Huntingdon Previous Courses

Previous Courses

Course Title: The Russian Revolution 1917-33
Course Description: The course will include the background history to 1914 and the ideologies of Marxism and Leninism; the two revolutions of 1917 and the Civil War; the New Economic Policy and the Power Struggle following Lenin's death; Stalin's 'revolution from above: Collectivisation of Agriculture and Industrialisation.
Tutor: Stephen Corley
Venue: Huntingdon Library, Princes St, Huntingdon, PE29 3PA
Day Of Week: Monday
Start Time: 10:30
Duration: 1.50 hrs
Date: 13/01/20
No. of Weeks: 4
Fee: £
Course Title: Writing about War
Course Description: Over two weeks we will look at attitudes towards war (some from combatants) from the Trojan War (Homer) up to the present day in Iraq and Afghanistan. We will cover the Middle Ages period, Shakespeare, the American Civil War, 1st and 2nd World Wars plus assorted other conflicts if time permits. In particular we will discuss how the writers convey their attitudes for purposes of propaganda or protest.
Tutor: Lindsay Fursland
Venue: Huntingdon Library, Princes St, Huntingdon, PE29 3PA
Day Of Week: Monday
Start Time: 10:00
Duration: 2.00 hrs
Date: 24/02/20
No. of Weeks: 2
Fee: £
Course Title: Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan - a traveller's perspective
Course Description: The talk will describe visits to famous Silk Road cities such as Tashkent and Samarkand, look at silk-weaving, ceramic and oriental carpet workshops, colourful markets, meals and encounters with local inhabitants and trekking in the Chimgan mountains. In Kyrgyzstan Robin will tell us his experience of staying in a yurt, alpine lakes, felt-making and a mystical Caravanserai.
Tutor: Robin Spratt
Venue: Huntingdon Library, Princes St, Huntingdon, PE29 3PA
Course Length: One Day
Date: 09/03/20
Start Time: 10:15
End Time: 12:00
Fee: £
Course Title: Embroidered Letters from The Workhouse - POSTPONED
Course Description: Discover the remarkable story behind a unique collection of textile samplers stitched by Lorina Bulwer in a Norfolk workhouse at the beginning of the 20th century. Ruth Burwood is the Museum Development Project Officer for the East of England.
Tutor: Ruth Burwood
Venue: Huntingdon Library, Princes St, Huntingdon, PE29 3PA
Course Length: One Day
Date: 23/03/20
Start Time: 10:30
End Time: 12:00
Fee: £
Course Title: Adventurous Women Travellers
Course Description: During this course we will look at women travellers from different periods of history, each with a special twist to the tale. Using extracts from their journals, diaries or biographies plus a few paintings, we will examine their lives, their travels and discuss their influence in their own period and whether they are relevant today. The course will be delivered via Zoom and the fee payable is per household. We will have a break for half term on 26th October.
Tutor: Liz Carter
Venue: This course will be delivered via Zoom
Day Of Week: Monday
Start Time: 10:00
Duration: 1.25 hrs
Date: 28/09/20
No. of Weeks: 8
Fee: £20.00
Course Title: Film Music
Course Description: Come and explore the development of music in film from the earliest silent movies to the present day. Join us to look at the work of many great film composers, with clips from King Kong, Once Upon a Time in the West, Psycho, Jaws, The Third Man, The Day The Earth Stood Still, 2001:A Space Odyssey (and many more) and to discuss how the music works. How can we read it? How has it changed? How is it created? No prior knowledge is required, just a love of music and film. The course will be delivered via Zoom (help available if required so don't be put off) and the fee payable is per household.
Tutor: Christopher Budd
Venue: This course will be delivered via Zoom
Day Of Week: Monday
Start Time: 10:00
Duration: 2.00 hrs
Date: 11/01/21
No. of Weeks: 5
Fee: £20.00
Course Title: Introduction to Japanese History and Culture
Course Description: The course is made up of 5 talks linked to Julian’s study of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima radiation disaster and will show how the events of that time tell us a lot about Japanese culture and politics, resilience, folklore and superstitions. The sessions will start with a general introduction to Japanese culture and the 2011 disaster and move on in the second week to how physical geography shapes the country’s culture. In the third session we will look at visual arts such as painting, calligraphy, woodblock and film and in the final two sessions we will examine the language and literature, belief (and the supernatural!) and the tsunami recovery. The course will be delivered via Zoom (help available if required so don't be put off) and the fee payable is per household.
Tutor: Julian Sedgewick
Venue: This course will be delivered via Zoom
Day Of Week: Monday
Start Time: 10:00
Duration: 1.75 hrs
Date: 22/02/21
No. of Weeks: 5
Fee: £30.00
Course Title: The Private Life of Oliver Cromwell
Course Description: Who was Oliver Cromwell? Soldier, Statesman, Lord Protector? Most people know at least some of the history and politics relating to Cromwell but what sort of a man was he? This talk looks at Cromwell as a person, his family and explodes some of the myths about him, focusing a little less on the traditional approach of his career as a soldier and politician allowing us to uncover some of the controversies about his life and see him as a person ‘Warts and all’. The fee for this course is £3.50 or if you book for Henry VIII's Grandma at the same time the total fee is £6.00.
Tutor: Stuart Orme
Venue: This talk will be delivered via Zoom
Day Of Week: Monday
Start Time: 10:30
Duration: 1.00 hrs
Date: 10/05/21
No. of Weeks: 1
Fee: £
Course Title: Henry VIII's Grandma - the Life of Margaret Beaufort
Course Description: The remarkable story of the matriarch of the Tudor dynasty and her local connections: Lady Margaret Beaufort was brought up in Deeping and lived at Collyweston and had many links to this area including Bassingbourn and Cambridge. Her fascinating life included four marriages, involvement in the Wars of the Roses and the founding of two Cambridge colleges, as well as being Henry VII’s mother and a key influence upon Henry VIII. Note: The fee for this course is £3.50 or if you book for The Private Life of Oliver Cromwell at the same time the total fee is £6.00
Tutor: Stuart Orme
Venue: This talk will be delivered via Zoom
Course Length: One Day
Date: 17/05/21
Start Time: 10:30
End Time: 11:30
Course Title: Perceptions of Venice
Course Description: This course is now FULL Venice has excited travellers and writers, politicians and generals, artists and filmmakers, scholars and pleasure seekers. It is acknowledged as unique in overcoming its physical limitations and turning them to its advantage; in its crumbling, beautiful hotchpotch of architectural styles; in its 1000 years of Republican government. Like an oriental pearl in the Adriatic sea, it seems to straddle two worlds; but it has also been described as a theatre, a stage set – showing only a masked face to the world. We are going to reveal what lies beneath the many masks to discover the changing faces of Venice. We will look at how it has presented itself through its architecture and art works; how it has been portrayed in literature, in particular drama; and how its treatment of outsiders, Jews and women has affected how it has been perceived.
Tutor: Ros Connolly
Venue: Zoom
Day Of Week: Monday   Start Time: 10:00  Duration: 2.00 hrs
Date: 20/09/21
No. of Weeks: 10

Course Title: The Crusades
Course Description: We will examine and trace the history of the confrontation between Christianity and Islam which has insistent echoes in our own times.
Tutor: Rosemary Williams
Venue: Via Zoom
Day Of Week: Monday
Start Time: 10:00
Duration: 2.00 hrs
Date: 10/05/21
No. of Weeks: 10
Course Length: 10 weeks
Date: 10/01/22
Start Time: 10:00
End Time: 12:00