GEORGE NEWS - The March programme of the University of the Third age opens on Friday 7 March with a talk presented by Mike Holland entitled, 'Ïn Poldark's footsteps - a glimpse of the industrial revolution'.
The 'Poldark' novels by Winston Graham provide a romantic 'lead-in' to an intriguing glimpse of the industrial revolution in the Cornish mining industry of the 18th and 19th centuries.
The need to pump water out of deep mines efficiently, led to the development of the steam-driven pumping engines of Thomas Newcomen, James Watt and Richard Trevithick. Mike will also discuss the Cornish pasty, the Cornish boiler and the first mechanical means of lowering and raising miners into and up from deep mines of up to 2000ft deep.
Mike is a physical metallurgist by profession, the past chairman and present vice-chairman of the U3A and also finds all the speakers for the monthly programmes. The meeting starts at 10:00 with tea and coffee and the talk begins at 10:30.
The Land of Fjords and of Fire and Ice
On Wednesday 12 March at 10:30, Jackie Haupt will present 'From the Land of Fjords to the Land of Fire and Ice'. In 2023 Jackie and her husband Neil sailed to Iceland via Norway aboard the P&O ship Arcadia.
The presentation will cover their stops in Skjolden at the head of the Sognefjord, with a visit to Urnes Stave Church, and Ålesund in Norway.
In Iceland they visited Reykjavik, toured the Ring of Fire which included a visit to a geothermal park, Thingvellir where the Mid Atlantic Ridge is above sea level and new land is being created, and a geothermal power station, Ísafjörður (about 30 nautical miles south of the Arctic Circle and Akureyri which, although only 100 km south of the Arctic Circle, has a mild climate with summer temperatures reaching 25°C and winter hovering around zero degrees.
Jackie was born in England, grew up in Northern Rhodesia/Zambia, lived in Botswana for 11 years and worked at the Wits Medical School in Johannesburg. In their professional lives Neil was an electrical project manager and Jackie was an academic administrator and researcher. Now retired, they enjoy travelling in South Africa and abroad, genealogy and local history.
In the general meeting on Wednesday 26 March, Robert Smith will discuss 'palaeo-weather'. He will be going against the normal geological narrative which holds that the 'present is the key to the past' and try to relay the narrative that with weather, the 'past may be the key to the future'.
Robert is a retired town and regional planner and, after retirement he went farming in the Karatara area for some 20 years, where he gained experience in running a Nguni cattle stud, alien plant clearing, and the study of soil bacteria, fungi, insects, mammals and the importance of holistic farming practices.
There is tea at 10:00 and the talk starts at 10:30.
The programme ends on Monday 31 March at 14:00, with another session of International Affairs with Case Rijsdijk.
All talks are held in the Emmaüs hall in Memoriam Street and visitors are always very welcome.
‘Ons bring jou die nuutste Tuinroete, Hessequa, Karoo nuus’
