Our speaker on 27 February was Barbara Marlow. Born in Poland before the second world war, she told us about the harrowing times from 1940 to 1945 when as a young 9 year old school girl in a family of Jewish extraction she and her mother and grandmother endured the horrors of the Warsaw Jewish ghetto where huge numbers of Jewish families were crowded together with decreasing amounts of food and other supplies. 350,000 people were held in an area of 840 acres ie 1.3 sq miles. Her father and brother managed to escape by obtaining Rumanian passports by which they managed to get to the Rumanian embassy in Berlin and eventually to England via Paris. They hoped that the women of the family would be able to follow but this was not possible until after the war. Barbara told how she on occasion managed to escape from the ghetto and bring food back but she relived for us the cruelty of the German soldiers ransacking the home that they were expelled from. Her grandmother was taken on a crowded train to Treblinka extermination camp and Barbara never saw her again. Barbara herself was loaded into a train the destination of which she did not know, and she told us how she managed to escape by being thrown over the side, then walking many miles, to end up herding cows on a farm. Eventually she arrived in the UK as a fifteen year old school girl after the war, rapidly learned English, gained an education leading to an economics degree and eventually pursued a career as a professional economist. Barbara has since found her brother's diaries from his experiences as a pilot in the Polish army, which she has translated into English and published as a book. I will upload a link to that book as soon as I have more details.
The photos are downloaded from the internet and library copies of original Warsaw Ghetto photos.
more Alan Moss new District Governor visited the Club to talk about his year ahead. Please see the picture by our club cartoonist of her personal view of the event, a drawing much appreciated by DG Alan!
more Esmé Johnson, Senior Actuarial Analyst working for British Airways Pensions, spoke to us about her job, her life and her career
more Anita and her husband Stuart lived and worked on the Falkland Islands and Anita described some of their experiences and showed us some of her photos
more Eamonn Newell, manager and coach of the all-girls football team, the Twickenham Cygnets, will talk to us about the development of the club.
more How to care and cultivate mini trees revealed by our in-club expert David Kilvington
more Rachel Tranter told us about The Richmond Borough's Artwork, which she holds at Orleans Gallery
more Tom joined the club for a meal and chat, then talked to us about hearing loss
more Dennis Brock--(100yrs old) Chief Bell Ringer St Marys Church Sunbury--- Speaker "My memory of being a POW in Germany"
more Adele joined us on Tuesday 6th March for a pleasant meal at the Golf Club and then spoke at length about the League of Friends of the Hospital
more Chris Hack, one of our members outlined the ins and outs of being a Magistrate
more Our speaker Gerry Anderson spoke to us about the National Football League
more Merlin gave us a potted history of University education in the UK and expressed his personal views of educational progress in recent years, with an insight into some amusing somewhat darker stories! Very well presented and interesting.
more Our International Evening on 18 January 2016 had a New Zealand theme.
more Justine Parker spoke about developments in access to the Gardens for visitors with special needs.
more Joseph was speaking to us about the 23rd World Scout Jamboree in Japan
more Rachele Howes and her friends playing Mozart
more Amusing Stories from a fireman's life
more On 17 September 2013 Linda Cooley from Shepperton Wig Co. not only told us things we didn't know about wigs but also fitted members with those she thought most appropriate.
more Max Lankester of Friends of Richmond Park presented a review of the park's history
more Our speaker Ronald Porter spoke about three controversial figures from the latter half of the 20th century: Lord Boothby, Princess Margaret and Barbara Hutton.
more Chi from St Mary's stepped in at the last minute when Geoff Paul was unable to attend and gave us a wonderful presentation about the Charity funding course at the University and about her research project.
back Due to Covid-19 restrictions, we have been meeting via Zoom therefore the current presentations have been facilitated using the Zoom service. We plan to return to face to face speakers and events in the very near future