LATEST NEWS

Our November Social Evening on 5 November 2008 took the form of a Quiz.  Members had their brains taxed on what could be argued as one of the hardest quizzes we have had.  50 questions later we had our winning team who scored 39 out of 50.  Visit our gallery page to view pictures of the evening.

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Details of our forthcoming Christmas Dinner Party and Panto Party can be found on our events page.  If you intend coming to either or both, please remember to enclose a stamped addressed envelope with your booking form.   

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Our October speaker was Nessie Isaac who spoke to us about her relative, Dame Nellie Melba.  She was born Helen Porter Mitchell in Melbourne, Australia in May 1861 and died February 1931.  Her family was musical and Nellie's musical talent came to the fore when she attended school.  She was a legendary Australian opera soprano and probably the most famous of all sopranos and was the first Australian to achieve international recognition in the form. 

She married Charles Nisbett Frederick Armstrong, the son of a baronet, and had one son.  She travelled to Europe with her family to begin a musical career.  Having not had any success in London, she travelled to Paris and Madame Mathilde Marchesi agreed to tutor her.  Dame Nellie Melba's first starring role was at the Theatre de la Monnaie, Brussels.  She returned to London ensuring her success with the audience at Convent Garden.  Thus began a professional career in Australia and England and soon she became a prima donna at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden through to the 1920s.  She was distinguished by royalty and always earned at least one shilling per performance more than any other singer.  It was Madame Mathilde Marchesi who persuaded her to adopt a stage name and Melba was chosen as an incongruity of her native city.  Dame Nellie Melba also sang in New York and Chicago and also at Oscar Hammerstein's opera house.  She was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1918 for her charity work during World War I, and was elevated to Dame Grand Cross in 1927.  She and Dame May Whitty were the first entertainers to be awarded the honour of Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE). 

Melba's official "farewell" to Covent Garden in 1926 was recorded.  Her voice still sounds remarkably fresh, and at the end of the evening she makes a tearful speech to the audience.  The real final performance was a mere matinee in Adelaide, ending perhaps the most stellar operatic career which had begun in 1887. From this, she is remembered in the vernacular Australian expression "more farewells than Nellie Melba".   Her autobiography "Melodies and Memories" was published in 1925.

She returned to Australia but died in St. Vincent's Hospital, Sydney in 1931 aged 69 of septicaemia. She was given a state funeral from Scots' Church, Melbourne, which her father had built and where as a teenager she had sung in the choir. She was buried in Lilydale, near Coldstream.  Her headstone has her farewell words "Addio, senza rancor" (Farewell, without bitterness).

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Our Meet the Cast Party for The Business of Murder on Friday 1 August 2008 was a very successful evening with lots of members coming along to meet the cast.  We all had a wonderful evening with plenty of banter from the cast even though there were only three of them.  Stephen Beckett, Nick Waring and of course Jacqueline Roberts chatted with members, signed autographs and posed for photographs all evening even though they must have been shattered after their performance.  Jacqueline unfortunately had suffered a nasty injury prior to rehearsals which meant that she was performing the play on crutches.  We do wish her a speedy recovery but couldn't resist signing her plaster.  Please visit our gallery page to see some of the photographs taken from that evening.

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Unfortunately Rhona Ray could not join us for our Social Evening in July as she is currently poorly.  We are all thinking of her and do all hope that she is feeling a lot better soon.

Our friend Ruth kindly stepped in and her subject matter was the life story of Anna Leonowens- on whose life the musical The King and I was based.  Its script is based on the book Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon and is 75% fact and 25% fiction. 

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Brian Quick entertained us in June with his talk on Nicknames saying that they go right back to biblical times - Simon nicknamed the Rock, John the Baptist and Thomas Didymus just to mention some.  We have also had Edward the Confessor and William the Conqueror.  A well-coined nickname is supposed to summarise an individual's reputation, personality, or principal characteristic and if it's good, or funny, it will stick like these few mentioned.    A thoroughly entertaining evening was had by all with Brian taking us on our travels through Swansea and the surrounding area filling us in on the village nicknames of certain people.

The raffle was won by Gina Gamage who had two tickets for Westenders

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We recently enjoyed a lovely talk from Iris Gower who returned once again for our regular Wednesday Social Evening.  She is currently carrying out a lot of research for her new book which she is in the middle of writing.  The story is set in the war and is placed in Hamburg, Germany and she will soon be jetting off to carry out further research there.  It is a story about two sisters who are in love with the same man.  Iris is still not sure which sister he will end up with.  One of the sisters is based in a munitions factory in Bridgend and Iris intends visiting the remains of the prisoner of war camp there.  The other sister is based in Hamburg and Iris intends visiting there also. 

The sister named Meryl is caught as she is thought to be a spy, but eventually she does manage to get out or is released.  Iris said that when reading the book a lot of people will think that she is writing about herself as when she is writing about Meryl she writes in the 1st person, however this is not the case. 

Iris has recently visited Australia, Tasmania, Singapore, Thailand and Africa.  She was so enthralled with Africa that she may write a book about it one day.

Iris said that it is fascinating being a writer and a remarkable world to be in, however publishers are having a difficult time at the moment due to the economical climate.  She has been on the best sellers list for some 20 years which is a remarkable achievement.  She told us that she never knows what she is going to write until she sits down to start and would be lost without her writing as it is her life. 

The evening ended with our monthly raffle which was one by Mrs Linda Carter who very kindly asked is to draw it again when the lucky winner was Eileen Palmer. 

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The Committee met for the first time this financial year on Wednesday 16 April 2008 and a new list of the Committee members can be found on the Committee page. 

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If you have anything which you feel may be of interest to other club members then please either use the contact button to the left of this screen and email us or alternatively contact any member of the committee and we will update our web site accordingly.  You may have a new addition to the family, passed an exam, run a marathon, organised a charity event or even got married, whatever your news is please feel free to share it with us.   

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Our speaker in April was Mr David Howells who spoke on Rick's School in Ghana.  In 2000 he started doing volunteer work in schools around Swansea to help children reading Welsh.   In 2004 he paid his first visit to Ghana.  He explained that he completed a course in Leeds and had a choice of 32 countries to visit and chose Ghana.  Since 2004 he has been there 4 times during June/July and August.  He has been made an African Chief which means that he sits in on marriage problems, land disputes etc. and is known to them as "Uncle Dave" or Uncle Dave Yaw" (Yaw because he was born on a Thursday). 

Poverty in Ghana is astonishing and since he has been involved in Rick's School the total amount of funds raised has been £17,400 which Blaenymaes School having contributed the most.  He explained that he had to cross open sewers to get to the other side of the road and there are constantly black fumes coming from cars.  In order to get to Rick's School he had to walk 1.5 miles from where he was staying and in doing so passed 15 places of worship.  80% of the population are Christian and 20% are Muslim.  There is no medical care at all.

Mr Howells explained that it costs families £1 per week to send their child to school, however there were no pens and the classroom furniture had been knocked up.  Luckily, Mr Howells had taken a suitcase full of books, pens etc. when he went over there and the teachers broke down in tears when they saw the gifts he had to offer.   He was told that the children patronise the books that have since been sent out there.  Mother's make the school uniforms, however some children wear uniforms which have been handed down over the years.  Classes are separated only by a thin board and the teachers earn £0.55 a day.

The youngest child at Rick's School is 2.5 years old whilst the oldest is 11.  The children speak 3 African languages and English.  When they realised that Wales had it's own language Uncle Dave had to recite The Lords Prayer in Welsh.  At the age of 16 the children sit and exam which is the equivalent to our "O" Levels, however when they qualify there are no jobs there for them. 

All the money collected had so far built Rick's School a library, paid for a roof to be put on the nursery, they now have running water, toilets have been built and more furniture has been installed.  Uncle Dave has a contact over three who he trusts implicitly and this person takes the money sent over to the bank, makes enquiries with the school as to what's requires and then buys it and forwards all receipts back to the UK as proof of what monies have been spent.

The children had never been on a school trip until Uncle Dave made arrangements for 138 of them to visit a zoo.  Astonishingly they all got onto one bus and spent some 7 hours there at a total cost of £45.  The children had a fantastic time.

The draw this month was won by Angela Davies-Smith who won 2 tickets for Under Milk Wood. 

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Our speaker in March was Mr Martin Humphreys who gave us an excellent talk on birds.  Mr Humphreys explained that he had worked for the RSPB in Clydach before becoming self employed and used to give talks on what works the RSPB had carried out on the various reserves but it soon became apparent to him that a lot of the questions he was asked were about the public's involvement with wildlife.

He explained the various threats to wildlife; how farming is governed by European legislation and how the chemical input is affecting mainly the woodland and farmland birds who are trying to adapt to human situation.  Since World War II we have lost about 98% of woodland meadows and as a result we are beginning to lose birds which were once very common such as the Skylark and Lapwing (about 80% of lapwings have been lost in the last 30 years and roughly 40% of yellow hammers/bunting). 

Gardens are becoming increasingly important - 70% of people thought they should consider wildlife when planning their gardens, 38% would like to do more if they knew what and 16% had planted something in the garden in order to attract wildlife.  Mr Humphreys explained that everyone can do something to attract wildlife - from those with acres of garden to those who only have window boxes.  There is no reason why an average garden shouldn't attract between 30 and 40 different species of birds.  Even if you do feed regularly and you think the same birds are visiting, they are not.  Birds are very mobile.  They watch each other and when one swoops for food, they all swoop.  Birds need to find 40% of their body weight to survive each day - they're under a lot of pressure. 

High calorie foods - sunflower hearts, peanut, natural coconut, cat food, dog food, cheese, currants, sultanas, apples, fat balls and fruit.  Brown bread is better than white but we shouldn't make it the main source of food and should break it up quite fine.  The recommendation is that we feed our birds all year.

There are different methods of feeders - hanging suspended feeders, bird tables, the floor itself.  Robins in particular like feeding off the floor, however be careful not to put too much out so that it stays there overnight and attracts rodents.  For most birds, the simpler things are the best. 

Mr Humphrey's finished off his talk showing us a nesting box which he had made and explaining that it didn't have to be positioned very high, just as long as it was not in direct sunlight.  He explained that before they leave the box if the clutch is not complete the females would cover the eggs to stop predators.  If all eggs could be seen then the clutch was complete.  Even if one egg is a fortnight older than the last egg in the clutch, all the eggs would hatch together.

Our draw was won by Mrs C E Lougher-Harris who won two tickets to see Over the Rainbow

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Our first speaker for 2008 was Swansea Artist Mr Tony Paultyn, who spoke to us about The Mumbles Railway.  Whilst he was born in Carmarthen his parents moved to Germany and there he grew up until his parents moved back to Wales when he was 6 years of age.  Tony's first language was German.  When he left school he joined the civil Service, however he wanted to be an animation artist.  He was all set to go to London to carry out his training when he met his wife and so settled down Swansea.

The idea of the Mumbles Railway started in July 1804 in the Bush Hotel by Sir John Morris who was a wealthy landowner.  A group of people gathered in the bush Hotel to discuss the possibility of a railroad between Mumbles and the docks area of Swansea in order to carry goods such as rocks and coal.  Until then the only way of transporting these goods was by boats across Swansea Bay.  The Act of Parliament passed which gave permission to create the 5 mile railway in 1804 was worded in such a way as the line could use mechanical power in addition to the horses to draw the wagons and carriages.  At the time this was seen as being very controversial. 

In 1807 Benjamin French came up with the proposal of the conversion of an iron carriage in order to carry passengers.  He agreed to pay the company £20 a year for the privilege of operating his passenger service on their line.  However Benjamin French was determined to make his passenger carriage run faster and so he experimented with attaching a sail to the carriage which, whilst reducing the time to some 45 minutes, was not always reliable as a strong wind was not always forthcoming.  In the beginning only 6 passengers could be transported, however by 1900 - 1920 the railway carried some 1,800 passengers.  The line became electrified in 1929.

There were 10 stations from Swansea to Mumbles:-

Swansea Rutland Street, "The Slip" - closest stop to Victoria Park and the Brangwyn Hall, Brynmill, Ashleigh Road, Blackpill - closest stop to Clyne Park and Blackpill Lido, west Cross, Norton Road, Oystermouth, Southend, Mumbles Pier.

The generators were housed roughly half way in Blackpill where the Junction Restaurant is today and they were the largest turbine generators in the UK and costs £250,000.

The then South Wales Transport seemed to favour the bus transport and in 1958 they were forced to announce that they intended to get rid of the Railway. The Mumbles Railway stopped on 5 January 1960 however the last day that the public travelled on it was 4 January 1960.  A complete tram was offered to the Royal Institution of South Wales Museum but the curator refused it as he felt that it was of no historical interest.  One complete tram was taken to Leeds and subsequently vandalised. 

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DID YOU KNOW ........... ?

Posters are dotted around the theatre on all floors informing you of various Club events?

Tours of the theatre are organised throughout the year?

The Arts Wing have some excellent shows throughout the year if you don't fancy what's on the main stage?

There are 8 seats designed for the larger person situated as follows:-

        Stalls - Row H Seat 1,  Row J Seat 1,  Row M Seat 30 and Row N Seat 31

        Grand Circle - Row B Seat 35,  Row C Seat 41,  Row E Seat 1 and Row F Seat 1

You can call into Footlights for a coffee to get away from the busy crowds out shopping?

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Our Meet The Cast Parties are a great opportunity to meet the stars of the shows and are held after the evening performance in the Grand Circle Bar.

There is a small entrance fee, (£2.50 for members and £3.00 for non-members), for which you receive either a glass of wine or a soft drink and a visit to our well-stocked buffet table.  The bar will be open for all other drinks.

Cast members are very happy to sign autographs and have their photograph taken with you.  A raffle is usually held with various prizes on offer.

Next Party - see events page

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Please visit our Links Page to take you to the Grand Theatre web site and also visit our Events Page to see details of forthcoming trips we have planned.