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Evesham Probus Club Meetings in 2025

PROBUS TALK 06.02.2025

Our speaker on 6th February was Nigel Silman whose talk had the daunting title of “Biological Terrorism and Biological Warfare – How Great is the Threat?” As Emeritus Professor of Infectious Diseases at the University of the West of England Bristol with 25 years of experience of working at Porton Down, he was well qualified to answer this question.

In his previous talk to us he explained the NHS role of Porton Down. This time he gave us the origins of the establishment in WW1 to research defence against bio warfare and also develop a biological weapons programme in case we ever needed to use them, although we never did. Biowarfare is defined as causing disease by means of agents such as air, water and food. The spectrum of risk covers natural diseases, accidents, sabotage/vandalism.

Deliberate use of biological agents is not new; it is recorded many times through history, such as arrows being dipped into manure and cadavers, plague victims being forcibly evicted and the poisoning of water supplies. In WW1 cattle cake was infected to deprive the enemy of food. In the USA, Native Americans were given smallpox-infected blankets. The Japanese used disease-bearing insects. Biological weapons are effective as they can be transmitted human to human to spread plague, TB and smallpox. Anthrax is an animal disease. Where animals die they leave a pool of blood, the spores leak into the ground and can remain active for hundreds of years. The spores create toxins which kill you.

In 1942 an experiment was carried out by Porton Down on the uninhabited island of Gruinard off the coast of NW Scotland near Ullapool, chosen because the prevailing southwest wind would not affect the mainland. Anthrax was released from a bomb and the extent of the plume was measured on sheep herded into pens at set distances up to half a mile away. The air was also sampled. It was the first study of its kind into biological warfare and could only have been carried out during the exigencies of war. The island was of course off bounds to the public and it was not until 1990 that it was declared clear of infection. It is now grazed by cattle and sheep.

Biological weapons and toxins were banned under a Convention at Geneva in 1925 and became effective in 1975. Of course, the usual suspects have not signed it.

There are, of course, other incidents which are not terrorism related. In 1984 there was an outbreak of salmonella at salad bars in Oregon, USA which was traced to the deliberate action of a cult leader. The motive was never established. In 1979 a fractured pipe at a biological weapons factory in Sverdlovsk, Russia released anthrax which caused 64 deaths and also killed cattle 50km. downwind. Another interesting case, in which Nigel was personally involved, was the unexplained death of a drummer in Scotland in 2006. Forensics had been called in and found nothing. Porton Down had no legal status in Scotland but it was discovered that the drums were supplied from a house in Belford near Bamburgh in England where they were made. Porton Down were then able to investigate and found it was full of anthrax which was traced to goat skins imported from West Africa used to cover the drums. The drummer’s house and village hall in Smailholm near Hawick in Scotland were then surveyed and also found to be contaminated. A US company was employed to clear it of anthrax. The incident was closed in 2007. A similar case occurred in Hackney, NE London. The house concerned was covered in a tent while decontamination was carried out and all traffic was diverted. There have been several similar cases in the USA.

Nigel concluded this fascinating talk by answering his own question about how great the threat is from offensive use of biological weapons by stating that chemical weapons are far more effective. As always, the interest of members can be gauged by the number of questions posed and it was obvious this was a subject of great interest to members given that terrorism is an ever-present threat.

 

Alan Smith  

PROBUS TALK 30.01.2025

The speaker on 30th January was Ian Boskett on the subject of The Great Train Robbery which took place on 8th August 1963. Although he gave this talk to us some years ago he continues to research the subject and find new facts, many as a result of members of the audience at his talks approaching him. This was his 151st talk on the subject!

Ian has a very entertaining style of presentation but he emphasised that the robbery should not be glamourised as it involved violence, widespread corruption and had devastating effects on the train crew and the postal workers on the train. The driver, Jack White, suffered traumatic headaches and although he returned to driving he was restricted to shunting duties until he retired.. The second man, David Whitby, was also traumatised and although he also returned to his job he died from a heart attack aged 34.

The train concerned was the up West Coast Postal TPO (Travelling Post Office) which ran from Glasgow to Euston nightly. Apart from its basic function of collecting and delivering mail en route it carried used bank notes to be destroyed by the Bank of England. These were not recorded so could not be traced. In the reverse direction new notes were sent from the Bank and there was therefore a record of the serial numbers. The money was carried in a High Value Coach (HVC) which had barred windows, additional bolts and catches, alarms etc. There were four of these vehicles plus a spare which lacked the high security of the HVCs. By bribing the BR carriage and wagon staff who maintained these vehicles it was arranged that none of the HCVs were available for service and the spare had to be used. All the information on the operation of the train was supplied by a senior Post Office security officer. The amount of money carried that night was far in excess of the usual sum as the previous weekend was a bank holiday.

As the train stopped at several stations where the police would be in attendance, the robbers planned to stop the train en route, detach the HVC and draw it forward to  a remote spot between Leighton Buzzard and Cheddington .The getaway vehicle was parked at Bridego Bridge where the loot would be unloaded and taken to Leatherslade Farm, about thirty miles away.

The train was stopped at a signal by a technician by a simple ruse which was demonstrated by Ian with an actual signal. Instead of taking the bulb out which would have alerted the signalman to a fault, he covered it with a gardening glove and wired it to the red signal and the train came to a halt. The driver was coshed and handcuffed to the second man Whitby. The gang had recruited a retired driver to drive the train forward but his only experience was driving shunting locos and he was unable to operate the mainline diesel. Jack White was therefore untied, bleeding about the head and forced to drive the train to the designated bridge, where the cash was duly unloaded. Not all the bags were taken as the gang knew a freight train was due to pass and they would be spotted.

Leatherslade Farm was purchased by one of the gang with conveyancing done by someone who was a practising solicitor. £150K was distributed to each gang member as agreed and they played Monopoly with real money while lying low until it was obvious from listening to police radio that they had to leave much earlier than planned, leaving a cache of food behind. Ian went through all the details of how they were apprehended and eventually tried.

The maximum sentences of thirty years handed down in 1967 after the trial caused an outcry as they exceeded many sentences for serious offences against the person.

Ian’s talk was comprehensive and leavened with many snippets which I can’t do justice to in this brief report. It was a masterful presentation about a meticulously planned operation with some wonderful comic touches which many members said was probably one of the most entertaining Probus meetings they had attended.

 

Alan Smith

PROBUS TALK 23.01.2025

Our speaker on 23rd January was Howard Robinson on the subject of Captain Bligh, whose name is inextricably linked with the famous mutiny, the subject of three Hollywood films. He was born in 1754 and was signed on for the Navy at the age of seven, becoming an able seaman in 1770 and a midshipman in 1771.  He was selected by Captain Cook for his third and last Pacific voyage in 1776. He served in the Merchant Navy from 1783 and in 1787 became Commander (not Captain) of HMS Bounty, a 220-ton cutter. His task was to carry breadfruit trees from Tahiti to the West Indies as food for slaves. The fruit was not tasty and needed flavouring. The voyage was delayed in reaching Tahiti and there was further delay as Bounty stayed in Tahiti for five months, waiting for the trees to mature so they could be transported in potted soil. With its easy lifestyle and abundance of available women, is it any wonder that the crew were reluctant to sail?

A mutiny took place on 28th April 1789 off the island of Tofua, part of Tonga, the leader being Fletcher Christian.  Bligh and 20 men were placed in a 23ft. open boat with weapons, navigational aids, cutlasses, food for 44 days and water for a week. Four more men would have joined them, but the boat would have been overloaded and would have sunk. They attempted to obtain supplies in Tofua but were attacked by natives and one man was killed. As the nearest European settlement was Timor, Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) that was where Bligh headed, a voyage of over 3600 miles achieved in 47 days. Soon after arrival three crew died from disease. En route Bligh (ever conscientious!) kept a log and charted the route taken.

Meanwhile the mutineers sailed the Bounty back to Tahiti, but fear of discovery led some to find and settle on an uninhabited island called Pitcairn, some later transferring to Norfolk Island. HMS Pandora was sent out to find and transport the crew back to Britain.  At the court martial in 1792 on a charge of losing his ship, Bligh was acquitted and only three of the crew were convicted and hanged.

Bligh was involved in another mutiny in 1797 when the whole Royal Navy mutinied against not being paid and the low rates of pay.  Bligh spoke up and said the men had a justifiable case.

In 1805 Bligh was appointed the fourth Governor of New South Wales to sort out the corruption practised by the military officers in charge. In 1808 they arrested him, and he was confined for a year before being deported to Tasmania. He was eventually replaced and returned to Britain.  He rose to become a Vice-Admiral in 1814. He died in 1817. His grave and his house can be seen in Lambeth, South London.

Although he had character defects such as lack of a sense of humour, vanity, irascibility, pedanticism and volatile temper, he was no more a strict disciplinarian than were other officers of his time. Indeed, some of his punishments were more lenient. Howard clearly demonstrated that the common assumption that his harshness was the cause of the famous mutiny is a fallacy.

 

Alan Smith

PROBUS TALK 16.01.2025

 

Our first scheduled meeting of the New Year was cancelled due to flooding so we started on 16th January in fine form with a record attendance of 38. Our member Les Hatcher gave a presentation about the air disaster which happened at the Shoreham Air Show on 22nd August 2015 and explained how it was an entirely preventable accident. As an experienced pilot in the RAF who taught aerobatics for six years he was well qualified to comment on what went wrong.

The pilot was Andy Hill who was flying a privately-owned Hawker Hunter two-seat jet fighter. He had spent six years in the RAF, the rest of his career being as a pilot in civil aviation. He was noted as being undisciplined and had limited experience of flying Hunters. It seems there were inadequate checks on his experience. The Air Accidents Investigation Branch report listed the facts but did not apportion blame.

Les listed the errors made in contravention of the rules for aerobatic manoeuvres which made an accident inevitable. Firstly, he took off downwind with all fuel tanks full, whereas the rules state that to minimise weight you only carry as much fuel as you need to execute the planned manoeuvres. The loop was started at too low an altitude, the angle was too steep, before the manoeuvre was completed the flaps were down resulting in a nose-down position and without maximum power a deep stall was inevitable.  He should never have flown below 100ft., nor should he have flown over the busy A27.  The crash onto the A27 caused eleven deaths, not to mention serious disruption. Incredibly, the pilot survived, still in his seat, as he had not ejected.

Having read the AAIB report which concluded the accident was caused by pilot error and also reading a report in The Times, Les wrote a letter to The Times, which was published. He offered to be an expert witness at the trial and was contacted by the police but never called. The pilot was charged with criminally negligent manslaughter. His defence was that he was overcome by gravitational forces, in other words he was blacking out. He was acquitted but his pilot’s licence was revoked and when he subsequently applied for the ban to be lifted, it was refused.

The inquest took place after the trial and the Coroner found the pilot was guilty of unlawful killing but no further action was taken. The reason the inquest was held after the trial was that it was thought it might prejudice the trial.

The accident led to the tightening up of rules regarding the use of jet aircraft at air shows and more checks on potential pilots and their previous experience.

This was a detailed technical appraisal of what the pilot did wrong, which I have simplified; it raised serious questions as to why he was acquitted.

 

Alan Smith

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