February 11th 2016

Indian Food - Anita Chipalkatty

Unfortunately, Anita was called away to India for a family illness so she couldn't speak at our meeting. We hope to arrange another date for her to visit in the near future.

New Speaker - Malcolm Deacon - Transportation and Emigration to Australia

Malcolm stepped in to help us out at the last minute and we are vey grateful to him. He used us a guinea pigs for a forthcoming lecture he is giving at Lincoln University. He spoke about the life of women convicts and in particular of the life of Mary Broad, who had assaulted a woman and stolen her bonnet. It was decided that she would hang but then the sentence was changed to 7 years transportation to Botany Bay. Malcolm told us of many of the dreadful facts about the conditions on board the convict ships and the length of time it took to travel to Australia. Many didn't survive the perilous journey. 

He continued with a short talk about Caroline Chisholm and linked the two women by comparing their journeys and life after arriving in Australia. We all know of the connection between Caroline Chisholm and Northampton but actually she is better known over there and has had her face on bank notes for quite some time.

Competition: Spice of Life We kept the competition title as it was too short notice to change it.

The winner was Sheila Charlton with a cookery book and newspaper article about Madhur Jaffrey.
2nd was Lorraine Bunting with a box of spices to make a Masala Dabba and 3rd was Paula Neal with a home baked 'family' of Spiced Gingerbread biscuits.