Glossop Guild for enquiring minds
Zooming Through the Spring
On-line Courses
January 2025 ~ March 2025
Your Zoom Season Pass
In order to make "Zooming Through the Spring" on-line term as flexible as possible, we are again offering a single payment "season pass" which will entitle you to join any or all of the spring sessions below. The Spring Zoom Season Pass costs just £20 for members or £30 for non-members*.
* To pay for the lectures as a non-member select the arrow in the white box opposite to this text, then on the drop-down menu select the non-member price of £30, next select "Buy Lectures" and follow the prompts.
Note:- The non-member price of £30 means you get the Spring Zoom Season Pass and Guild Membership, entitling you to member discounted prices for all our other spring term courses (both Zoom and Venue) until the end of April 2025.
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After receipt of payment you will receive a joining invite to each individual session which contains a session ID, password and internet link.
Note: These invites are usually sent out on the preceding day of each course.
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Prisoners Teaching Prisoners to Read in Strangeways
Tutor: Mike Milligan
Monday morning 27th January 2025
10.00 am - 12.00 pm
Prisons are in the news – often negatively. Here is a positive story. The Shannon Trust, founded in 1997, is a UK charity dedicated to promoting literacy among prisoners. It began when Christopher Morgan, a gentleman farmer, exchanged letters with Tom Shannon, a lifer as depicted in the book Invisible Crying Tree, 1995. From this emerged a peer-to-peer learning model supported by Turning Pages learning manuals. The Trust trains literate inmates as mentors, helping fellow prisoners unable to read to develop reading skills, which in turn gives them confidence, empowers them, reduces reoffending rates, and supports rehabilitation. After helping adults in the community to read, Mike joined Shannon Trust in October 2024 as an HMP Manchester (Strangeways) volunteer. This talk will look at Mike’s experience and those of others at HMP Manchester and discusses the issues facing the new government in terms of the wider prison system.
The Thirties - Facing Both Ways: New Deal & a Busted Flush - the Shape of Things to Come.
Tutors: Steve Millward & Frank Vigon
4 Monday mornings 3rd, 10th, 17th & 24th February 2025
10.00 am - 12.00 pm
Welcome to the age of total contradiction when grinding poverty was ignored and those who had indulged themselves in a wave of escapist hedonism, drinking away other people’s sorrows, taking refuge from the gloomy headlines dancing the night away.
The poor had nothing to fall back on except perhaps, protest and music and all across the world this social and economic depression stoked the fires of rising fascism. In a world of uncertainty, the destitute and aggrieved gravitated towards the rising authoritarian ideologies that stalked Europe.
Artists and composers found ways to survive repressive regimes, some without compromising their integrity.
This was the age of escape, where people sought refuge in music, the cinema and strong men, only to discover there was no way out.
Revolutions were crushed and art was ephemeral. It would all end badly unless people stood up and be counted. They shall not pass!
Typical middle class thirties dress
Monday 3rd February
Art Deco – the changing shape of things to come (Frank Vigon): For a very short period there is a style that is instantly recognisable and universal. Art Deco is very much a geometrically based format which employs sleek lines to mask the social tensions that it aims to escape. From Europe spreading out across the Atlantic and all over the world, from Clarice Cliff’s teacups to the Chrysler Building, pristine elegance becomes a fashionable must have.
Song Laboratories (Steve Millward): How many ways can you write a love song? The poets of Tin Pan Alley knew, and their creativity, imagination and audacity led to a Golden Age of American pop.
Monday 10th February
Kinder Transport - the door closes (FV): From 1933 onwards the ominous shadow of a coming storm envelops Germany. The Jews are the canary in the coal mine. Their fate inextricably connected to the Rise of the Third Reich and the inevitable scapegoating proclaimed in Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Why did they stay? Why couldn’t they leave? And in the end only thousands of children were able to escape the fate of millions.
Music Under Dictators (SM): There was no shortage of dictators in 1930s Europe. Composers found inventive ways to survive repressive regimes – some even did so without compromising their integrity.
Monday 17th February
The American Nightmare – depression, populism & isolation (FV): After the Great Crash of 1929, as investors tumbled from skyscrapers along with the shares, America was plunged into the Great Depression. It was to last right up to the Second World War. The responses to the problem were polarised, with the populists screaming “share the Wealth”, whilst Franklin D Roosevelt tried to put all of America back to work. To the right of these conflicting responses was a darker side of America, which espoused Isolationism on one hand and an Americanism that was akin to Fascism on the other.
The Last Chance Saloon – Spain & a very uncivil war – they shall not pass (FV): The legacy of the First World War was an unsatisfactory and impractical resolution at Versailles, which led to a struggle between left- and right-wing solutions to social and economic collapse. Whilst there were uneasy transitions throughout Europe, in Spain, a war by proxy was fought by both sides of the ideological divide.
Monday 24th February
Depression Blues (SM): The Wall Street Crash made the working classes poor, and the poor classes destitute. Music became a vehicle for their protest, starting a movement that lasted thirty years.
Music for the Masses (SM): The burgeoning cinema industry offered new opportunities, and many songwriters and composers made a beeline for Hollywood. They created the soundtrack, not just for films, but for people’s lives as they approached the Second World War.
The Expert Witness - Forensic Pharmacology & Toxicology
Tutor: Nick Birch
Wednesday afternoon 5th March 2025,
1.30 pm - 3.30 pm
Nick will discuss aspects of forensic evidence from the pharmacological viewpoint, together with some of the cases with which he has been involved. There will be some discussion of alcohol and other drugs which are common in criminal cases and how drugs may affect memory and hence challenge other evidence.
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West Midland Police - Forensic Science Lab.
West Midlands Police from West Midlands, United Kingdom, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
The Cheapside Hoard - the Story of the Biggest Haul of Jewels Ever
Tutor: Creina Mansfield
Monday morning 10th March 2025
10.00 am - 12.00 pm
Discovered by workmen in 1912, the Cheapside Hoard is the greatest single collection of Elizabethan and Stuart jewellery in the world. The magnificent precious stones and jewels revealed so much about exploration, trade, fashion and craft in those times. And the story of the hoard is also fascinating. Who owned it and why did they never return to claim the priceless treasure?
Mr Keynes' Revolution
Tutor: Creina Mansfield
Monday morning 17th March 2025
10.00 am - 12.00 pm
We shall look at E.J. Barnes' 2020 novel about the great economist, transformative thinker, government adviser, financial speculator and a member of the Bloomsbury group.
Mythology on the Streets of London
Tutor: Tony Keen
Monday morning 24th March 2025
10.00 am - 12.00 pm
Join mythology teacher and scholar, Tony Keen, on a tour around central London, looking for figures from Greco-Roman myth in London.
From the seventeenth to twentieth centuries, London was an imperial capital. It wanted to show it was an imperial capital through its architecture, and the architectural vocabulary of empire was that of ancient Rome and, to a lesser extent, Greece. Part of that architectural vocabulary was the incorporation of mythological figures, in statuary or relief sculpture. The tour begins in Trafalgar Square, and makes its way along Pall Mall and the Mall, taking in along the way several Britannias, Minervas, and other mythological figures. This is a very different look at London and will show you things you’ve probably never seen before.
Trafalgar Square
West Midlands Police from West Midlands, United Kingdom, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Women of Glossop
Monday Morning Lecture
Tutor: Kate Raine - Heritage Trust
Monday morning 31st March 2025
10.00 am - 12.00 pm
This talk looks at aspects of the lives of the women of Glossop from the early 1800s – 1970s. Starting with the Female Friendly Society, we will explore how women came together in groups to support each other and benefit the local community. We will look at how women were involved in political movements, such as suffragettes and educational and social groups, such as the Girls’ Friendly Society and the Women’s Co-operative Guild. We will also look at the prominent women of Glossop, including Anne Kershaw Wood, Mary Alice Partington and Harriet Jackson, and their many great contributions to the town and the community.
Girls Friendly Society