Next Meeting: Friday 11 Dec
Mark Honigsbaum - Living With Enza: The Forgotten Story of Britain and the Great Flu Pandemic of 1918.
Between the summer of 1918 and the spring of 1919 a deadly strain of influenza claimed the lives of 228,000 Britons. Worldwide the death toll from 'Spanish' influenza was simply unimaginable with between 50 and 100 million dead.
The victims turned blue, then black, drowning in the fluids flooding their lungs.
"Never since the Black Death has such a plague swept over the face of the world," commented The Times, "and never, perhaps, has a plague been more stoically accepted."
Based on interviews with survivors and the memoirs of doctors and nurses who lived through the outbreak, Living With Enza is the fascinating story of Britain's ‘forgotten' pandemic and the continuing scientific effort to unravel the mystery of its origins. For, although the ‘Great Flu' has receded from public memory, the threat of pandemic influenza has not gone away. According to Britain's Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, a new pandemic is a matter of "when, not if. We can't make this pandemic go away. Because it's a natural phenomenon, it will come."
Mark Honigsbaum is a journalist and author based in London, specializing in the science and history of infectious disease. His work appears in the Guardian, the Observer and the Lancet. His latest book, Living With Enza: The Forgotten Story of Britain and the Great Flu Pandemic of 1918 is part of an on-going study into the social, cultural and psychological impacts of pandemics. See also www.markhonigsbaum.co.uk.
We shall have the usual Christmas meeting mulled wine and mince pies!
November Meeting Report
Matt Brosnan, Assistant Curator at the IWM's Department of Art, gave us an excellent talk on a little known aspect of the war, a plan (never fully realised) to create a "Hall of Remembrance" consisting of paintings specially commissioned from leading artists. Matt concentrated on two of the paintings: the very famous Gassed by John Singer Sargent, and Travoys Arriving with Wounded at a Dressing-Station at Smol, Macedonia by Stanley Spencer.
The idea came from the British War Memorials Committee which was formed in March 1918 under the chairmanship of Max Aitken (Lord Beaverbrook). The concept was to have a series of large oil paintings depicting many aspects of the British Empire's war effort, and this was the first time that the state had sponsored art. The artists had considerable freedom with regard to subject matter.
Sargent was a very well established artist. Born in Italy of American parents in 1856, his portraits commanded very high fees. He had spent most of the war in America, but came to Europe in 1918 and received the offer from the BWMC (David Lloyd George also wrote to him). Sargent visited the Western Front between July and October, and it was the sight of soldiers suffering temporary blindness from mustard gas which inspired his painting (for which he was eventually paid £600). He made a number of sketches (still at the IWM) and completed the painting that winter. It was to be the largest of all the paintings, measuring 20ft by 9ft (the committee originally asked for a larger canvas!)
Spencer was a very different man. He had studied at the Slade School and was aged 23 at the start of the war. He joined the Medical Corps and went to Salonika in 1916, spending 18 months there and contracting malaria. The committee contacted him in June 1918, and for Travoys he received £200. After WW2 he was knighted for services to art. The painting was done from memory because he had lost his sketchpad, and shows a view from above of mule-drawn travoys (sleds) bringing wounded soldiers to an operating theatre. Both this and Gassed can be found on the internet.
The full range of 30 paintings went on public view in December 1919 and the exhibition was very well received, although there was no money to build a dedicated gallery. All of the paintings are with the IWM, but not all are on display. Matt pointed out that the IWM has around 19,000 paintings, drawings and sculptures, this being the world's second largest collection of 20th century British art.
Newsletter Quiz
Answer to quiz no. 199: an Australian soldier stabbing the German eagle. It was destroyed during the German occupation in WW2. Well done winner Geoff Cunnington. For quiz no. 200 (which suggests the 20th anniversary of the quiz) your editor has set a special question (and there will be a special prize as well!) It is in the style of those obscure clues in R4's Round Britain Quiz: The nickname of a British general who was killed in the Battle of the Somme; a fictional soldier who refused to budge; the last man to serve in the Royal Navy in both world wars; and a disrespectful name for an enemy head of state. What name links them?
Trench Diary Project
Every year the History Department of our host, St. George's School, runs a project in which Year Nine (13-14 year old) pupils create a "trench diary" such as might have been written by a British soldier. As part of our policy to promote children's interest in the First World War, the committee decided to support this by offering certificates and book token prizes for the best three entries. We are doing this with the help of David Waters, the school's Head of History, who will present us with a shortlist of ten, and our "diary sub-committee" will make the final decision. It is intended to present the prizes at either the March or April meeting, which will start at 7.30pm in consequence. Parents, pupils and teachers are expected to attend.
The school has strong links with the subject matter. Several Old Georgians served in the war and in May 2008 Paddy Storrie, the deputy headmaster, gave us a talk on those who died. Also, the school arranges an annual visit to the Western Front, which is something of an inspiration for the diary project.
At a meeting with David Waters earlier this year Tony Fleetwood and I saw a number of entries for the 2009 project and we were very impressed by the work that had gone into the "diaries". There were plenty of tea-stains and tattered edges! We are very pleased to be involved with this admirable project and hope it will further encourage interest in the topic at the school.
2010 Programme
We now have the full programme for next year (see below). Congratulations to Geoff Cunnington on arranging a most varied selection of talks. Get that diary out!
We wish all members a Merry Christmas & Happy New Year, and may you receive lots of goodies.
Branch Diary
8 January: Belfast Boys: How Unionists and Nationalists Fought and Died Together in WW1 - Dr Richard S Grayson
12 February: Kitchener's Lost Boys: From the Playing Fields to the Killing Fields - John Oakes
19 March: Isaac Rosenberg: The Making of a Great War Poet - Dr Jean Moorcroft Wilson
23 April: The British Naval Staff in WW1: Just Cabbage Heads? - Dr Nicholas Black
4 June: English Rural Communities in WW1 - Prof. Keith Grieves
9 July: Muirhead Bone: Artist & Patron - Sylvester Bone
3 September: AGM & Members' Evening
8 October: Women in the War Zone: Hospital Service in WW1 - Anne Powell
12 November: St Eloi: Village of the Craters - Christopher John
10 December: The Austro-Hungarian Conflict in 1914 - Prof. Mark Cornwall
Venue: Room SP101, 1st Floor, Sports Hall, St George's School, Sun Lane, Harpenden, AL5 4EY. Doors open 7.30pm, 8.00pm start. Requested donation min. £3.00. Tea, coffee and biscuits at half time.
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 Richard_Holmes_Talk_MK_Branch_Jan_2010.pdf | January 2010 An Evening with Professor Richard Holmes | 68 Kb | 05/12/09 11:39 |
