Over and Under – Railway Bridges and Tunnels on postcards By John Holland (Associate of the Willis Museum)   One of the reasons we reverted to this talk being done on Zoom, was that John was recently home from a hospital operation and grateful to give the talk […]

Join us for a lively and concise history of Royal Mail and the Post Office  from the beginning to the present day given by John Rogers. In 1840 Uniform Penny Post was launched marking a revolution in the way the postal system could be used. Rowland Hill’s postal […]

James Aitken, oft times known as John The Painter: the First Modern Terrorist. By Alan Turton. Hurrah! Our first live talk for many a long month. In the good old days of yesteryear we tend to think of baddies as highwaymen, footpads or pirates. To have our own […]

The History of Houses by Trevor Ottlewski Trevor is Chairman of the Wokingham History Group and has a special interest in the area’s historic buildings. He gave a chronological review of houses from pre-Roman to the present, with very good illustrations from real buildings. His first point was […]

The Pursuit and Sinking of the Bismarck By David Bickerton David related the tale of the sinking of German battleship Bismarck which was a dramatic episode of World War II. His great interest is because his father was serving on one of the Royal Navy ships. The end […]

A Talk by Mark Bowman Why 1752? Well that was the year that Britain changed its calendar system and famously lost eleven days. The title of the talk is a play on ‘1066 and all that’ the hilarious book from the 1930s by Sellars and Yeatman which treats […]

The Great Sandhurst to Sandhurst Walk, via Sandhurst by Graham Harding (assisted by Helen) Graham and Helen moved to Sandhurst, Berkshire in 2004. Through misdirected post they rapidly found out there are two other Sandhursts in southern England and so was born the project to walk from the […]

Union Street, also known locally as Smelly Alley, is a pedestrian alley in the centre of the English town of Reading. It is lined with small shops and other retail outlets, and connects Broad Street and Friar Street. The name Smelly Alley came about in the 1940s, as […]

A talk by Chris Broom As the title suggests, his talk “Humour in Genealogy” uses a number of light-hearted examples to demonstrate the advantages of scrutinising original documents in family-history research, many of which contain additional information not included in online records. Humour in Genealogy – A talk […]

The Battle of the Somme: the blackest day in the history of the British Army Online talk by Phil Wood The first day of the battle remains the worst day in the history of the British Army, when it suffered 57,470 casulties, around 20,000 of whom were killed. After a series of attacks and counter...

For those of you that missed it, here is this year’s TADS quiz. Grab a pencil and paper… there are four rounds : Each section has 10 questions worth 1 point each, Click for answers at the end of each round ! Round 1 – General History 1.  […]

FREE ACCESS FOR TADS MEMBERS Members receive link by email 5 days before talk  “The remarkable story of our National chair”, an online talk by Stuart Linford This classic design was created in the Thames valley at the beginning of the 18th Century.  Windsor chairs are a large […]

TADS Zoom Talk on 18th November 2020 Poisons for Medicine  By Graham Harrison Who would use poisons as medicine? Well the Victorians certainly did as Graham told us in his amusing and interesting talk, seemingly in large quantities. But before we chuckle too much, we must not forget […]

  The image above is Sudbury Town Tube Station London. London Underground Piccadilly Line station designed by Charles Holden in a modern European style. 1931. The Grade II* listed building was described by Pevsner as “an outstanding example of how satisfying such unpretentious buildings can be, purely through […]

On  16th Sep 2020 Colin Oakes gave an online talk entitled “Never had it so good”   Colin Oakes is an archaeologist and a London guide who has significant knowledge of London’s history and  superb delivery skills. In the past he has talked about Dickens’ Childhood, The London […]