In December 2024, Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, often referred to as the Soul of the City, reopened to the public after a devastating fire had threatened to destroy it 5 years earlier.  A seemingly impossible target had been set by the French President to rebuild; yet huge sums of donated money and teams of expert restorers ensured the timescale was met. Such is the symbolic power of this cultural icon in the psyche of the French people and indeed people beyond.

In 2022 the Royal School of Needlework (RSN) celebrated its 150th anniversary. It was founded to keep hand embroidery alive and to offer suitable occupation to educated women who would otherwise have been destitute. Today it is a thriving centre of hand embroidery education to the highest level. This lecture, goes behind the scenes to tell the story of the last 150 years and the School’s changing fortunes including: being part of the ‘Kensington set’; the links with the Arts and Crafts and Aestheticism movements; the connection with the SAS; the move to Hampton Court Palace and the variety of commissions the RSN has undertaken from wedding dresses to Oscar gowns and from runway garments to ecclesiastical vestments. It then adds work from the RSN's 151st year when the team worked on nine pieces for the 2023 coronation.

Mexico has a vast range of festivals. Visually splendid, many feature lavish processions and masked dances with richly decorated costumes. Although some festivals commemorate national events, most are religious in inspiration. After the Spanish conquest of 1521, priests used theatrical representation as a method of instruction. Traditionally, people display elaborate nativity scenes in their homes. The Christmas story is acted out in towns and villages: adults and children perform as shepherds and shepherdesses, hermits and devils. Other important celebrations include Saints' Days, All Souls' Day, and Carnival.

Charles John Huffam Dickens brought into the world a staggering array of wonderful characters with orphans, starving children, misers, murderers and abusive school teachers among them. People such as Mr Micawber, Fagin and Abel Magwitch remain in one’s literary psyche long after the books are put down. Largely self-educated, Dickens possessed the genius to become the greatest writer of his age with 15 major novels and countless short stories and articles. In his lecture Bertie Pearce looks at the life and places of Dickens through his characters. The talk is interspersed with readings of this works. A truly Dickensian experience. 

Beethoven’s deafness is well known. From an unparalleled quantity of documented material this lecture will describe in his own words the impact of his deafness on his mental and physical health and on his phenomenal outputs. The talk is also richly illustrated with extracts of recordings of his works. Less well known, is the decline in his physical health and failure of many of his organs – the causes which will be discussed. Clearly dying, and in the most appalling physical distress, he was able to produce works such as the 9th Symphony, ironically based on the Schiller’s ‘Ode to Joy’ – a contradiction that defies credulity. In a final twist the lecture will show that laboratory analysis in the past 5 years of Beethoven’s Christmas cards have helped unravel the cause of his health problems!