WE welcomed Phil Bawn of Harvington, a guest of Clive Allen, to our meeting on Thursday, August 13. He expressed interest in our proceedings and we hope he becomes a member.

Our speaker was Anthony Collis of Stourbridge and the subject of his presentation was ‘Ladies who swing’. He swiftly scotched any smuttiness by announcing that the swinging ladies he referred to were pub signs! And the ladies in question included queens, heroines, mistresses, celebrities and those with a literary connection.

Anthony showed us slides of the various pub signs, including all the well known ones, including the Elmley Castle one which celebrated the visit of Elizabeth I. Many of the others were less familiar, such as Boadicea and Adnams. Of the heroines, Joan of Arc, Florence Nightingale and Edith Cavell featured, as did the mistresses Nell Gwynne, Lady Hamilton and Lily Langtry.

Anthony talked us through a wide range of these pub signs some of which are no longer in use. Chief among these, not surprisingly, was the pub called the Quiet Woman! He clearly has spent a great deal of time, as a member of the Inn Sign Society, visiting these establishments!

David Lee thanked Anthony on our behalf. He confessed that he had wondered about the subject of the talk, thinking it might be about women who had been hung. But realised that it could not be this as the title would have been Ladies who swung!

Next week, on August 20, we shall hear about the Amish people followed on August 27 by the music of Gustav Holst.

CHRIS DONOUGH