Back in the saddle

For our August Club gathering we were finally, for the first time in 11 months, allowed back into the upstairs room at the Wheatsheaf, our ancestral home. In truth it was a select gathering, with maybe 15 people in total over the evening; the pub itself was quiet, as were the surrounding streets, so certainly things are not yet back to normal. Our speaker was the Earl of Essex, reprising the subject of an earlier talk, the scandalous MP Sir Henry "Chips" Channon. Channon's uncensored diaries have since been published and these formed the source of Essex's talk. Essentially it was a collection of extracts, giving a glimpse into Channon's bizarrely privileged life and attitudes. He's forever dismissing people as "common" at the same time as lambasting others for being "frightful snobs". He's born into great wealth but is always getting into debt, such are his spendthrift ways—it's as is he has an aching boredom that can only be assuaged through very expensive things, mostly clothing and jewelled objects. The talk ended quite abruptly when Essex reached the point in the diaries that he had read to (around 1938)—at about 1,000 pages the source material itself had proved proved too big a challenge in the time available. You can see a video of Essex's talk on the NSC YouTube channel at https://youtu.be/-TwBXdJHYHU. Thanks to all who came and to the valiant staff at the Wheatsheaf, who have braved a long drought indeed.

You can see more photos from the evening on our Flickr account.