Our speaker will be Philip Hancock, with a lecture entitled Murdering the Orient Express. “In this uncomfortable blend of history and travelogue,” he explains, “I consider the world’s most famous and perhaps most elegant train, the Orient Express. Drawing on extensive archival research—or perhaps something read in a book I found in Colchester Library—and combining it with tales and slightly smug holiday snaps from my own locomotive sojourn to the Queen of the Adriatic during the autumn of 2022, I shall endeavour to transport you back to an age of glamour, marquetry, and some rather long tunnels.”

As usual we will be attempting to livestream the talk (depending on whether the venue have fixed their internet connection—last month the stream lasted precisely two seconds). The link to watch this is https://youtube.com/live/f-LvjkG3YMQ.