Details to follow

In 1939 Tom and Angela Rolt set out to explore the canals of England in the narrow boat ‘Cressy’. The account of their cruise was a book called “Narrow Boat” and this inspired the national movement to preserve and cherish our inland waterways. Eighty years later Alastair Clark set out on a bike to follow the part of their voyage which followed the Trent and Mersey canal. 

NOTE: this talk is on a Tuesday, due to speaker's unavailability most Thursdays

And now for something completely different - some maritime industrial archaeology.

Today's speaker Geoff has been a railway enthusiast since his schooldays.  At 15, he left school and started his career as an engine cleaner, working in the boilersmith’s shop and eventually becoming a top-link fireman based at Guildford Motive Power Depot. This gave him a privileged opportunity to work with a diverse group of drivers and locomotives until the final day of steam on the Southern Region, Sunday 9th July 1967.

The work women of the Land Army in World War 2 is well known.  This talk tells the story of the less well-known women who volunteered in the 1940s to keep traffic flowing on Britain’s canals. However they may have referred to themselves, they were far form “idle women”.

A welcome reurn for David HAssard, one of SIHG's favourite speakers, for his first  live talk to us since before Covid.

The world’s first underground public railway opened in 1863, running  between Paddington and Farringdon Street in London.

Chris will explain why it was necessary, how it was built, and how it expanded right across our capital city.

The First World War inspired Heath Robinson to dream up a series of increasingly outlandish and bizarre military inventions with which the opposing armies would try to outwit each other. From the kaiser’s campaigning car or a suggestion for an armoured bayonet curler, to post-war ‘unbullying’ of beef, his cartoons are a fantastically absurd take on wartime technology and home-front life.

Organised by Simon Ritchie.

Leatherhead Institute, Saturday 26th October 2024

Play about the man behind the iconic London Tube map. Could meet in the cafe there an hour or so before. And there's the excellent LT museum as well, of course.