Our Autumn Programme is now in place, and we are booking speakers into 2010. Over the next year we will be welcoming some familiar faces who have new research to tell us about, and other speakers who we've not been able to listen to before.

I am particularly looking forward to hearing Michael Peet in September. He is a great friend of the Society and will present an illuminating view of the "Home Front" of the 1940s from the perspective of an adult male.

In October we will give a warm welcome to Cllr Ruth Polling who will speak about her love of heritage and her work in safeguarding what is left to us.

November will see one of our regular joint meetings with the Islington Society, and I'll have more details soon.

For our December meeting we always like to provide something special, and in alternate years I've been very happy to introduce actors with a rehearsed script. The next play is for next year. This year we have a symposium, with Professor Lester Hillman speaking about John Burns and the 1909 Town Planning Act, and he will be joined by a discussant from Pentonville Prison, where Burns was at one time an inmate, and by an authority on the premierships of Campbell-Bannerman and Asquith.

Full details and brief biographies of the speakers are on the 'Events' page - just click on to the left of this column. I hope you will join us. In the meantime do come and see us at the Angel Canal Festival from 11am on 6 September.

Best to all,

Andrew Gardner (Chairman)