SARUM U3A

The monthly Coffee Morning of Sarum U3A was held in our usual venue of St Francis Church Hall on Wednesday 19 November. 

This month’s Newsletter asked if there would be support for  new groups: Keep Fit; Philosophy; Village Visits, Meteorology and Church Visits. Tickets were on sale for the New Year Party on 21 January.

Our speaker this month, who attracted a large and attentive audience, was John Smith who had compiled the exhibition at Beaulieu on the Special  Operations Executive (SOE)**. 

He described the setting up of SOE instigated by Winston Churchill under the cover of Hugh Dalton’s Economic Warfare Department with the instruction to “set Europe ablaze”.  The 3-part training for Secret Agents sent into occupied Europe, which included things like silent killing, breaking and entering, disguises, code breaking, forgery, working with explosives,  invisible writing, radio communication and learning to parachute, was the same for women and men. 

We heard about some of the trainers: among others Kim Philby; Hardy Amies; a screenplay writer and an ex-convict.  He went through some of their missions and told us about some of the brave agents such as Odette Churchill and Violette Szabo and the terrible things they went through when they were captured.   It was a most informative morning.

The next meeting is on Wednesday 17 December when the speaker will be Paul Courtenay   talking about “Thoughts and Adventures of the young Winston Churchill”. 

Information on the activities of Sarum U3A can be found in the reference section of the Public Library.

** A super web site for a lot more information can be seen HERE