Our April talk

Travels round the edge of history

Our speaker, David Bowen, introduced his travel and history book-to-be, currently a blog, as "the fourth of three acts". David is a former business journalist, including eight years at the Independent, and founder of two companies reporting, analysing and consulting on online corporate communications. But he's always had a thing for history.

After a long haul of parental illness, David and his partner Donne were in search of somewhere to go that wasn’t Salisbury General Hospital. Destinations had to meet three criteria: historically fascinating, beautiful and relatively obscure. It's been a six year project, including his own year in hospital.

David brought a selection of stories for us: the sudden appearance of new land in the Azores; a scientist’s quest on Principe to prove Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, how Heligoland managed to be British and German at the same time; on the isle of Skye, the Fairy Flag, a magic banner to ward off enemies; and back to the Azores for a curious tale of Viking mice and the Goshawks, Açores, the archipelago was named after (even though they were probably another species).

Quote of the night goes to this, a headline from the New York Times, on the Einstein experiment: 'Light all skew in the heavens – Men Of Science More or Less Agog Over Results of Eclipse Observations’.

A big thank-you to David for an evening of historical wanderings. Follow his blog here on Substack, where you can also do his regular quiz based on a 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica. 

There was even a bonus Bowen: David’s daughter Megan, an opera and musical theatre singer. Find out more about Megan’s work here. 

A special mention, too, for Heather’s marvellously restorative Victoria sponge.

Our monthly coffee and catch-up

Friday 24th April, meet between 10.30 and 11.00 – Thingy Café, Trowbridge Gardens, 1 Trowbridge Road, E9 5LD

Easily accessible from Hackney Wick station (Mildmay line) and bus routes 276 and 488.

This is my last blogpost for East End WI after posting my witterings on here for some time, as I'm bidding a fond farewell to WI membership. You can look forward to fresh views, new voices and if you're lucky, pithier copy in the blogposts to come.