Talking History Archives - The MrT Podcast Studio MrT

Season 2023 - Talk 11 04- Going to the Pictures



In 'Going to the Pictures' Tim Davies tells us about the history of the projected image in the 'silent era'.



Click a thumbnail below to view the image gallery that accompanies the talk.












The Magic Lantern:

The talk starts in the age of the Magic Lantern. These project pictures such as paintings, prints and photographs. The slides are usually transparent glass plates. First appearing in the 17th century they are often used for entertainment by travelling showmen, conjurers and storytellers.



In the 17th century the only artificial light is from candles and oil lamps giving very dim projected images. By the 1820s we start to see the much brighter Limelight and then in the 1860s the electric arc lamp, which removes the need for combustible gases and hazardous chemicals.



The magic lantern can project moving images with movement achieved in a number of ways such as two glass slides projected together. One has the stationary part of the picture and the other the moving part, maybe a train passing through a landscape.



What the Butler saw:



The Mutoscope is an early motion picture device appearing in 1895. It is a coin-in-the-slot peep-show which only one person at a time can view. It operates like a flip book with black-and-white prints attached to a circular core. A reel typically holds about 850 pictures, giving a viewing time of about one minute



The Birth of the Cinema in Britain:



Leeds claims the world's first moving picture shot by Louis Le Prince in 1888. In 1889 and William Friese Greene makes the first celluloid film in Hyde Park.



Listen to the podcast and hear the whole story from Tim.



Unfortunately I have not been able to remove all the external noises.

About this podcast:

This is an edited recording of a talk given to the Farnham u3a World History  Group .



This podcast is also available through Amazon Music,  Apple Podcasts,  Castbox, Deezer, Podchaser, Spotify, Stitcher , Vurbl , You Tube and others.



AKM Music licenses Media Magazine for use the music in this talk.



© The MrT Podcast Studio and Farnham u3a World History Group 2018 - 2024

Season 2023 - Talk 11 03- Sarah Bernhardt



In 'Sarah Bernhardt' Jo Watson tells us about the life of the legendary French actress.



Please note: this talk was given in June 2023, the centenary year of Sarah Bernhardt's death.



Click a thumbnail below to view the image gallery that accompanies the talk.
















Early years:

Sarah Bernhardt is born as Henriette-Rosine Bernard in Paris on 22 October 1844. Her mother is a courtesan with a wealthy or upper-class clientele. For a long time there is no record of her father, however his family pay for her education, insist on a Catholic baptism, and arrange for a large sum money when she comes of age.



Career:



She becomes a stage actress and stars in some of the more popular French plays of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These include La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas fils, Ruy Blas by Victor Hugo, Fédora and La Tosca by Victorien Sardou.



She also plays male roles, including Shakespeare's Hamlet. Rostand calls her "the queen of the pose and the princess of the gesture", and Victor Hugo praises her "golden voice". She makes several theatrical tours around the world, and she is one of the early famous actresses to make sound recordings and to act in films.

Advertising:



She is also linked with the success of artist Alphonse Mucha, she publicises his work and he creates posters of her. Mucha becomes a sought-after artist because of his Art Nouveau style.



Listen to the podcast and hear the whole story from Jo.



Unfortunately I have not been able to remove all the coughs and some external noises.

About this podcast:

This is an edited recording of a talk given to the Farnham u3a World History  Group .



It is frequently not possible to use all of the images presented in the original talk because of copyright reasons.



This podcast is also available through Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts,  Castbox, Deezer, Podchaser, Spotify, Stitcher and Vurbl and others.



AKM Music licenses Media Magazine for use the music in this talk.



© The MrT Podcast Studio and Farnham u3a World History Group 2018 - 2024

Season 2023 - Talk 11.02 - Max Miller



In 'Max Miller' Adrian Martin tells us the life story of the music hall comedian billed as the 'Cheeky Chappie'. You'll appreciate from that billing that his humour is not always politically correct. Indeed it could be described as 'nudge, nudge, wink, wink... you know what I mean' humour. There are a couple of examples in this talk.

Early Life?

He is born born as Thomas Henry Sargent in November 1894 in Kemptown, a part of  Brighton.  His father is a labourer and his mother a flower seller. There are six children including Thomas and his parents are poor.



Often unable to pay rent they move frequently and he attends a number of schools. He leaves school at the age of 12.



He tries his hand at labouring, delivering milk, selling fish and chips, caddying at the Brighton and Hove Golf Course, and trains to be a motor mechanic.

World War 1

On the outbreak of war in 1914 he volunteers for the army and joins the Royal Sussex Regiment . He serves in France, India and  Mesopotamia, where he suffers temporary blindness for three days. This experience stays with him all his life.

Demob:

When he leaves the army work is short supply, and his mother has died in the 1918 flu pandemic. He gets a booking at the Shoreditch Hall in 1919 but only lasts a week because of his inexperience.



Miller returns to Brighton and sees an advertisement for artists to join Jack Sheppard's concert party in an alfresco theatre on Brighton beach. He joins as a light comedian for the 1919 summer season. His future wife, Frances Kathleen Marsh, is a contralto in the group.



Kathleen is from a middle-class family and her elder brother serves as a Brighton alderman for 43 years, becoming mayor  from 1949 to 1950.



It is Kathleen, an astute businesswoman, who suggests  that he should change his name to Max Miller.



Listen to Adrian tell the full story.



This is an edited recording of a talk given to the Farnham u3a World History  Group . Sadly in a few places there is slight distortion on the recording.



It is not possible to use the images presented in the original talk because of copyright reasons.



This podcast is also available through Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts,  Castbox, Deezer, Podchaser, Spotify, Stitcher and Vurbl and others.



AKM Music licenses Media Magazine for use the music in this talk.



© The MrT Podcast Studio and Farnham u3a World History Group 2018 - 2024

Season 2023 - Talk 11.01 - Dame Margaret Rutherford



In 'Dame Margaret Rutherford' Wendy Senior tells the story of the life of this famous British actress.

Early Life?

There is tragedy in her early life involving both of her parents. Her father is the journalist and poet William Rutherford Benn who marries Florence Nicholson on 16 December 1882 in Wandsworth, South London.



He suffers a nervous breakdown shortly after the marriage, and is admitted to Bethnal House Lunatic Asylum. They release him so that he can travel under his family's supervision. He then murders his father, the Reverend Julius Benn, by bludgeoning him to death with a chamber pot, before slashing his own throat with a pocket knife.



Following the inquest, William Benn is certified insane and is sent to Broadmoor. He is discharged seven years later, in July 1890, and reunites with his wife.



Margaret is the only child of William and Florence and is born in 1892 in Balham.  The family plan a new life far from the scene of their recent troubles. They emigrate to Madras (now Chennai). The three year old Margaret returns to Britain to live with her aunt Bessie Nicholson in Wimbledon, after her pregnant mother hangs herself from a tree.



The family tell Margaret that her father dies of a broken heart. However, when she is 12 she learns that her father has been in Broadmoor since 1903. He stays there until he dies on 4 August 1921. She fears, for the rest of her life, that she might succumb to similar illnesses. In later years she suffers from intermittent depression and anxiety.

Education:

She first goes to Wimbledon High School (now a theatre space, the Rutherford Centre). When she is 13 she starts to board at Raven's Croft School in Seaford.



She develops an interest in the theatre and performs in amateur dramatics, however the teachers at the school suggest that she should teach the piano.

Acting:

Her aunt, in her will, leaves a legacy that allows Margaret to enter the Old Vic School to train as an actress. In her autobiography she writes that Aunt Bessie has been her "adoptive mother and one of the saints of the world".



She establishes a name in comedy and appears in many successful British plays and films. "I never intended to play for laughs. I am always surprised that the audience thinks me funny at all", she writes in her autobiography.



Her first appearance in London's West End is in 1933. It takes six years for her to become well known when she plays Miss Prism in John Gielgud's production of The Importance of Being Earnest at the Globe Theatre in 1939. Rave reviews follow in 1941 when she plays Madame Arcati in Noël Coward's Blithe Spirit.



Listen to the full story in Wendy's talk.



This is an edited recording of a talk given to the Farnham u3a World History  Group . Sadly in a few places there is slight distortion on the recording.



It is not possible to use the images presented in the original talk because of copyright reasons.



This podcast is also available through Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts,  Castbox, Deezer, Podchaser, Spotify, Stitcher and Vurbl and others.



AKM Music licenses Media Magazine for use the music in this talk.



© The MrT Podcast Studio and Farnham u3a World History Group 2018 - 2024

Season 2023 - Talk 10 - The Border Reivers



In 'The Border Reivers' David Simpson tells us about these bandits who plundered the English / Scottish border counties from the 13th Century to the Union of the Crowns in 1603.



Click a thumbnail below to view the image gallery that accompanies the talk.












































































Who?

Border raiders from every class in society operating in the north of England and south of Scotland. People for whom loyalty to family is much more important than to country.



The rustling of livestock their principle business. According to Bishop Leslie of Ross 'they have a persuasion that all property is common by the law of nature; and is therefore liable to be appropriated by them in their necessity'.

Why:

In the 300 years between the end of the 13th Century and the Union of the Crowns in 1603 the border counties of Berwickshire, Roxburghshire, Dumfriesshire, Northumberland, Cumberland and Westmoreland are pretty poor and desolate.



This is not land for arable crops and so people keep cattle to provide an income and food. Neither the Scottish nor English Crowns have estates here and therefore do not have a financial interest. These lands are also far from the lawmakers of Edinburgh and London.

A dinner of spurs:



It is said that the wife of one famous Border Reiver demonstrated that her larder was empty by serving her husband his spurs on a plate instead of his dinner. The message is clear either mount up and go reiving, or go hungry.

Their legacy:

Some view the Border Reivers as loveable rogues, others compare them to the Mafia. Whatever your opinion, their legacy remains in the fortified dwellings called pele towers, their ballads and words now common in the English language such as 'bereave' and 'blackmail'.



Listen to the podcast and hear the whole story from David.



Unfortunately I have not been able to remove all the coughs and some external noises.

About this podcast:

This is an edited recording of a talk given to the Farnham u3a World History  Group .



It is frequently not possible to use all of the images presented in the original talk because of copyright reasons.



This podcast is also available through Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts,  Castbox, Deezer, Podchaser, Spotify, Stitcher and Vurbl and others.



AKM Music licenses Media Magazine for use the music in this talk.



© The MrT Podcast Studio and Farnham u3a World History Group 2018 - 2024

Season 2023 - Talk 09 - Mao Zedong



In Mao Zedong Alan Freeland tells us about the life of Mao and Chinese Communism until his death in 1976.



Click a thumbnail below to view the image gallery that accompanies the talk.


































Childhood:

Mao was born on 26 December 1893 and spends his childhood at Shaoshan village in Hunan. His father, once an impoverished peasant, becomes one of the wealthier farmers in the area. He is a stern disciplinarian who beats Mao, who finds that if he meekly accepts the beating it is worse than when he stands up to his father.



He finishes his primary education at the age of 13 and then, aged 14, his father makes him go through an arranged marriage to 17-year-old Luo Yixiu. Mao refuses to  recognise her as his wife and in later years bans arranged marriages.

Changsha:

In his quest to become a teacher, Mao enrolls at the Fourth Normal School of Changsha. This merges with the First Normal School of Hunan, widely seen as the best in Hunan.



Professor Yang Changji urges him to read the radical New Youth newspaper, written by his friend Chen Duxiu who is a dean at Peking University and also a supporter of Chinese nationalism.



In 1915 the popular Mao is elected secretary of the Students Society where he organises the Association for Student Self-Government and leads protests against school rules.



In April 1917 he publishes his first article in New Youth and instructs his readers to increase their physical strength to serve the revolution. At this time he is also elected to command the students' volunteer army which defends the school from marauding soldiers.

Becoming more radical:



Mao moves to Beijing, where Yang Changji has taken a job at Peking University. Yang, who thinks that Mao is exceptionally 'intelligent and handsome', arranges a job for him as assistant to the university librarian, Li Dazhao. Li is a co-founder of the Chinese Communist party in 1921.



Listen to the podcast and hear the whole story from Andrew.



Unfortunately coughs and colds abounded at the time of this recording and I have not been able to remove all of them..

About this podcast:

This is an edited recording of a talk given to the Farnham u3a World History  Group .



It is frequently not possible to use all of the images presented in the original talk because of copyright reasons.



This podcast is also available through Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Castbox, Deezer, Podchaser, Spotify, Stitcher and Vurbl and others.



AKM Music licenses Media Magazine for use the music in this talk.



© The MrT Podcast Studio and Farnham u3a World History Group 2018 - 2024