Winter 11 Featuring: The Buckingham Palace Awards Ceremony ...

BRANCHES
held at the Mid-Somerset Festival, to
mark the 60th anniversary of the
Festival and the Diamond Jubilee of
HM the Queen. There will be classes
for lower secondary school and for
primary years and the task will be to
create and present a 10 minute group
performance on the theme of one or
more of the decades from the 1940s to
the present day. Our contribution will
be for the winning school’s library or
other facilities.
David Leonard, Chairman, Bath and District
branch
Bristol
address was followed by questions
from our members which allowed us
to learn yet more about the history of
the Mayoralty in Bristol. We wish
them well in their very busy year in
office.
October gave us a lively talk entitled
‘Are We Getting the News We
Deserve’ Andrew Wilson, a Sky News
presenter, described the perils faced by
the modern day news reporter. Having
travelled all over the world, his
missions included the Chilean mining
rescue and many trouble spots, among
them Afghanistan and more recently,
Benghazi, during the conflict for
control of Libya. Vivid presentation
and personal stories were at the heart
of what made the event so impactful.
Present day assignments can often
involve significant personal danger in
bringing the news from areas of
conflict and we wish him well in
the future.
Conspicuous Gallantry medal was
awarded to a Bomb Aimer who,
having been sent on a Pilot’s Course,
later flew during the Berlin Air lift and
also worked on the Kings Flight for
three years becoming one of the early
test pilots.
Many of the pilots were also helped to
escape back to England by Belgian
patriots and we were shown a map of
the various routes, in particular the
Comet route by which 700 British
personnel escaped across the Pyrenees
and down through Spain.
The Rt Hon The Lord Mayor of Bristol
Councilor Geoffrey Gollop, the Lady
Mayoress, Bernice and our President and
Chairman, Tony Williams
At the beginning of September, we
were delighted to welcome The Rt
Hon The Lord Mayor of Bristol,
Councillor Geoffrey Gollop, and his
wife, the Lady Mayoress Bernice.
Councillor Gollop gave us a most
interesting address about the history
of the Mayoralty in Bristol from the
13th Century to the present day. In
1899, Queen Victoria granted a Lord
Mayoralty to Bristol and on her visit
that year she knighted the then Mayor,
Herbert Ashman, who then became
Lord Mayor. Councillor Gollop’s
Exeter and District
At the beginning of our first meeting
of the season, we had a delightful
presentation by Charlie Murrell-
Edwards and Ewan Gibson who
received gap year grants from us for
their Cambodian project.
At our main speaker event, Air Cdre
Graham Pitchfork entitled his talk
‘The Men behind the Medals’, a
particularly apt topic for Battle of
Britain Day. He described the various
medals awarded and explained why
the colours in the ribbons were as they
are, all carefully designed by King
George VI.
Air Cdre Pitchfork then showed four
sets of medals awarded to the Air
Crew of Bomber Command, one set
awarded to a pilot who worked
covering the Arctic Convoy. The
DIALOGUE 54