BRANCHES
South East
BRIGHTON HOVE & DISTRICT
The highlight of our autumn
meetings must fall on LYNNE TRUSS,
who gave the 2013 Joyce Rolf Memorial
Lecture. Entitled, inescapably, Eats,
Shoots and Leaves, Lynne tackled with
the expected enthusiasm her topic which
she describes as the Zero Tolerance
Approach to Punctuation. Sharing the
suffering of those to whom a misplaced
apostrophe is a dagger through the
heart, Lynnne had a receptive audience.
Using a powerpoint presentation,
she illustrated repeatedly texts and
announcements which unwittingly
committed egregious errors, from
obvious howlers to the hilarious. A letter
from a young lady to her boyfriend
which in two versions either loved him or
loathed him, entirely dependent on the
punctuation used, was perhaps the best
ingredient in this lighthearted, highly
amusing yet serious talk.
We have also enjoyed recently a visit
from Anton Pruden, a goldsmith who
keeps alive the family business which was
intimately connected with Eric Gill and
his “school” of design, the basis of many
extremely beautiful vessels in gold and
silver, created notably on ecclesiastical
commissions at home and abroad.
After this display, which could only
make us envious, we pulled ourselves
back to reality with a video show of the
Public Speaking Competitions and the
Performing Shakespeare Competition
for schools at Dartmouth House.
68 | dialogue
We were pleased to send two
promising young public speakers
to the ESU Debate Academy at
Oakham School.
Joyce Rolf Memmorial Lecture 2013
CANTERBURY & EAST KENT
Noted published poet and musician
Lord Gawain Douglas is our new
chairman. Ann Peerless is standing down
and the official handover will take place
at the Thanksgiving Lunch on
23 November.
Sadly we have to report the death of
Reg Colman OBE, on 11 Sept 2013, who
was a loyal supporter of the Branch. Reg
had an Honorary Doctorate from the
University of Kent for his work with the
Youth of Kent and was Headmaster of
Dover Grammar School for Boys until his
retirement. Afterwards, he continued to
work for the young, giving many
youngsters chances they would never
normally have had. Early in his career,
Reg was given a Bursary by the ESU and
travelled all over the U.S.A studying
different methods of education and
educational establishments and he said
that the experience had had a profound
influence on his career and future
professional opportunities. The Branch
extends its sympathy to his
wife, Marjorie.
Among the younger generation, the
branch sent Nabhan Malik, who won the
Best Speaker Award at the South East
Regional finals of the Schools Public
Speaking Competition in March 2013, to
the Debate Academy in August this year.
At time of writing the group is about
to hold another Shakespeare Experience
at Canterbury Christchurch University
on 16 October and is planning lectures
on English writings about Kosovo, and
events following the themes, ‘English the
language of Freedom’ looking from the
global viewpoint at writers who were or
are not English, and the world wide use
of ‘English the Language of Science.’
A letter from a young lady to her
boyfriend which in two versions
either loved him or loathed
him, entirely dependent on the
punctuation used, was perhaps
the best ingredient in this
lighthearted, highly amusing yet
serious talk.