Richard Emmett’s Talk List

HRGS Chairman, Richard Emmett, is available to provide a talk on a variety of subject areas.

They are all illustrated talks which usually last between 40 and 60 minutes –

‘The Train that Jumped the Gap’…the story behind the Doodlebug demolishing the railway bridge at Upchurch in 1944.
‘Over by Christmas’…Accounts from the diary kept by Ernest Smith from Milton Regis during the early part of WW1.
‘The Rose Hill Chronicles’…talk on our research and finds from the excavations on a demolished Georgian house that stood at Rose Hill, Bobbing.
‘Making Indiana Jones redundant’…use of new technology in archaeology.
‘The Bredhurst Ancestors’…report on our research and finds from the excavations at Bredhurst from the Stone Age to the Medieval period.
‘Sittingbourne’s WW1 legacy’ The story into the research of the Sittingbourne War Memorials Project.
‘Birdsong, Barbed wire and Blather’…My interest in WW1 research and archaeology at La Boisselle on The Somme.
‘Hell to Hospital’ The WW1 casualty evacuation process and Sittingbourne’s VAD hospitals.
‘A view to die for’…A look at the Boer War told through the life of Richard’s Great Grandfather who received a Distinguished Conduct Medal.
‘What can you find under your feet? …how to get the archaeological bug!
‘Did the battle of The Somme achieve anything’?…A review of the battle in Pecha Kucha or chat style.
‘The Pilgrims and Watling Street’, How the pilgrims affected Sittingbourne and shaped its development over the last thousand years.
‘Third Battle of Scarpe’, an examination of the WW1 battle in which four local battalions took part with disastrous consequences.
‘Bringing History Alive’…being part of a local history group and becoming a ‘time traveller’.
‘Khaki Aeronauts’, a look at early military ballooning in north Kent.
‘Howard Carter and Tutmania’, The story of the Archaeologist Howard Carter, who discovered Tutankhamun’s Tomb and its wonderous contents, which gave rise to the ‘Tut-mania’ across the world in the 1920s.
‘The History of Space Flight’, Richard will share his lifelong interest in manned space flight, and will share with us the fascinating exploits of the Space Race and some interesting photos of Russian spacecraft held in our local Archive.
‘The Life and Times of Cinemas in Swale’, based on the book produced by John Clancy called ‘The Long Gone Cinemas of Swale’ this is a nostalgic look at the rise and fall of the local cinemas in the 20th century.
‘Sittingbourne in the 1920s’, the history of Sittingbourne and Milton Regis through Archive images and glimpses into the past via the records made in the East Kent Gazette from the 1920s.

I charge £80 per talk if the venue is within Kent, or would consider an exchange reciprocal talk for the Historical Research Group of Sittingbourne (HRGS) talks programme.

To enquire about a talk Contact Us or email Richard.