http://www.probusclubellesmere.org.uk/

Ellesmere Probus Club, Ellesmere (2026)

18/02/2026

Special Notice: since this meeting Ellesmere Probus Club were very sad to receive the news that our much-loved President Victor Hyde has passed away unexpectedly and peacefully on holiday in Tenerife. Our thoughts and prayers are with his widow Tess and their family.

The next meeting of Ellesmere Probus Club will be on 19th February Tullis Matson ‘Nature is Safe’, March 05th Matthew Lanham on ‘The Lineal Trust’ then March 19th Simon Brown talking on ‘Video piracy’ and April 2nd Andrew Wood on ‘Snailbeach Mine’. Our Probus meetings are held at the Comrades Club, Victoria Street, Ellesmere on alternate Thursdays in winter and once a month in summer commencing from 10.00am until midday with coffee/tea and generally a speaker. Ex-cellent breakfast options are available beforehand from 9.00am. New members (ladies and gents) even just for a ‘taster session’ are always welcome and there is an interesting and varied speak-er programme across the year plus an annual outing and lunch. The outing in June 2026 will be to Birmingham Museum and Library by Lakeside Coaches and the annual lunch in October at The Boathouse, Ellesmere.

Speaker: Richard Westwood-Brookes

Ellesmere Probus Club Vice-President Denise Copley welcomed the 40 members present.

Following apologies Treasurer Jo Jutson reminded that Probus membership (£30.00 annually) is due and Comrades Club annual membership (£12.00) is due which Probus members are always encouraged to join. Members were invited to Birthday congratulations were given to Peter Roth (99) and Trish Pritchard (93) before introducing todays speaker, our new member Richard West-wood-Brooke.

Richard told us that he had been an auctioneer for 30 years, specialising in ephemera and histor-ical documents. He had made occasional ‘valuable finds’ and sometimes the opposite. Examples are:
1. A Birmingham man brought in a Christmas card dated 1944, signed by Montgomery, Eisen-hower and the top D-Day generals. There are numerous fakes of these in circulation. After questions by Richard he said “I made it. I was one of the cartographers at the time and Monty asked me to make a series of these cards”. It was worth about £1000.00. He then rummaged for a series of hand-made maps of Northern Europe all strung together. Notes had been writ-ten contemporaneously on the maps detailing where troops were going, the location of individ-ual battles and skirmishes. Richard identified it s a major historical document. No-one would otherwise have known the detail of the events from Allied movements from D-day beaches to Hamburg. Eton College bought it for £20,000.00
2. A client from Essex collected printed ‘Acts of Parliament’ which are generally fairly worthless but some quite valuable such as ‘The Act of Union’ which merged the Kingdom of England with the Kingdom of Scotland. Richard visited and expected to see some ‘rubbish’. In the collection were some rare examples such as the ‘Culloden Act’ of 1746 which aimed at pacifying the Highlands and preventing future Jacobite rebellions. He then produced a poster ‘Wanted, Dead or Alive’ which had been circulated to trace Oliver Cromwell. Following this discovery the press went wild, BBC interviewed Richard over the poster. An Irishman expressed interest in it and offered £10,000 to him. However, due to its rarity it went to auction and made £38,000.00
3. The ‘bad guys’ in history commend more interest than the ‘good guys’. A retired police officer was selling his collection including a set of photographs given to him by the Met, original mug-shots of the Kray twins who had deserted national service aged 18. The photographs made £17,000.00 at auction.
4. A lady in Wolverhampton had fallen on hard times. Richard visited and she showed him some photographs of a WW1 plane crash. She told him that the plane had been his father’s who was a flying ace, had been shot down but survived. Richard estimated it at £100.00. She then pro-duced a hand-written note reading “Dear English, I have today shot down one of your pilots and he is in the care of Germany” signed by Ludwig Bolker, a German ace. The note had been dropped behind Allied lines from Bolker’s plane and amazingly had been picked up off the ground. It was practice at the time for dog-fighting pilots to have great respect for each other and this note was extremely rare. The lady attended the auction, bidding started at £5,000.00 and closed at £25,000.00.
5. A lady brought in a small piece of wall-paper with a supporting provenance letter. It claimed to have been taken off the wall of the bedroom where Napoleon was held in Longwood House on St Helena. There had always been a rumour that he had been poisoned by emissions from the wallpaper, the most expensive of which in those days had a high arsenic content. The theory was that the arsenic had accumulated in his body over time and eventually killed him. Tests on the sample confirmed that to be the probable case. The sample was bought at auction by a USA Department of Wallpaper for £17,000.00.

Following a series of questions and answers Vice-President Denise thanked Richard for his fasci-nating and entertaining talk and led a strong round of applause.

15/01/2026

The next meeting of Ellesmere Probus Club will be on 22nd January when the speaker will be Sara Downs ‘Oswestry Women Landowners
Speakers: New Members 2025

Ellesmere Probus Club President Victor Hyde welcomed the members and invited a potential new member, Colin Davies (previously a member of Steyning Probus Club in Sussex) to say a few words.

Following apologies Treasurer Jo Jutson reminded that Probus membership (£30.00 annually) is due and Comrades Club annual membership (£12.00) is due in January 2026 which Probus mem-bers are always encouraged to join.

Judy Goldby then introduced herself as a new member. Judy was born in West Bromwich in 1943, her father was a mechanical engineer and her family moved around including Oxford and St Albans. She met husband-to-be Ron at a dance at St Albans Girls School when he was a student at Oxford University. She became a teacher at Clacton after qualifying and they married. Ron qualified as an Actuary. They had three sons in five years, then her father retired and offered some childcare time. Judy worked then for the CAB one day per week. There was no marriage guidance for CAB clients in those days and she decided to become involved in a new centre af-ter training as a ‘couple counsellor’. She continued in that role for 34 years during which time it evolved into ‘Relate’ and she discovered that she was dyslexic. Ron was working in Brussels for three years, coming home at weekends then Judy moved to his flat Thursday-Monday some-times flying there and sometimes driving. When Ron retired they got involved in adventurous overseas holidays. One of their sons lives in Northwood with eight children and it was to Elles-mere that Ron and Judy then moved to be nearer that part of the family.
President Victor thanked Judy for her very interesting life-story and following a number of ques-tions from the floor led a strong round of applause in appreciation.

Richard Westwood-Brookes then introduced himself as the second new member speaking to-day. Richard was born in Wolverhampton in 1950 where he went to the Grammar School along-side Mervyn King (later to be Bank of England Governor). Richard wanted to become a writer, joining the staff of the Express and Star newspaper where he met many significant people. He then moved on to the Shropshire Star then in 1974 to the Birmingham Evening Mail. There was much social turmoil at that time. Richard covered two General Elections including that with local disgraced Labour MP John Stonehouse who ran off with his secretary and faked his own death off a beach in Miami. Stonehouse was eventually tracked down in Australia and arrested, extra-dited, prosecuted and imprisoned for fraud. Richard moved on to the government Central Office of Information, considered to be a vehicle for government propaganda now known as ‘spin-doctoring’ but promoting Britain abroad. Staffing there included some interesting ex-War corre-spondents. Richard recounted some comical anecdotes including one event where he got into a lift with another couple who turned out to be Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip. Prince Philip turned to Richard and said “well, are you driving or am I ?”. Richard then moved on to become involved in commercial Public Relations, set up his own PR business. He had wanted to earn a living from a hobby and had always been fascinated with historical documents which he collect-ed. His expertise on the subject led him to be asked to join an auctioneers business bringing his specialist knowledge to put to practical use. He retired in 2015 and is an active member of U3A in Ludlow. He has offered to give our Probus Club a talk or two on his times as an auctioneer, also as an Edward Elgar enthusiast he now volunteers at the Elgar museum in Worcestershire organ-ising concerts and lectures there. Richard has written three books on Elgar (‘Chats about Elgar’, ‘Elgar’s Unknown Muse’ and ‘Elgar and the Press’) with a fourth on the way.
After a number of questions and observations from the members President Victor thanked Rich-ard for his informative and entertaining talk adding that the members looked forward to having him as a speaker in the future as offered. The members gave a strong round of applause.

14/12/2025

The next meeting of Ellesmere Probus Club will the AGM be ‘President’s Drinks’ on 18th Decem-ber and then our ‘New Members pen-picture’ meeting on January 8th 2026. Our Probus meet-ings are held at the Comrades Club, Victoria Street, Ellesmere on alternate Thursdays in winter and once a month in summer commencing from 10.00am until midday with coffee/tea and general-ly a speaker. Breakfast is available beforehand from 9.00am.

Ellesmere Probus Club meeting 04th December 2025.

Speaker: Fran Sandham - ‘Solo walk across Africa’, book ‘Traversa’.

Ellesmere Probus Club Vice-President Victor Hyde welcomed the members and speaker. Follow-ing apologies and notices including that Probus membership (£30.00 annually) and Comrades Club annual membership fee is due in January 2026 which Probus members are encouraged to join. The speaker was then introduced.

Fran Sandham is an author and adventurer having written a ‘Rough Guide’ and articles for the Observer, Daily Telegraph and Financial Times. On New Year’s Eve in 1997 and made a New Year resolution to cross Africa on foot alone from Namibia on the Atlantic coast to Zanzibar on the Indi-an Ocean coast, the first person in the world to do so, travelling 3,500 miles in one year. It took a year to gather sufficient funds. So why Africa? When he was six years old Fran was confined to hospital with a leg in traction and was rather miserable. He regularly read ‘Tarzan’ comics and Africa sounded very exciting. He developed a strong interest in the explorers Dr. Livingstone and Henry Morton Stanley over the years. So why choose that route? The ‘Skeleton Coast’ sounded so challenging and inhospitable (rainfall is normally less than a centimetre per year) and it is lit-tered with shipwrecks. Weka moyo wako in Swahili means ‘lay down your heart’ which is what they refer to that coastline as.
Maps were very poor for Fran. He aimed for 26 miles per day and had no back-up team. Walking from West to East with the sun continually on his left-hand side he developed an irregular sun-tan! Earlier explorers had native guides. When Fran got lost in a Malawi forest reserve he was unexpectedly rescued by a local schoolboy who led him back to the correct path.
In the lead-up to the adventure Fran worked in bookshops in London and did no formal training programme, being sufficiently fit in his job by lugging boxes of books around every day. He started the journey twelve and a half stone and by the end had lost four stone. His rucksack weighed 100lb at the beginning. He had been warned about bandits in Zambia but did not expe-rience any thankfully. In fact without exception the locals that he met along the way were always friendly and welcoming. In the Namibia desert he decided to get a donkey but nothing went right. It ran off on the first day and when recovered was very uncooperative. So he exchanged it for a mule which he describes as ‘psychotic’! He rebuilt a donkey-cart to ease the carrying-burden but gave up and left it all behind to carry on without mule or cart.
There was always a risk of malaria which he escaped catching until the day after he had finished to walk. Natural features that impressed the most were Victoria Falls (twice the size of Niagra) and Lake Malawi. He recalls his most memorable part of the adventure being the first evening after arrival with so much unknown to look forward to.
Vice-President Victor thanked Fran for his excellent informative and entertaining presen-tation then led a strong round of applause. Fran signed a number of copies of his book recording the journey ‘Traversa’ for Probus members who wished to purchase one. The book is available online and from bookshops by order. It is a fascinating read.

10/10/2025

The next meeting of Ellesmere Probus Club will the AGM be on 06th November 2025. Our Probus meetings are held at the Comrades Club, Victoria Street, Ellesmere on alternate Thursdays in winter and once a month in summer commencing from 10.00am until midday with coffee/tea and generally a speaker. Breakfast is available beforehand from 9.00am.

Ellesmere Probus Club meeting 03rd October 2025.

Speakers: Phil Wright and Rob talking on ‘Bargain Hunt’

Ellesmere Probus Club Vice-President Victor Hyde welcomed the members, speakers and guests. Following apologies he introduced the speakers, both of whom are pastors at the Cellar Church in Ellesmere. Phil told us that he left scholar 15, undertook an apprenticeship in London and became a stonemason. At the age of 22 he joined the ministry and has since been pastor of four churches. Rob trained as an electrical engineer in Liverpool working for Sony and Siemens amongst others. He joined the ministry in 2003.

They both applied to go on the BBC ‘Bargain Hunt’ programme together (a competition between two teams challenged to buy antiques from shops or a fair and sell them hopefully for profit in 2009). Following interview in Shrewsbury they were selected as competitors due to their enter-taining approach. The actual filming event was held at Oswestry show ground antiques fair about four months later. They were given 60 minutes to review the stalls although some stall-holders didn’t accept them due to either not wanting to barter or just not be filmed. Phil said that it was difficult to select items against the clock. They bought a Victorian mirror, Poole pottery uplighter and renovated pocket-watch spending £80.00. The ‘expert’ allocated to them by the production team selected a painting of a hunting dog for £210.00.

At auction the team made a profit on the mirror, a loss on the watch and a good profit on the pot-tery. When the picture came up for auction the auctioneer noted that it appeared to be modern, painted on hardboard and not the Victorian style that it was trying to emulate. There are many fake paintings on the market. Auctioneers are legally responsible to not mislead by description although that does not apply with goods sold through antique shops so ‘do your own research’. When the hammer came down the painting only made £55.00, giving a loss of £155.00 much to the embarrassment of the ‘expert’! He had discovered the ‘fake’ nature of the picture but only after having committed to buy it.

Phil and Rob brought our meeting seven collectible items for Probus members to guess at the valuation of and list them in order of value. They included a WW2 ARP wooden rattle, framed col-lection of cartoon postcards, a rare American cigarette lighter, a large pottery jug and bowl set and a Rolex watch. Values ranged from £50.00 to £4,500.00, the Rolex being the highest by far.

The presentation was lively, entertaining and generated a large number of comments and ques-tions from the floor. It included video footage of the BBC Bargain Hunt edition that they were in-volved in.

Vice-President Victor thanked Phil and Rob for their excellent participative presentation and led a strong round of applause.

13/09/2025

Ellesmere Probus Club meets at the Comrades Club, Victoria Street Ellesmere on alternate Thursdays in winter and once a month in summer commencing from 10.00am until midday with coffee/tea. Breakfast is available beforehand from 9.00a.m. The next meeting will be on October 7th 2025 when the speakers will be Phil and Rob from the Cellar Church talking on ‘Bargain Hunt’.

Ellesmere Probus Club meeting 04 September 2025 - ‘Chester Uncovered’

Following welcome to the members and guests by Probus president Ron Goldby, Stephen Shakeshaft was introduced as the speaker for this meeting.

Stephen opened by saying that he was a true ‘Cestrian’ (born within the city walls of Chester). He is a well-respected Chester city historical tour guide. Chester was settled by the Roman soldiers and was named ‘Fortress Deva’ after the river Dee. In those days Chester had a huge harbour. Some of the original quay is still visible today near the Racecourse.

The city fell to the Vikings in the Dark Ages. During the Middle Ages it became a successful trading port. In the Civil War it was laid siege for two years and had to surrender. By Georgian times the river had silted up.

Some of the key interesting Chester visible features that Stephen highlighted during his slide-show were:
• Roman bath hypercourse - a system of heating a concrete floor
• In Old Leech House, Watergate Street Row there is a renowned exceptional 14th century fireplace
• The ‘Chester Rows’ are unique to the city, a collection of covered galleries at first-floor level making a walkway. Various shops and other premises lie alongside the walkways.
• A remarkable ornate ‘Carolean’ plaster ceiling dating back to Charles 1st is to be found upstairs in the building occupied by ‘Oscar’s’ jewellery shop in Bridge Street. It is considered to be one of the most impressive examples in England.
• The Northern part of the city is less visited. There, King Street has houses from four centuries. There, Lorimer’s Row, originally a harness-maker’s premises. One of the houses is reputed to be haunted by the ghost of a young lady waiting for the return of her cavalier boyfriend killed in action.
• Northgate is the site of the rear entrance to the Roman fortress. Here, if a Roman Legion lost in battle the remaining soldiers were lined up and every tenth one was killed..the origin of the word ‘decimate’.
• The ‘ Bridge of Sighs’ is a stone footbridge built in 1700s leading from Northgate Street to move condemned prisoners from the gaol to the chapel so that they could receive their last rites before ex*****on
• ‘Morgan’s Mount’ was a tower built during the siege of the Civil War as a platform and cannon-emplacement, the latter being subsequently destroyed but a reproduction cannon is now found at the base of the tower.
• ‘Bonewaldesthorne’s Tower’ is the location of a ‘camera obscura’ located on part of the city walls. A camera obscura, a predecessor of the photographic camera.
• St John’s Church became the first Chester cathedral in 1075, originally founded in the 7th Century. The ruins include an impressive archway within which an ancient coffin engraved ‘duft to duft’ can be seen.
• The main bridge over the river Dee coming into Chester was the longest single-span bridge in the world when it was built.
• The cathedral dating back to the Normans is famed for its ‘misericords’, short shelves often ornately decorated with elaborate carvings. The shelves allowed choristers to stand for protracted times by resting their ‘rear end’.

After a number of questions and answers from Probus members, President Ron thanked Stephen for a fascinating insight into some of the secret parts of Chester and led a strong round of applause.

02/09/2025

The next meeting of Ellesmere Probus Club will be on 04th September when the speaker will be Stephen Shakeshaft giving with a talk on ‘Chester Uncovered’. Our Probus meetings are held at the Comrades Club, Victoria Street, Ellesmere on alternate Thursdays in winter and once a month in summer commencing from 10.00am until midday with coffee/tea. Breakfast is available beforehand from 9.00am.

Ellesmere Probus Club meeting 07th August 2025.

Speaker Richard Pett on ‘Hydroponics - the practice of soilless cultivation’

Ellesmere Probus President Ron Goldby welcomed the Club members and guests. After apologies, Treasurer’s/Almoner’s reports today’s speaker Richard Pett was introduced. Richard is Development for J E Pikkaver (Gedney Marsh) Ltd. He joined the family farming business in Lincolnshire before moving to a career in research and development of crop-protection and pharmaceuticals. Richard moved after 10 years to a Dutch company specialising in lettuce-breeding and became interested in hydroponics.
The earliest examples of hydroponics are The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, The Floating Gardens of China and later the Aztecs. The general growing principles remain the same today. In 1929 William Gericke (considered to be the father of modern hydroponics) invented the name, from the Greek ‘hydro’ (water) and ‘ponos’ meaning work and using sawdust as the growing medium. Allied forces developed hydroponics in the 1940s to enable production of fresh vegetables where soil quality was poor or supply routes difficult. By 2012 the science had developed dramatically and hydroponics was used on the Space Station. The main benefits of growing hydroponically rather than traditional ‘field’ agriculture include:

Reduced water usage - up to 50% saving over conventional growing
Consistency and continuity - environmentally controlled atmosphere and growing medium
Automation - reduced need for labour
Climate - no restrictions or damage from bad weather
Season extension - can produce 52 weeks of the year
Low environmental impact - no run-off into watercourses from fertiliser application to soil
Reduction in plastic - no requirement for mulching or agricultural fleeces
Bio-controls - greatly reduced reliance on synthesised pest-control
Reduced food wastage - better shelf-life and crop utilisation.

Plants are generally grown on a vast mobile container table that periodically gets flooded with nutrient-rich water and then drains away allowing the plants to absorb the necessary nutrients.
A second method is ‘Aeroponics’ where plants are suspended in the air and the roots sprayed with the necessary nutrients. This keeps the leaves dry so less risk of disease and increased oxygen around the roots. In ‘Aquaponics’ fish and plants work in harmony - the fish produce ammonia in their waste and this feeds the plants. Clean water results which is recirculated.

These are examples of soilless growing, there are others. So what of the future? The world population in 2025 is 8.2 billion. By 2050 that is expected to increase to 9.7 billion. The UK has 50% food waste, 20% by over-consumption and 30% for other reasons. By 2050, all other things being equal, in order to support the growing population, the economy, food production and protect the environment an additional 5 billion litres of water will be needed every day. Global warming and increased extreme weather conditions will present opportunities to mitigate against interruptions in food supplies, hydroponics fits that well. Richard’s company produces 2 million lettuces per week. Currently they have a planning application in for a new 25-acre greenhouse site.

Following a wide range of questions and answers, the President thanked Richard for his very interesting and enlightening talk, leading a strong round of applause from the members.

Ellesmere Probus Club

18/02/2026

15/01/2026

14/12/2025

10/10/2025

13/09/2025

02/09/2025

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