THE MISBOURNE CLUB

March 2026

John Graves The Golden Age of Cruising

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Pre-retirement John was the Curator of Ship History at National Maritime Museum. Illustrating his talk with pictures from the Museum's extensive range of photographs, he deftly charted the progress of shipboard photography from the end of the World War 1 to the 1960s when personal cameras came to the fore.

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A fascinating insight into the premier photography company of the age, MLS.

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February 2026

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Timandra Slade From a Hard Place to a Rock

 

The talk described exploits of two members of the speaker's family during World War II.

The speaker’s father Captain Chris Waters of the Royal Engineers and his cousin Captain Jimmy Johnson of the Royal Welch Fusiliers were with the British Expeditionary Force in the defence of Dunkirk. In late May 1940, Jimmy was shot and captured near the Belgium border. Chris was captured after his regiment, which was attached to the 51st Highland Division, was forced to surrender at St-Valéry defending Calais.

 

Both men separately managed to escape their German captors and, each accompanied by a fellow officer, began to work their way through France into Spain. Having crossed the Pyrenees they were both re-captured but this time by the Spanish.  With significant support from the British officials working in neutral Spain both were released and by an extraordinary coincidence met up in Barcelona.

 

Eventually the escapers, now in a large group of escaped soldiers, arrived in Gibraltar. It was not the safe haven they had hoped for it was here that events in west Africa led to a Vichy bombing raid on Gibraltar and not all of the original escapees were to complete a 'home run'.

 

Chris and Jimmy recorded their escape in journals with Jimmy also writing many letters home from internment in France. The presenter’s unique access to this material provide a vivid account of what it was like to be “on the run” in Nazi occupied France.

 

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JANUARY 2026   

Peter Spring Safer Driving for Seniors

 

Peter Spring broke his talk into four parts,

The current environment for older drivers

Challenges faced by older drivers

A quick 'test' on the lesser known parts of the Highway Code

Strategies for handling the challenges

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DECEMBER 2025

Paul Whittle  ​River Kwai Railway - The True Story

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The infamous Burma-Thailand WW2 ‘Death Railway’, the iconic 1957 film – and the many differences between fact and film-making!

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​Paul explained that the plot and characters of the film were almost entirely fictional with many historical inaccuracies.

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The conditions which POW and civilian labourers were subjected were far worse than the film depicted. During the railway's construction approximately 13,000 prisoners of war died together with an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 civilians.

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Lieutenant Colonel Philip Toosey of the British Army was the real senior Allied officer at the bridge in question. Toosey was very different from Nicholson in the film and was certainly not a collaborator who felt obliged to work with the Japanese. In fact, Toosey strove to delay construction. While Nicholson disapproves of acts of sabotage and other deliberate attempts to delay progress, Toosey encouraged this.

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All-in-all a fascinating talk dispelling the many inaccuracies of the film

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