Having a link to The Quarterly on our website has proved to be a most valuable contribution to our publicity - demonstrating to the Torbay public the diversity of our Groups, run by members, for members – amazing value for money, where for a £16 annual subscription, members can participate in over fifty groups.

‘On-going Learning’ was and is a cornerstone of the u3a movement. u3a, or University of the Third Age, started in France at the Faculty of Social Sciences in Toulouse in 1973. It was started by Prof. Pierre Vellas. By 1981, u3a had spread to England where it evolved as a community-based system of independent self-run groups. From early times Group Leaders tended to be experts in their field, enthusiastic to share their knowledge and experience.

Jump forward to 2025 and knowledge and ‘how-to’ guidance is readily available on-line. This is reflected in the u3a national body offering short courses and workshops on a wide range of subjects. Still, the overall understanding persists is of a Group Leader who is an expert in the field who shares their knowledge and experience with a group of members.

Maybe this thinking puts members off initiating new groups and we need an alternative model of ‘mutual learning’, where members learn together, maybe in a field where they’ve never ventured before. Two examples spring to mind: ‘bonsai’ and ‘growing orchids’. Here, just one member may like to explore this new hobby/interest, but would welcome being part of a small group of members learning, sharing and building such experience together.

Picture shows our ‘office’ table where two small orchids thrive on my ‘loving neglect’ – an occasional spoonful of tap water and lots of sunlight. An exquisite beauty of ‘structure’ and fragrance.

Our u3a enables a member to identify other members who might share his/her enthusiasm in the subject – forming a ‘Group’ with a Group Convenor, rather than a group leader in the conventional sense.

What do you think? What special interest might you like to explore? Knowledge builds from ‘curiosity’ and maybe ‘curiosity’ is one of the characteristics we should be building in our u3a?

Nevertheless, we continue to build new groups and since the Spring Issue we’ve established a flourishing practical gardening group and a striking 10-pin Bowling Group.

Thanks to Marilyn Ham, our speaker finder, we have a full program of monthly speakers for 2025. A highlight in May was Alex Leger, the producer of Blue Peter, who took us behind the scenes in some hilarious episodes of the show – including John Noakes climbing Nelson’s Column and a naughty baby elephant called Lulu.

Remember. This is your Quarterly. It will only work if members enjoy reading the various contributions. So, please, give us your feedback.

John Hough - Editor

“I think you might be mistaking me for someone else. I’m Meredith Fanshawe, always have been and always will be. Who are you?”

“You were always Red to me, Miss High and Mighty, too good for the likes of us, Fanshawe. Do you still flick your hair over your shoulder when you have to pass the hoi polloi? Still think you might catch something if you get too close?

“I still don’t know to whom I am speaking.” She cursed inwardly. Why did she have to be so stiff and formal, was it being back in this place? He was very sure of himself but a bit of banter or harmless flirting might have lightened up this dreary event and helped her to figure out who this annoying man was. Too late now, she’d missed her chance.

“That’s for me to know and you to find out, Red.”

“Whatever. And don’t call me Red. No one calls me Red and lives to tell the tale. Besides my hair is not red, it’s, it’s.

“Temper, temper. Good to see it’s still fiery Red.”

“Please excuse me, I have to meet someone adult.”

“See you, Red,” he said as he turned away.

Meredith tossed her hair back, muttering “not if I see you first” under her breath as she moved forward into the room. Quite a crowd had turned out for the opening of the new village primary school but she recognised none of the faces. Not surprising as she hadn’t set foot in the place for 24 years. She’d spent six miserable years at the old primary school before being sent away to a school on the south coast after her mother persuaded her father to sell up and move from the village of his forebears.

An anxious, only child she never fitted in, made no friends and was a very lonely, unhappy child, always alone in the playground and never invited to birthday parties.

Meredith looked round this splendid new building and remembered the old one with its high windows and the long poles with hooks on the end for opening the windows in the summer. The smells came back to her, damp classrooms, horrible toilets, noisy wooden floors and rusty radiators. Try as she might she could not summon up any memory of the man who called her Red.

The head teacher roused her from her reverie.

“Excuse me, Ms. Fanshawe, they’re ready for the formal opening now. We’re so pleased that you were able to do this for us. If you’d like to follow me, please. Have you met Mr. Burton yet, he was looking for you earlier?”

He guided her through the people in the hall, still talking,

“Mr Barton has very generously paid for all the IT equipment in the new school. He’s the one who insisted that a Fanshawe should do the honours at the opening. Quite a character is our Mr. Barton.”

“I haven’t met him yet, Mr. White,” she said as they moved along.
She didn’t tell the head that she had tried to erase all memories of the miserable years she had endured in the old school. What on earth had possessed her to come back here now, loyalty to a long-dead grandfather or recently dead parents? She didn’t know.

As they made their way towards the stage at the far end of the room Mr. White introduced her to one or two of the parent-governors. They all seemed to be about the same age as her, presumably with children in the school. And here she was, thirty- five, living on her own with not even a cat for company, still putting up barriers like a prickly hedgehog when people tried to be friendly. No wonder her colleagues called her the Ice Queen.

They reached the stage and he guided her to the middle seat with Mr. Designer Shades on her left. Could her day get any worse, she thought as she sat down.

“Hello again, Red. Let me introduce myself properly, I’m Dennis Barton. Remember me yet? I see you’ve been meeting one or two of your old class-mates already. Did you recognise any of them? I don’t suppose you did, little Miss Keep Yourself to Yourself.

Speechless, she blushed from the top of her head right down to her boots as she began to hyperventilate, blurting out “Dennis the menace,” as all the old memories came flooding back and she was eleven years old again.

“That’s me,” he said,” but it’s many a long year since anyone called me that. They wouldn’t dare.”

Meredith tried a few yoga breaths to calm herself. She couldn’t run away from this any longer, she had to deliver her speech and formally open the new school before she could hide away in the ladies and clear her head. Mr. White began his introduction, thanked various people including Mr. Barton for his generosity towards the new school, and then it was Meredith’s turn. She consulted her notes and delivered her prepared speech, declaring the school well and truly opened. She excused herself and headed for the ladies ignoring everyone around her.

She realised now why Dennis the menace was wearing designer glasses indoors on a bright summer’s day and that it wasn’t an affectation. That last day of school filled her head, eleven years old, the boys circling her like a wagon train in all the old black and white cowboy films, the girls all egging them on, taunting her, “Who do you think you are?” ”You think you’re better than us, don’t you, Miss Hoity Toity Ginger Nut?” On and on and on. She remembered that Dennis was the only one who had tried to stop them. He was the only one who never stopped trying to make friends with her but her mother had singled him out as undesirable, unwashed and uncared for.

Meredith had tried to blot out that day but now she made herself think back to the scene in the playground, the bullying, the noise and the sudden temper that made her reach for the penknife in her pocket, open it and throw it with all her might. Then she turned and ran. She’d been running ever since. When she found out that the knife had hit Dennis and that he’d lost his eye because of it, she had shut herself in her bedroom and cried for hours. That was the last time she cried.

They had left the village shortly afterwards. She had no memory of ever being asked about what had happened that day. She supposed that her father had smoothed things over. Either that or no one actually saw what had happened. She repaired her make-up, went back to the hall to find Dennis Barton to face up to what she had done.

The hall was empty when she returned but she could hear laughter and chatter coming from the smart new dining hall where a cream tea was in progress. She looked round the room, waved politely to one or two people who were acknowledging her but there was no sign of Dennis Barton.

Mr. White came over to her, “Ms. Fanshawe, we were concerned about you.”

“Please call me Meredith, Ms Fanshawe sounds so formal. I’m fine, Mr. White. I was looking for Mr. Barton but he seems to have gone already. Will you excuse me please?” She headed for the car park.

“Hi Red.” She heard the familiar greeting before she saw him lounging against her car. “Did you really think you were going to escape and run away again?”

“I’m so sorry. So, so sorry. I can’t believe I did that to you. What do you want me to do?”

“Nothing. It’s not as if you aimed at me. I was the unfortunate one who got in the way. It does mean, of course, that I was never able to forget you, Miss Fiery, so now would be a good time to get to know you, now that your mother isn’t around to shoo me away like a bad smell. Perhaps she’d even approve. Start again? Perhaps you would deign to have dinner with me tonight?”

“I’m not sure if I have time. I promised to visit an old friend of my mother’s before going back.”

“Running away again, Red? When are you going to stop? The offer still stands, 7 o’clock sharp. I live in your old family home.”

Then he was gone. A new start sounded like a plan, time to stop pushing people away, trying to be the Ice Queen. Besides Dennis the Menace was an intriguing chap, bit presumptuous and sure of himself but maybe worth getting to know. 7 o’clock did he say? Wonder what he’s done with the old house? Heads or tails?

Betty Harcombe

Her world was crashing, laying in shards behind her.



At the top  of the cliff she found a bench, wet but supporting, and she sat down, her head in her hands, shaking, gulping. What to do?



After a while she sat up. The moon shone out suddenly. She heard a noise, and turned in terror.



A man was walking towards her from a small tent tucked behind the gorse bushes,  holding out a steaming mug. She could just see that he was very old.



‘It's ok child’, he said ‘please don’t be afraid. But I think you need this’.



She sat, tense, braced for flight, but he placed the mug and a wrapped chocolate biscuit on the end of the bench and withdrew, murmuring like a horse whisperer.



For a while she just sat there, shaking, unsure whether to run. But then her hands reached for the steaming mug and she sipped, and she unwrapped the biscuit. A kind of ecstasy shot into her derangement as she drank.



She looked over at the tent. He was certainly a very old man, but somehow dignified, sitting up straight on a folding stool, nodding at her and smiling a little in the new moonlight.



‘Thankyou’, she whispered. ‘How are you here?’


‘Oh we wander the world, he said, my thoughts and I.

I know you are afraid. I know you are in darkness, in trouble.  I will just stay here but you can talk to me if you like.

’

She sipped her tea, and nibbled the biscuit, in silence. Then she found that her voice was telling of her pain and her trouble..  He listened quietly.

Her home was suddenly a threat. Her home was no longer a home, her mother seemed no longer a mother, both invaded,  both occupied, by the charm and the romancing of a man.  A man whose dark side slid into her room deep in the night…who might be looking for her now.



‘The world seems all dark now’, she said. ‘Destroyed, like there was a war. I don’t know what to do’. She at last began to cry. She looked over at him, her small face empty. I cant see a path’.



‘Yes’, he said. ‘But there is one’.



‘How will I find it’, she said.



‘You have to trust’, he said. ‘When you go home in the daylight, and tell your story, a path will unfold. It may be hard, but you can follow it.

’

He sat, looking out to sea, and the moon vanished behind the clouds, its silver path on the sea blackened. She shivered.



He began to speak, she could barely see him or hear him, but his words were soft and she felt them wrap her. Like the hot tea.



‘Darkness has been demonized’, he said, sadly, gripping his own mug, looking out to the black heaving sea. ‘It is beautiful. It allows the moon and the stars to shine. It allows the day to dawn.  It is the unknown, and it is the source of everything, in the very beginning and every day.  It is soft, like the womb, feminine…



but human beings fear the unknown, and since the beginning they have associated the dark with all that they fear. 



What we don’t want to see in ourselves, we will see and hate, in the world, and we call it the dark. We call it evil. But if we bring our monsters out into the light they will lose their power and monstrosity.



He spoke so softly she could not hear. ‘I can’t hear you’, she said, confused. But wanting to hear. He repeated his words, looking at her again as if he had just remembered she was there.

She wasn’t sure she understood fully, but she almost  accepted that she was 15 and she couldn’t. But one day she would. A shiver of awareness.  A sliver of strength. Something in his words moved into her soul and armed it. Warmed it.



‘Be honest with yourself child, he said, and you will not fear the dark. Trust, and the way will open, help will be there’.



He looked away again, in his reverie



‘Each day is unknown, and if we are unafraid, if we trust, if we accept it as it is, if we do not try to control it, or stick to what we know, we can ride it, whatever it brings. The strength rises.

’

Again he turned to her, speaking more loudly, warmly, now, if you are not afraid of the unknown you will relish it, child. Curiosity, excitement, love….and gratitude, child, gratitude, will take you through. Each day find the trust and yes the curiosity and the gratitude, and you will rise again when you fall. Do not doubt it. You will ride the waves life brings. The terror and the beauty.

’

The moon suddenly flew out from the racing clouds, and lit his lined and ragged face. The face of the undefeated defeated.  He shook himself, turned to her , the wind blowing his bedraggled white hair wildly. His eyes lit and shot into her soul.

She met his eyes, and she wept.

‘I know, child, I know. I know how it is.
’
She looked back at him, her small face wet, naked and open.

‘Yes’. He said gently, his eyes fixed on her, probing.  ‘You will ride the waves’.



He stood up, still keeping his distance. And he said ,strongly, so his words burned into her, ‘You will ride the dark and the light, the reins  in your hands.

You will know the Mystery, and you will rest in the not knowing.

’

He moved across to her slowly, checking she was not alarmed, and briefly touched her shoulder, nodded approvingly, and walked surprisingly  steadily back to his tent.



He looked back once  and said, 'Yes. Trust the Mystery child, it will hold you'.



and he went inside his tent and zipped it up.

The moon went in. 



She sat there quite still in the dark, holding her shoulder where he had touched it. The moon came out, and went in again. And both were fine. Both were beautiful. Soon the sky began to lighten, and she stood up and slowly made her way home, to speak her truth, and to trust.



She never forgot the man who taught her to ride, and indeed to love, the dark. She never forgot that he was there, exactly there, exactly then. That knowledge sustained her through all that followed. She never forgot that steaming mug of tea or the sweetness of the foil wrapped biscuit.

One day, months into her future, in her English lesson, the teacher who had listened carefully to her story, and had helped her, that terrible day, read out to his class from Emily Bronte.

‘and faith shines equal, arming me from fear’.

She smiled.

Freya Hartley

For me, that was the nineteen-fifties, evolving from grammar school boy to office junior at the long-forgotten Imperial Typewriter Company, discovering girls and alcohol, and all against the grey, austere backdrop of a country still recovering from the ravages of war. But then, something happened that influenced generations to come. Rock ‘n’ Roll! Prior to that, popular music comprised sentimental love songs or novelty numbers ranging from the likes of Doris Day, Dickie Valentine and Max Bygraves, with a dose of Billy Cotton thrown in for good measure. Suddenly, almost overnight, there appeared the phenomenon of a balding middle-aged man with no personality whatsoever, playing guitar, with just a couple of other nondescripts supporting him. Rock Around the Clock topped the hit parade virtually overnight to the shock of the 1950’s older generations, and life would never be the same again. Bill Haley and the Comets are now little more than a footnote consigned to music history, but the guys that followed… Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran, Jerry Lee Lewis and of course, Elvis… how cool were they? Somehow, How much is that doggy in the window? didn’t have the same appeal as Great Balls of Fire! For a sixteen year-old, it was like being reborn into a different world. There was an overwhelming urge to dance and when the local Palais decided to run Rock ‘n’ Roll sessions on a Saturday afternoon, it was a no-brainer, my girlfriend and I wanted some of the action. I was even prepared to miss my beloved Leicester City’s home games… how fickle was that? But our dancing ambitions got off to a frustrating start. I arrived dressed in casual shirt, drainpipe trousers and brothel creepers… the crepe-soled suede shoes of the day… only to be refused admission. There was a strict dress code: collar and ties, suits or sports jackets were the order of the day. Totally deflated, we caught the bus home. The irony was that, later, my sartorial gaffe behind me, my girlfriend used to dress in a draw-stringed, boat-necked blouse which when she left home, was pulled tightly round her neck. By the time she got on to the dance floor it had plunged somewhat, showing rather more cleavage. Had her mother known, she would not have been allowed out of the house. She also wore a full, knee length skirt, held up by a wide plastic belt, with an underskirt comprising masses of different coloured, stiff, nylon net. When she sat down on the bus, it all reared up, obscuring her upper body but not necessarily her nether regions. And it was MY dress sense that had been considered unacceptable. How unfair was that? But that early disappointment was soon forgotten when those Saturday afternoons became the highlight of the week, and because they were so successful, Mecca gave the band the night off on Tuesdays, replacing it with a disco. Then Jive, an acceptable pseudonym for Rock ‘n’ Roll was introduced into their big band Saturday night session. Wonderful. Dancing to live music. One of life’s joys… the most fun you can have with your clothes on. The disadvantage was, however, that we became wallflowers. We couldn’t do ‘proper’ dancing… quicksteps, waltzes, foxtrots and as for the Cha-Cha… only in our dreams. But a solution was at hand! Well, just across the road, actually… where a formidable building which called itself the Secular Hall, held weekly dancing lessons. We signed on. The first week, we and our fellow novices stood self-consciously, in a line at the far end of the room. Then, without a partner, but with arms held in position that suggested an invisible embrace, we waltzed… I use the word indiscriminately… the length of the hall. One, two, three… one, two three… for the next hour. It was around this time that I realised that I possessed two left feet. But the motivation was there, and I persevered, expecting that the following week, I would dance with a girl. It was a tad disappointing then, that at the next session, we were each allocated an unlikely partner… a brown, bentwood chair from the selection that lined three walls of the room. We swooped up and down the hall, clinging less than romantically to a piece of furniture. Having mastered these intricate steps, we moved on to quicker dances and by the end of the evening, I thought that even I had made sufficient progress to dance with someone of the female persuasion. So there was great anticipation when our mentors, Bernard and Muriel, advised us that next week… YES, we would be dancing with each other! I couldn’t wait. But what I had not allowed for, was that when the next session came around, rather surprisingly, there was one more male victim than female there. Muriel paired everyone off, and I was the odd-man-out… still a wallflower. All was not lost, however. Muriel had a GREAT idea. I would be partnered with Bernard. I never did work out who should be leading, but red faced, I pranced up and down the room. And the youth of today thinks they have it tough! By the end of the evening, I reasoned that if I could dance with a chair, and with a bean-pole of a man dressed in shiny shoes and an even shinier dinner suit, and topped by a head of shiny, Brylcreamed hair, I could handle a girl, so to speak. We never did go back to the Secular Hall. To this day, I don’t know what its function really was, the name always seemed a little seedy to me. But we were back down the Palais the next Saturday, and it didn’t matter. We knew enough steps to get round the floor, although corners proved a challenge. But, as the evening wore on, even that problem was overcome. The spare men crowded round the sides, pint in one hand, cigarette in the other, whilst eyeing up the talent. They spilled into the corners, so that the dance floor became oval. Problem solved. I enjoyed the ballroom dances, particularly the slow ones when we could smooch. But looking back, that applied to most dances. My excuse was that the floor was too crowded to do all that fancy stuff. But Rock ‘n’ Roll was our life blood. I love music, and today my tastes are eclectic, but I am still a Teddy Boy at heart.
Bryan Hill

The book starts with the del Valle family, the father with liberal political ambitions and a wife of spiritual leanings. The story follows the life of their youngest daughter Clara and Esteban Trueba and their children and grandchild. Esteban is a patriarch who is ambitious, fiercely proud and with a vile temper and a lusty nature. His wife, Clara is a clairvoyant and his granddaughter, Alba, the lover of a revolutionary.

The book is punctuated with mystical realism with clairvoyance and other supernatural abilities, adding a layer of mystery and intrigue into the story which weaves through the plot of social and political upheaval and covers the intimate family relationships of conflict and passion.

The tale has little dialogue and often long, languorous sentences. It is a very detailed personal and sometimes funny story told from the notebooks kept by Clara for 50 years, with passages told by Esteban and their granddaughter Alba.

The last third of the book is more intense and darker as unrest increases, political power shifts and the military coup occurs.

What we liked:
Well written, intelligent prose. A lot packed in it. Quite revolutionary content.

A great deal to think about and look up. I will be reading more books by Isabel Allende.

The book has many themes and great depth of detail as well as vividly drawn characters The women in the story have great strength of character. There is also a lot of joy and humour in the book.

I felt that the story particularly supported the strong women characters and that it subtly focused on the story from a feminist angle, which I really enjoyed.

It's a great and captivating read, and the ending for me, sent an important message of forgiveness, reconciliation and redemption. Well worth the read!

In parts of the book, published in 1986, she uses words that remind me of what is going on in our world today e.g. re-writing history; censorship; prohibited words; mass media; private conversations and giving away the country.

I was driven to finish it. I found it interesting to understand what it must have been like to be a woman living in that region at that time.

Most of the book is light and warm in tone.

I felt for Chile's sad history and the suffering of the native people; the country seemed to exchange each political regime for one equally as bad.

A political novel showing what social inequality & conflict can do to a country when people cease to understand their shared humanity.

This book has 'rave' reviews.

What we didn’t like:

I thought it was very distasteful, with sexual brutality, sexual deviancy, murder, torture and even pet poisoning. I couldn’t find the characters empathetic it just left me feeling sickened.

I found the vast number of characters and the changes in person in the narrative a little confusing at first.

The book seemed far too long and padded out with unnecessary detail and the endless saga of brutality and torture made for depressing reading.

I wasn’t over comfortable with the clairvoyancy and spiritual events, nor the violence of the final sector of the book.

I found it difficult to feel empathy for any of the family. The patriarch was a brutal, violent psychopath and the rest of the family seem to range from eccentric to quite mad!

500 pages in this epic. Not read any other books by I. Allende and unlikely to! I found it sad and unpleasant to read.

Score:

Our group scored the book between 3 & 10/10 with a total of 77 and a mean of 7.7 which is one of the highest scores we have achieved.

Pam Hartigan, Group Leader