2. 23-09-20 Air Pilots Tymms Lecture

I attended an excellent virtual lecture tonight “The Battle of Britain - After 80 Years Is It Still Important?” by Dr Michael Fopp, a Past Master of the Worshipful Company of Air Pilots, a keeper of the Royal Air Force Museum, and son of Des Fopp, a Battle of Britain pilot. The lecture was hosted by John Towell current Master of the Air Pilots.

Dr Michael Fopp’s knowledge of the events of the battle and the insights he gave were truly fascinating, right down to explaining the colour coding on the clocks in the Operations Room. He explained the events that led up to the battle and the factors that were key to our success, a combination of the pilots, planes, radar, control systems and of course errors by the Germans, but he hoped above all we would remember the people. This was Hitler’s first defeat. He also indicated what life might have been like if we had lost and recommended the 1964 film “It Happened Here” from the British Film Institute (BFI 1298) as well worth watching.

The lecture was followed by an equally fascinating question and answer session covering everything from the politicians of period to those clocks in the Operations Room. My thanks go to Dr Michael Fopp and the Worshipful Company of Air Pilots for a splendid virtual event that was well worth attending.

1. 21-09-20 Installation Ceremony

It was an enormous privilege to be installed as the 32^nd Master of the Water Conservators Company today and it is with great pleasure that I look forward serving the company in the year ahead. I would like to offer my thanks to my predecessor Mark Lane, and his consort Judy, for doing a splendid job under such difficult circumstances.

It was with great pleasure that I welcomed our Wardens for the coming year, Graham Howells, Martin Baggs and Christine Jarvis, plus three new Liverymen, Martin Bigg, Ramon Bravo, and Tony Williams.

It is a great shame that we could not all meet up under the present circumstances, however the virtual event ran very smoothly with my thanks to our Clerk, and also to Simon Catford for managing the technology.

Although the current restrictions do not allow us all to meet up physically, we have a number of virtual events planned in the short term that hopefully members will find interesting. These include a “Virtual Wine Tasting Evening” on 15^th October 2020 when members will have the opportunity to once again socially interact over a glass or two of wine. We are continuing the successful series of webinars with a fifth webinar by Andrew Taylor titled “Capital Digital Solutions” on 7th October 2020 and plans are progressing for a “Virtual Carol Service” in December with the Reverend Katherine Hedderly of All Hallows by the Tower.

Finally, we are still planning to go ahead with the annual sponsored walk on Sunday 4^th October to raise funds for the schools programme of the Water Conservation Trust with just 6 walkers to meet the guidelines. Please sponsor us if you can as the money goes towards encouraging water related science and environmental learning in schools.