had a latent period and that it was sexually transmitted. Inevitably it was foreigners who were blamed for the disease but wherever Europeans travelled the death of natives ensued and the disease had a huge impact on native populations. There is a portrait of Francastero in in the National Gallery which has been recently attributed to Titian, speculation being that he painted the portrait in exchange for treatment for syphilis. The second ‘gentleman’ was Domenico Antonio Rigoni-Stern (1810- 1885), who contributed to our understanding of the spread of cancer. He discovered that cervical cancer was more common in married women and widows than in nuns and virgins and that celibate women were more likely to suffer from breast cancer than sexually active women. He linked this to the fact that pregnancy can be a protective factor in the prevention of breast cancer. His thinking was way ahead of his time and his findings mark the birth of cancer epidemiology.

As usual, there was not enough time for all the ensuing questions from the audience but the talk provided a fascinating insight into early medical research.

February — Rosemary Seton: British Women Missionaries Overseas 1800-1950. Rosemary’s talk highlighted the role women played in the “misguided endeavour” of being a missionary in India and China in the C19th and C20th. Despite the prevailing attitude at the time that the role of women in missionary activity was to support men as their wife (travel for “unprotected” single ladies was actively opposed and submitted to ridicule) we were given examples of brave, pioneering women who founded schools and colleges, hospitals and schools of nursing and medicine, some of which are still carrying on their work. Women could not call themselves missionaries but were referred to as agents and were regarded as holding back progress in what was exclusively a male domain.

In India notable examples are Hannah Marshman, who could be regarded as the first missionary in the sub-continent. As many women missionaries did, she went out as a teacher and established schools for Eurasian children, moving on to Indian children and the first school for girls. By the end of the C19th the mission schools were the first to offer girls secondary education, in line with developments in England. Kinnaird College, which was established in 1914 for Christian converts, is still in existence today. In the field of health care, missionary women such as Fanny Butler brought much needed primary health care to women and their children. Edith Brown established the North India School of Medicine for Christian Women at Ludhiana, which taught thousands of nurses and offered training in dentistry, radiography etc. It is still working today, staffed in the main by Indian nationals. Missionary activity ended in India with independence in 1947 and the coming of India and Pakistan.

In China, women missionaries met with active opposition from the Missionary Council, on which men and women did not meet together until 1932. Despite this, women such as Mary Ann Aldersey answered the call for unmarried ladies to go out and teach English to the “heathens”. Gladys Stephenson established a nursing school in Hankow and the redoubtable trio of Mildred Cable and Evangeline and Francesca French conducted an itinerant mission. After the fall of Singapore in 1942, women missionaries played a key role in the detention camps, maintaining morale and providing health care, particularly after the Japanese took over in 1944 when conditions deteriorated considerably. After the Second World War missionaries were denounced by the government. By 1953 all missionaries had left China.

January — Frank Dobson, who was Labour MP for Holborn and St Pancras from 1979 until 2015, gave a fascinating and amusing talk about his time as Secretary of State for Health in the Blair government from 1997 to 1999. He took us through some of the headline issues of his time such as: ensuring new effective meningitis vaccine was available for children; establishing NICE, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, which focussed on the cost-effectiveness of clinical treatments and became a model for other countries; managing blood supply scandals such as CJD infected blood; establishing the NHS helpline NHS Direct; and reorganising children’s intensive care services. In all these cases, as Secretary of State he was always having to weigh up conflicting advice from representatives of different professionals and interest groups, and find funding when there was no money in his budget, as well as bear in mind how the public respond to the issue.


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