Newsletter No.44 – Spring/Summer 2018

A reminder about our monthly general meetings: which are held on the fourth Tuesday of the month at 2pm in The Friends’ Meeting House, 8b Summerfield Road,

Chapel Ash, Wolverhampton WV1 4PR. After any announcements, meetings usually continue with an invited

speaker on a diverse range of subjects including ‘The Amazing Life of Bats’, ‘Dudley Castle’, ‘A Pantomime Dame’

and ‘Cathedral Builders’ (‘Storytelling’ to follow on 24 July) along with special Christmas and Summer Socials (next

on 26 June) and the AGM (25 September). A welcome drink of tea/coffee and biscuits follows along with time to

socialise with other members and with Group Coordinators and your Committee.

If you haven't managed to attend one yet come along and give it a try - you will be made very welcome.

Round the groups

A full list of all the interest groups appears on our website

http://u3asites.org.uk/wolverhampton, and a printed list is

available on request

Games What can I say about games, except to say that we have huge

amounts of fun for two hours on a Friday.

Here is what our members think:

"I always look forward to the Games group after a busy week, it is a great relaxing way to spend an afternoon with friends” "Ha ha, it’s fun, it’s easy, you learn things about yourself !! The two hours fly, you didn’t realise how enjoyable it is to play games you never knew existed !!" "Kept grey cells challenged by dice games, card games, board games, number and word-based games and crafty games of deception and creative persuasiveness."

We play a great range of games,

requiring different types of

skills: invention, strategy,

cunning, and sheer luck! Anyone remember Chinese

Checkers? Harder than you

think… Some games, like Pass the

Bomb, are short and intense.

Others are slow and

relaxing, like our latest

favourite Mexican Train.

Some games require us to

make it up as we go along,

like Balderdash or Snake

Oil - just suspend disbelief

while being sold something

you never knew you had to

have. Then there are betting

games - Perudo and First

Past the Post. The variety is

endless. Snake Oil - just make it up! Always welcoming to new members. Feel free to give our games

group a try.

Josie Turner

Gardening During the past year we have taken part in a variety of activities,

extending our knowledge and sharing the ups and downs of

gardening. A private visit to 12 Waterdale, Compton was a highlight

visit of last summer. Waterdale is part of the NGS and has an annual

open day for the general public, which is well worth a visit. They

have a lovely web site with details of opening times, if you want to

know more: https://www.ngs.org.uk/find-a-garden/garden/34449

We had a very informative meeting on Trees and another on Feeding

the Garden. A challenge for a Gardening Group is the weather!

Somehow we do manage, with waterproofs and umbrellas, to stick

to our programme, but the snow in December meant that we had to

cancel our Christmas Social at Kingswood, as the drive was

inaccessible.

Our members really enjoy visiting each other's gardens either to

advise on makeovers and problems or to enjoy Eileen's amazing

garden, when she hosted both the Food Group and the Gardening

Group last August.

Margaret reports that

her garden, which we

visited last year, is

undergoing an organic

(ie largely unplanned!)

redevelopment – the

removal of the forsythia

thicket having enabled a

riot of what she calls

‘happening’ plants and

flowers. She has

replaced the paving

slabs in the former

driveway with topsoil

and turf kindly donated

by a neighbour who is

also having a garden

makeover…

We are now looking forward to some good weather, after what

seemed like a very erratic winter, weather wise.

Jeanette Black

Improvers’ German - Deutsche Gruppe We are an intermediary standard group who

meet most Tuesdays. During our meetings we

translate, write, review magazine and newspaper items, discuss and

generally use a variety of approaches to improve our standards. We

are a dedicated group who are led by our tutor Christine Smith and

we meet at each other’s houses on a rotational basis. It is because of

these arrangements that we are naturally a small group due to

confines of space in our homes. It may be possible, if enough

members are interested, to have a second German Group.

Keith Briscoe

Italian Conversation It’s hard to believe that the Italian Conversation group is now in its

sixth year – the time has simply flown by! Still attracting new members, the size of the group has settled at

about between 8 and 10 people per meeting. We meet on alternate

Mondays at one another’s homes, and most often the host chooses a

theme for the conversation. We don’t have a tutor as such – it’s a real conversation group so we

work very co-operatively, and usually with lots of laughter. The

typical session starts with each one sharing a small piece of news,

something from the family perhaps, or about what we have been

doing. Then we go on to discuss a theme, often using stimulus

material such as a short article (in Italian) gleaned from the internet.

We choose topical themes – even talking about the dreaded B-word.

Often we talk about the differences between British and Italian

culture, just the kind of things we might find ourselves discussing

with Italians in a bar (well, we can dream!). Most of us are

confirmed Italophiles but we are not shy about looking at the dark

underside of

Italian life either.

If you can string a

sentence or two

together in Italian

you are more than

welcome to join

us! Ci vediamo!

Kate Gilbert

Jazz The national U3A Jazz adviser, Michael Rance, has complimented

the Jazz Group on the wide range of music that we listen to in our

sessions – “not just the usual trad” as he put

it. Over the past year, as well as music by

Thelonius Monk, Chick Corea, Mal

Waldron and others he would have heard

with us “Scandinavian Jazz”, “Brum Jazz”,

“Jazz in Film”, “Contemporary Big Bands”

and – at our last meeting – “Jazz as you may not have heard it!”.

This featured instruments such

as the harp, harmonica,

accordion

and

penny whistle, and a jug band

from the 1920s!

Michael’s group in Poole has a regular attendance of more than 50

which obviously precludes meeting in members’ living rooms. We

still do so, but will always welcome new members. If you might be

interested do contact John Sheard on 01902 593392 or at

sheard56@talktalk.net.

Latin Our readings in Latin of the Roman authors have continued.

We have received timeless wisdom

on what might befall you if you are

unkind to strangers, or spend too

long looking in the mirror, or on

how to find a girl (all Ovid), also

how to send a message in code

requesting aid if your legion is cut

off in hostile Gaul (Julius Caesar).

See example below:

μιττη αυξιλιυμ κελεριτερ

John Henly

Local History Our group is very well supported, with monthly talks either

presented by, or organised by, group members. The varied

programme over recent months has included:

~The Manor of Perton and Perton Hall, 1065-1665

~Thomas Parker, an unheralded inventor-genius in the Victorian era

who founded the Electric Construction Co.(ECC) in Wolverhampton

~A photo album with many pictures depicting the Wolverhampton

of the late 1800s.

~Wightwick and the Mander family.

~A history of the buildings in Queen Street.

~Harry Nicholas Grove, local dentist and surgeon extraordinaire,

who rebuilt the face of Sergeant Freeman, a soldier horrifically

wounded at the battle of Omdurman (Sudan, 1898)

~Turnpike Fever: local transport in the Georgian era.

The group also has occasional outings. On 14th May we visited

Chillington Hall for a conducted tour of the house and extensive

parkland and gardens. Chillington is the home of the Giffard family,

who came across from Normandy with William the Conqueror and

subsequently acquired large areas of land in and around

Wolverhampton.

Ann Eales

Luncheon Club I have managed to secure The Academy for our Christmas meal so

make a note of the date: Wednesday 6th December. If you would

like to put your name down please let me know either via the

website link or telephone (number below); numbers are restricted to

46 although there may be a possibility of a few more if furniture is

available for use by the restaurant.

The next luncheon is Friday 16th June at The Fox at Shipley,

12.15pm. The number 9

Bridgnorth bus stops outside the

pub at approx 12.15 and runs from

town, through Compton and down

the Bridgnorth Road. If you would

like to come and join us on this

occasion, numbers are restricted to

20 diners so please book early. I

look forward to welcoming new

faces to the lunches and of course

seeing all the regulars as well. On Tuesday 3rd July,12.00pm, we are lunching at the Rocco Italian

Restaurant, Darlington Street (limited to 20 persons)..

Linda Briscoe (01902 700151)

Part Singing The Part Singing group meets on the first Tuesday of the month at

2pm. We sing primarily for pleasure but do occasionally perform at

an outside venue. We are currently practising

for a music festival at the Kingswood Trust

Outdoor Learning Centre on the Shifnal Road,

on the afternoon of Saturday 28th July. We

will be singing a varied programme including

madrigals such as ‘Since First I Saw Your Face'

by Thomas Ford (1607) and 'Love Learns By

Laughing’ by Thomas Morley (1557 - 1602) and some folk songs

eg. the 'Skye Boat Song' arranged by Harold Boulton, plus American

Spirituals including 'Steal Away' arranged by Paul von Hippell and

'Down To The River To Pray' from the motion picture 'Brother

Where Art Thou'.

New members are always welcome - Soprano, Alto, Tenor, or Bass!

Pat Coates (01902 685448, pat_coates@hotmail.co.uk )

Philosophy In the last year we have lost a number of members and have had to

cut the number of groups from two to one. This means we now have

the opportunity to grow so new members will be welcome. One of the functions of philosophy is to question the primary beliefs

of a society. We often hear statements that are taken as axiomatic

without justification.

The one I am going to examine is “We all want an equal and just

society”, but that, as I will argue, is a contradiction.

There are three types of formal equality:

Legal – The same laws, rules, penalties apply to all.

Political – All votes are given equal weight. All have equal right to

be a candidate, allowed freedom of speech, of assembly, of the

press.

Social - All are entitled to a minimum level of material support.

These are fairly uncontroversial, and we also agree in principle to

equality of opportunity, but this is where it gets complicated. It is

very difficult to measure degrees of equality of opportunity. It is

much easier to measure results. Pupils from Public or grammar

schools, of professional parents, from the south, from some classes

or racial groups are all over represented in the top universities.

However, inequalities of results cannot be taken as proof of

inequality of opportunity or of discrimination by the universities.

There is a simpler explanation as

predicted in 1958 by Michael Young in

his book “The rise of the meritocracy”.

This book was factual up to 1958 and

then fantasy. The “1944 Education Act”

from Rab Butler created a tripartite

education system with grammar schools

for the academics, technical schools for

the technically able and secondary

modern for the low/unskilled. As a

result working class children, including

girls, went on to higher education and

moved up the social scale. People tend

to socially mix within their own social

class and therefore marry the same.

Those with experience of being in a

working and a higher class environment, will encourage their

children to benefit from education; they may have sufficient

resources to provide this privately, and their children will have the

benefit of their genes. The result will be that the children of the

successful will be the next generation of the successful. If we want a

meritocratic society, as Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Teresa May

claimed, then inequality of outcome is inevitable, and those most

likely to benefit from the best educational establishments will be the

ones who will receive it. The reason why there is little social

mobility in the US and UK is that we already have a meritocracy, as

predicted by Young. He, as a socialist, was appalled by the idea,

because it would mean we had an inherited elite. It is not a perfect

meritocracy and some movement up or down the social scale is

inevitable and desirable so there must be opportunities for change,

but if this means lowering standards for University entrance for

some, this would be a violation of formal equality and unfair to

those minorities (mainly Indian and Chinese) who fare better than

others (including whites and black Caribbean). The downside is that

we have a more stratified society with the elite in charge growing

away from the majority in lifestyle and aspirations, Young predicted

that the revolt of the populists against the elite would be in May

2034; his son Toby suggests it has already begun. It is for future

historians to judge if it will be successful and then what? The cry of

“Power to the People” is often heard but does not have a good

history. The French revolution of 1789 resulted in a decade of terror

only ended by Napoleon proclaiming himself emperor. If you would like a fuller version of my argument on the benefits of

inequality please e-mail me at wtonu3aplato@gmail.com

Tim McNamara

Understanding Opera One door closes and another one opens. We were very sorry to learn

that English Touring Opera has dropped Wolverhampton’s Grand

Theatre from its Spring tour but have been delighted that the

Lighthouse has been showing live performances from the

Metropolitan Opera

in New York this

season. As these are

live relays of the

Saturday matinée

performances in

New York it enables

those people to

attend who might

otherwise be

unwilling to attend

evening performances. We do not fully appreciate how lucky we are

to have the Lighthouse bringing us not only live opera but also ballet

and drama from the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National

Theatre and West End theatres. It is a great pity, then, that these

performances are sometimes so poorly attended!

In the first part of 2018 our meetings have enabled us to study

operas performed by Welsh National Opera (La Forza del Destino),

the Met (Cosi fan Tutte) and, later, the Royal Opera (Rigoletto) and

Glyndebourne (Vanessa). Since both the Royal Opera and the Met

have relayed performances of Die Zauberflöte, La Bohème and

Tosca we have enjoyed the opportunity of comparing different

productions of the same piece!

At the time of writing only Welsh National Opera has announced its

season for 2018/19 of operas to be seen at the Birmingham

Hippodrome. These are Prokofiev’s War and Peace, Verdi’s La

Traviata and Rossini’s La Cerentola in November and Verdi’s Un

Ballo in Maschera, Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux and Mozart’s The

Magic Flute in March 2019. Undoubtedly we shall be looking at

some, though not all, of these works. We expect to hear from the

Royal Opera House and the Met soon.

Andrew Milligan

Poetry

Oh such a sweet delight it is to meet

on each first Monday of each month, we few

poetic odd-bods, with poems all replete,

to share, some short, some long, some old, some new. Eclecticism is our golden rule,

and just how broad the mixture no one cares;

the classic mingles with the modern school,

and Wordsworth can rub shoulders with Pam Ayres. Discussions can be noisily loquacious;

at other times they take place quietly,

and now and then a hush descends upon us,

when we are deeply moved emotionally. Of course we gather for the poetry,

But equally, the camaraderie.

Martin Murfitt

and finally ……

Editors: Margaret Taylor 01902 341528 & Di Tordoff 01902 843627