16th October 2016

Dear All,

It has been the start of the new U3A term this week, Kate has enrolled for a course on “Joints, Muscles and Nerves”, I am back on “Biographies” and we are both going to “60s Music” as well as “Rambling”. We are not teaching “Just Vegetating” until after Christmas as we plan to miss a couple of weeks in the USA this term.

“60s Music” is headed up by Rob Turvey who some of you may have met at my 70^th. It is nostalgic trip but amazing how many of the records don’t seem to sound quite as good as they did then!

Q. What was the best selling record of the 60s?

A.” She loves You” – The Beatles

Q. What was no.3 on the list?

A. “Tears” – Ken Dodd!

The topic of “Biographies” was Brendan Bracken. He was quite an influential politician but I had never heard of him. He was born in Ireland, ran away from school at 14, sent to Australia, conned his way into teaching jobs, became an MP then Churchill’s private secretary in the war and Minister of Information after the war. He was a Jeffrey Archer type of character who was always stretching the truth and claiming things that were fantasies.

I had a garden club talk in Hitchin on Wednesday night talking about “Costa Rica” and Thursday missed the walk in favour of visiting the seed trade open days in Lincolnshire accompanied by David Cook and Lawrie Gray. We managed 6 out of the 7 sites mainly featuring new varieties and developments in Brassicas. The main trends were developments in long stemmed broccoli to replace Tenderstem and the reintroduction of Collards.

Collards

Calabrini long stemmed broccoli

New purple cauliflower

Sakata display

New Beauty Heart Radish

Elsom’s Kale trial

We were on Street Pastor duties on Friday night and it was fairly busy with new students and the continued increased presence of street life folk. The two low points were finding a young couple of street people in a doorway who had been urinated on by a drunk and a boy who had only been on the streets for a couple of weeks – he had gone to sleep and someone had stolen his shoes. “Jimmy’s” the Cambridge night shelter is full every night and the excess have to rough it, but folk come in hoping for easy pickings from tourists as well as access to the night shelter facilities.

We both had ‘flu jabs yesterday, (me for the first time) and helped Gillian & Richard Law celebrate their Golden Wedding Anniversary at the Crown in Girton. We are out again lunchtime today joining the leader of “Biographies” David Miles-Dinham for his birthday.

Love

Mike & Kate