Reading Group

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Due to the Library closure we did not have a particular set book this month but the librarian had been helpful in that she had put together at least three sets of books which we could collect and which hopefully would cover our January, February, March reading needs. But then the next lockdown came along and the Library closed! So we have all been dipping into our own bookshelves and also have been swapping bags of books to tide us over.

I was given a book as a birthday gift which took me right back into my childhood – “Growing up in the 1950’s” by Paul Feeney. Memories of outside toilets, tin bath in front of the fire on a Sunday listening to “Sing Something Simple”, toasting fork, stone hot water bottle, fur coat and my dad’s old Army coat on the beds as extra blankets, frost on the inside of the bedroom window, bread and dripping, no telly; the list is endless. I wouldn’t want to go back to all that but people’s general attitudes and ethics would be welcomed back these days – no mobiles at the dinner table, you ate what you were given or starve, no striving for the latest clothes or gadgets; even the Teddy boys were not really as violent as they were portrayed compared to the knife wielding yobs today. The Teddy boys spent a lot of money on their draped coats and wouldn’t want to damage them! I wonder if today’s youth will look back with fond memories of present day activities and attitudes? Oh well, back to the books.

Weekenders’ Group

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The February Newsletter will be sent out on 1st February. Once again, many thanks to Margaret Whilde for printing off copies for those members not on email and for delivering them on her morning walk. The good news is that several of our members have had the Covid 19 vaccine already; let’s hope we can all get it in time for an un-locked down summer when hopefully the Weekenders will have one very large birthday lunch to make up for all the ones we haven’t been able to have during 2020. But we are all keeping in contact via the phone and emails and of course the website. Keep chatting ladies!

Lunch Group

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Any suggestions for a good venue for a slap-up Lockdown Survival Lunch for later in the year? I’m sure venues will be clamouring for our custom! In the meantime enjoy your home-made meals until we can meet again. Bon appetite!

Message from the Chair

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As we approach almost a year of varying levels of lockdown it prompted me to think about how that time has passed by. In some ways my perception is that it has passed quite quickly contrary to the often used expression ‘time flies when we are having fun’.

If so, then it may be because it seems faster compared to when we are bored and thus paying a lot of attention to the passage of time (remember ‘clockwatching at work’?). It is possible that our change of lifestyle to conform to the restrictions mean that to some extent we found ‘fun’ in some of the new things we have done? I’ve certainly enjoyed discovering some interesting local walks, cycle routes and increased reading time.

One theory contends that time speeds up as we get older if we consider the proportionality of time perception related to age. The older you get, the smaller one year is, as a percentage of your total life. So the years go by faster and faster. For young children Christmas and birthdays seem to take ages to come round again, not so for us older folk.

What has been missing is the mingling and social interaction with families, friends and in our u3a.Time will tell but optimistically once we get through the next few months things we have missed will start to return into everyday life.

Our February monthly meeting is a talk about ‘Poisons for Medicines’. I have seen it, found it very interesting and I do recommend it to you. There are more details later on this website.

David Rose

Science Group 2 – January 2021

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Science 2 – January 15th Meeting – The theme was ‘Rocket Science’

Rocket science is all about using rocket propulsion to move anything from a firework to a manned spaceship. At the heart of rocketry is Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion, something that’s been established for over 300 years. It says that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If you stand in front of a wall and push it hard, you will move backwards.

In a rocket, the ‘object’ being pushed is the end product of burning fuel, which shoots out of the back of the rocket as the fuel burns, forcing the rocket to move in the opposite direction. There are three basic requirements to a working rocket: get it moving, overcome the pull of gravity and plot a course. Each of these depends on physics that has been known since Newton’s day.

One of the biggest differences between the rockets of early science fiction and the actual ones that took people into space was that the real rockets had multiple stages that fell away as the rocket left Earth. The stages reflect the need to carry a lot of fuel to allow the rocket to escape Earth’s gravitational pull. When the fuel tanks are empty, they’re just extra mass that needs to be accelerated, wasting fuel. By dropping off a stage when its fuel is exhausted (or having disposable external tanks like the Space Shuttle), the remaining craft becomes much lighter, needing less fuel to accelerate it.

We also watched a short video about the Elon Musk’s innovative SpaceX Falcon rocket the first stage of which returns to land on Earth and can be reused.


The International Space Station

Next Meeting: Friday, February 19th, at 10.00 am – I am pleased to announce that we have a guest speaker-Professor J J Turner FRS Emeritus Professor of Chemistry University of Nottingham.

He writes: I am clearly a retired academic, but perhaps more importantly I was a founder member of Beeston u3a, the first Group Coordinator, and Science Group leader for many years. The talk, ‘What we owe to Einstein’ lasts 45 minutes, is designed for a “lay” audience; there are two elementary pieces of science and quite a bit of history. Thus it would be appropriate to extend the invitation to a wider audience than the science group.

David Rose