Meeting News from London by Padmassana

December 2006 London Meeting

The last meeting of 2006 was kicked off by Helena Drysdale, whose talk was called Strangerland – a family at war. It was really a snapshot of Helena’s own family history, the tale of her great great grandfather’s governorship of 19th century New Zealand. He was a governor in India before being posted to New Zealand. His time there included the turmoil of the wars between the local Maoris and the European settlers. Helena’s research into her family included hours studying records and documents, eventually she even found a record of the ship that delivered her great great grandmother to new Zealand. Helena’s book Strangerland – a family at war is published by Picador.

After the break it was off to the Sahara desert with John Pilkington. John’s journey began on the river Niger in Mali to the fabled city of Timbuktu. John’s aim was to head into the desert following the camel caravan route to the salt mines of Tal Deni. First he had to find himself some camels and a guide. The camel market provided both and after a couple of days of buying essentials, tea, sugar, rice it was off into the desert for the 450 mile trip. The salt mines are open pits, the purest salt is well below the surface. John showed us the giant blocks which are marked with the individual miners name before being loaded onto camels for the return trip. The blocks are all sold, except one block which is delivered to the miners’ family for them to sell.

By Padmassana

Coming Next:

Saturday 6 January 2007

4 Mini Talks and our New Year Party – Our January meeting gives four speakers to present 20 minute talks, an opportunity to introduce subjects within a tighter format. We hope that talks may include topics that couldn’t be sustained over a normal 40 minute talk or offer a launch for new speakers. By tradition we follow this meeting with a New Year Party post-meeting – everyone is invited to bring food and drink and participate !

London meetings are held at The Church of Scotland, Crown Court, behind the Fortune Theatre in Covent Garden at 2.30pm the first Saturday of each month. There is no London meeting in August. For more information, you can contact the Globetrotters Info line on +44 (0) 20 8674 6229, or visit the website: www.globetrotters.co.uk



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