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Chairman and Meeters andGreeters Co­ordinator:Margaret WakelingVice ChairmanDon SuttonTreasurer:Pam BushellSecretary:Kerry JamesMeetings Registrar:Susan RobertsMembership Secretary:Penny BulginTel. 01923 776143Email:penny.bulgin@ntlworld.comStudy Group Co­ordinators:Sue BusseyDebbie KingstonProgramme Secretary:Jean MachinWebmaster:Benny MichelNewsletter Editor:Stan HoughColin PlummerSally LewisGill Fay

Sarratt & District Newswww.sarrattu3a.org.uk

Newsletter No. 79: December/January 2019/2020Copy for next

newsletter(February/March)

should besubmitted by

20 January 2019

A word from the ChairHelloWelcome to our DecemberNewsletter. Looking at the calendar Isee that Christmas is coming but as Ihaven’t done any festive shoppingyet I am in denial. Mind you I amwriting this in November.I hope you will enjoy reading thisNewsletter and that you find it useful,however, it is in danger. Stan,having done an excellent job editingit for the last few years, is going tostand down at the next AGM so weare looking for someone to take overthe reins. We have over 300members and I am sure there issomeone amongst you all that wouldrelish the chance of using their skillsto help us continue producing theNewsletter. There are two moreeditions before the AGM so that youcan discuss with Stan what isinvolved and see how it all works. Ifyou are interested please let meknow as soon as possible. It wouldbe sad if it did not continue as it is animportant way for us to communicatewith each other and find out what thevarious groups within the Sarratt andDistrict U3A do.We had a gathering of Study GroupContacts a few weeks ago in theform of a tea party which was

thoroughly enjoyable, well who wouldn’tenjoy tea and cake in the middle of anafternoon! Meeting up and discussingvarious issues is a good way of keepingthings running smoothly and helping usrealise that we are all in it together. I thinkso much of what the group contacts do istaken for granted so I would like to saythank you, you are appreciated.This year we are experimenting and insteadof having a Christmas Party or event we arehaving a speaker. It seemed to thecommittee that as we meet so early inDecember that Christmas wasn’t reallyupon us and many of us will be joining otherChristmas festivities as the great dayapproaches that a slice of normality mightbe a welcome relief.All it leaves me now to do is to wish you aHappy Christmas when it does come and tospare a thought for those in the north whohave had to move out of their homes due toflooding.Margaret

Membership Renewalis due byJanuary 31st 2020

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ROUND THE GROUPS

MONTHLY MEETINGS DIARY 2019Meetings held in Sarratt Village Hall at 10.30 am ­ 12.30 pm

4th December 'Help! I Need a Lifestyle Adviser Linda Scoles

15th January 'William the Butler, from the Navy to Butler to the Royals & Film Stars' William French

12th February 'The Crown Jewels' David Callaghan

11th March 'Eddy Chapman­ Spy for England and Germany' Danny Fletcher

MEMBERSHIP RENEWALMembership is due for renewal by January 31st 2020Forms will be available at the back of the newsletter,via email, or at the “renewals desk” at the monthlymeetingin December or January.Payment1) Cheque by post (payable to Sarratt &District U3A)or2) Cheque or cash at the monthly meetingIf you do not attend the monthly meetings you willneed to enclose with your renewal form and paymenta stamped, self addressed envelope so that I may sendyou your new membership card for 2020/2021New membership cards may be picked up at themonthly meetings in the New Year

EXPLORING LONDON GROUP 16 December ­ Along and around the Strand withTrev ­ £3 + xmas lunchMeet Trev by the fruit stall outside Embankment stationat 10.45, Villiers St exit.Ephemera and Ephemeral. December’s walk will startat the river bank at Embankment and wander aroundThe Strand, Somerset House, Kings College and thedepths of Bridewell and finish admiring St Paul's. Alongthe way we shall wonder at Celebrity Street, mourn haildeath by falling phallus, the world’s first Cab Rank,blacken Nelson’s Tomb, perambulate past a home forAmericans, spy the oldest outside statue in London,and admire a nude baker boy. Amongst other oddities.A shortish walk with a laugh to get one in the mood forChristmas lunch.Suggested route: 9.50 Chiltern train from Chorleywood,9.54 from Ricky to Marylebone, Bakerloo toEmbankment.3 January – Transport Museum ­ £12.50Arrive at the museum at 11am. Lots to see at themuseum plus an exhibition on ‘Hidden London’ aboutthe recently reopened wartime tunnels under ClaphamSouth station and learn more about the disused tubestations that inspired the exhibition. Your museumtickets are valid for 12 months so you can revisit at anytime.Suggested route: 9.33 Met line train from Chorleywood9.38 from Ricky to Finchley Road, Jubilee to Baker St,Bakerloo to Piccadilly Circus, Piccadilly line to CoventGarden.7 February – City of London Police Museum ­ £6We meet our guide at 11am for our tour of the museum.Suggested route: 9.33 Met line train from Chorleywood,9.38 from Ricky to Finchley Road, Jubilee to Bond St,Central line to St Paul’s.Contacts: Jan and Judith

EXPLORING LONDON GROUP 2Our Wallace Collection trip last Thursday was the finalone for 2019.2020 will be the tenth year of the group’s existence so ifanyone would like to visit a particular area of London orrevisit any of our previous itineraries please let usknow.The first proposed trip in 2020 on 13 February will be aguided tour of Westminster Abbey. Precise details willbe circulated in due course, however the cost will be£22 and we will need a minimum of 20 people to makethis viable so we hope you will all support this one. Theentry fee for OAP’s is £18 and we will be paying for aqualified guide (£200.)We are therefore subsidising this trip with some of ourreserve fund.Regards and best wishes for Christmas.Contacts: Marilyn and Mike West

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WINE APPRECIATIONOur lively group of 16 continues to meet at a differenthouse every month. The host chooses a wine theme,buys the wines, usally 4 white, 4 red and two bottles ofsparkling wine. We all contribute £10 to pay for wineand a light supper. We have Christmas and summerparties with food and wine brought by everyone. Thephoto shows our happy summer party held on abeautiful day at Rita and Mike's home.Contact: Pam

MUSIC GROUPMarch to October 2019At our March meeting we continued with the Musicalsand Movies theme and enjoyed an afternoon of songsand dances from Oklahoma, The Entertainer, severalGilbert and Sullivan ditties and dreamy pieces byLehar. We didn’t meet on the planned day in April asthat was Easter Monday but met the Monday after asthe May bank holiday also coincided with ourscheduled meeting day so we missed out May.

April gathering started with an Aled Jones rendering ofPlaces from the film Out of Africa, and also Mozart’sClarinet Concerto. Music from Carmen Jones, TheJersey Boys and Carousel followed. After severalother well known tunes we ended with Send in theClowns from A Little Night Music.

June and July’s meetings were in a similar vein andincluded the theme from The Third Man and a popularone from Mary Poppins – Supercalifrag etc.

Our October meeting commenced with Mozart’s PianoConcerto No. 21 from a film we had never heard of –Elvira Maligan. Some more Gilbert & Sullivan andLuck be a Lady Tonight from Guys and Dolls helpedmake up the rest of our afternoon’s entertainment.

November will be our last meeting of 2019 and we lookforward to our January event with a different theme forthe following month or two.

Contact:Irene Oulsnam

BEWARE OF THE CROCS!If, like me, you often wear those comfortable Crocs onyour feet just make sure that there is still a good treadon the soles, especially the heels. It was a hard lessonlearned in September last year when, on wet moss, Islipped over in my crocs and fell heavily with my legbent back underneath me, breaking my ankle bone. Itwas very painful and resulted in having to wear a bigboot and hobbling around for a few weeks. Since thenof course it has mended but I was lucky, it could havebeen worse. So, please take heed and check yourheels.I have recently bought a new pair of Crocs andwondered what to do with my old ones? Well as a keengardener the answer was to grow something in them ­I grew a lovely crop of cress in my Crocs!

Janet Taylor (new member 2019)

CYCLINGThe Cycling Group completed its 2019 programme inNovember. We finished on a high with 9 of us out for ashort ride in lovely weather across the Colne Valley.The use of the train and car more this year has allowedus to get to new areas including Windsor and theWindsor Great Park, Burnham Beeches , theHughenden Valley and Wendover Woods. Frequentlyour enjoyment of these areas has been helped byhaving nice weather.We start our 2020 programme in February. Our longroute of 20­30 miles is on the third Tuesday of themonth and a shorter route of around 10­15 miles is onthe first Monday.Why not ask Father Christmas for a bike and join us onour rides. We welcome any riders who would like theopportunity to cycle in company and have enjoyableexercise whilst exploring our lovely Chilternscountryside and helping their immune systems. Ourrides are not fast, we ride at the pace of the slowestrider and we won't lose you.Contact: Brian Johnson

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ENGINEERING HERITAGETuesday 24th September­ Despite a rather wet journeyto the Batchworth Lock Canal Centre, we had greatmorning learning about local canal history and alsoenjoying a trip on a narrowboat.After coffee and an introductory talk held within thenewly built visitor centre we divided into two groups;one stayed for a more detailed history whilst the otherbraved the rain for a gentle cruise through a lock andonward toward Croxley with at least some sunshine forpart of the way. Later the groups swapped theseactivities. Thank you Popsi for organising this veryinteresting venture.Our October visit, organised by Tony Briselden , saw usin a totally different form of transport. We travelled toLeighton Buzzard for a ride in a diesel hauled narrowgauge train for a journey of about three miles andstarting at Pages Park Station to the current end of theline at Stonehenge Works Station (no, not the one onSalisbury Plain). This one is named after the brickworksthat used to stand alongside the line and which suppliedit with sand. After a short stay there, looking at the muchinformation provided, we returned for a tour of theEngine Sheds to see some of their 60 strong collectionof steam and internal combustion engines. A great dayand no hint of rain.Contact: Sheila Malin

GARDENING: October talkThe Four Seasons.. A Year in the English CountysideJohn Clark Tyler gave us a wonderful talk with aspellbinding slideshow taking us through the fourseasons in the Chilterns, starting with winter. We wereshown nature from a new perspective.. from close upshots of sections through acorns to a bedraggled andunrecognisable Queen bee.He portrayed the amazing complexity and ingenuity ofnature, filling us all with fresh wonder.He interspersed his slides with interesting facts relatingto insects and their habitats, such as the bizarre matingritual of spiders, and warned of the negative effect ofglobal warming on our countryside.He spoke of migrating birds and butterflies, moths,toads, newts and bees; wild fruits, fungi, seeds and ourbeautiful native trees.Contact:Jane Worthington

BRIDGEOverheard, following a Tuesday bridge meeting:“I love Tuesday. I know I am going to be challenged(mentally) and I am going to see my friends”.This may sum up what a number of groups feel abouttheir U3A activities.And another frequently heard comment is “this is sodifficult...!” Bridge gives our brains a good work­out.Ready for a challenge 4 players went to a U3A NetworkTournament in October – with some trepidation, as weare not “club” players, we just enjoy the game. In theevent our team (Heather Westrup, Marilyn O'Neill, TerryDown and Valerie MacDonald) came 4th out of 11teams from other Hertfordshire U3As. Worth the effortafter all.Contact: Valerie MacDonaldFRENCH CONVERSATION 3Well our French conversation 3 is jogging along in afashion. We had been struggling for a little while as tohow to go forward. Now we are each bringing either astatement/topic each week, which we’ve prepared, interms of a couple of sentences in which to start up theconversation, and for then others in the group to askquestions. It seems to be working in that it has broughtback some life and fun. Actually we’ve always had fun.Contact: Sue Nottingham

WalkingWhen Peter and Margaret Wakeling set up the WalkingGroup in February 2007 they led a series of monthly,morning­only walks. However, Margaret records that achance encounter in the village of Flaunden with alady who was raising money for the village hall charityled to an invitation to a soup and ploughman’s buffet inher garden. This was so enjoyable that lunch becamean established part of the walk. The walks increased inlength and frequency, to two per month , membershipgrew and sharing the leadership role, in keeping withU3A aims, helps us all to keep up our map­readingskills .Despite the many excellent books of walks, which areoften our starting point for planning, the OS Explorermap remains the crucial tool, and the most trustworthy.For a start, a grid reference ( remember learning “along the corridor and up the stairs?) is often muchmore reliable than a post code for finding the car park!However, OS now provide many extra aids which canhelp us plot ,record and print our routes, and the latestExplorer maps come with a mobile download version,which pinpoints one's position on the ground exactly –very useful where paths meet or divide. Getting to gripswith the technology can be a challenge, but also fun!Armed with our maps, books or phones we havecovered a wide area in recent weeks, with severalroutes around Ashridge, the reservoirs beyond Aldbury,and the different arms of the Grand Union Canal. Withthe coming of the autumn colours our leaders have ledus on some glorious walks around the Chess Valley,Bledlow, Little Hampden and Great Missenden. Theweather has been remarkably kind to us , and even theworst report cites “ the dreadful weather forecast turnedout much better than expected”.Next year we hope to include a few more figure of eightwalks, based on our lunch pub. We hope this mightencourage new U3A members to give the Group a tryfor half a day, if they find the initial prospect of 9­10miles daunting, as well as allowing members with othercommitments to join part of the walk.If you are interested in joining us, please contactFrances Ashley or via Margaret Wakeling