Past Events 

16 Jan 2025 by Dr Bea Lewkowicz

Surviving the Holocaust in Poland

As we approach the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Dr Bea Lewkowicz, Director of AJR Refugee Voices Archive, will be chairing a conversation with Mala Tribich MBE, a survivor of Ravensbruck and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps, about her experiences during and after the war.


12 Dec 2024 by Ruth Waterman

Working with Music and Paint - The Creative Act

Ruth Waterman has had plenty of opportunity to puzzle over the similarities and differences between these activities. How much overlap is there? What are the challenges of each? What is the relationship between interpretation and expression? And is there a way of describing the creative process?


21 Nov 2024 by Pamela Holmes

The Extraordinary Life of Elizabeth Blackwell

An illustrated talk by Pamela Holmes on the famous 18th century botanical illustrator, who eloped from Scotland to London and later rescued her husband from the notorious Marshalsea Debtors Jail.


17 Oct 2024 by Lester Hillman

"... a hard rain's a gonna fall"

The 1:20,000 year great storm over Hampstead 14th August 1975.

Next year is 50 years on from Hampstead's Great Storm. Belsize and Gospel Oak were also at the heart of that  early evening 7inch deluge and the overflowing local rivers and drains. 

Before long the eye witness record will be gone. Come and hear first hand accounts and bring your own recollections. The decades since have seen more than £20m of flood works on the Heath.

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Lester Hillman personally witnessed the 1975 storm, noting down and collecting observations. 

His background has been in the development, environment and infrastructure regulatory sector, alongside academic appointments including a Visiting Professorship and advisory roles. He is the recipient of international, university and professional awards. 


For two decades he has helped organise World Town Planning Day including the forthcoming 75th anniversary later this year, in liaison with Argentina. 

19 Sep 2024 by Aurelia Young

Finding Nemon: The Extraordinary Life of the Outsider who sculpted the Famous

An illustrated talk ‘Oscar Nemon – Sculptor of Sigmund Freud, Royalty and Statesmen’ 

given by Aurelia Young

In her illustrated talk Aurelia Young will tell the story of how her teenage father left his home in the Balkans to study sculpture in Vienna and Brussels before coming to London in the 1930s to seek refuge from the Nazi threat.


Nemon’s statue of Sigmund Freud stands in Belsize Lane and his bust of Freud can be seen at the Freud Museum.


Aurelia will explain how Nemon coped with losing his family in the Holocaust.


Queen commissioned Nemon to make a bust of Winston Churchill for Windsor Castle and whilst he was sitting for Nemon, Churchill made a bust of the sculptor. Nemon’s most well-known statue of Churchill can be seen in the Members Lobby of the House of Commons. Nemon’s bust of the Queen can be seen in the Robing Room in the House of Lords.


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Comments from people who have been to one of Aurelia’s talks.

‘I attended a marvellous lecture by Aurelia Young on her late father, the sculptor Oscar Nemon, a genius who sculpted the crowed heads of Europe, Sigmund Freud and Winston Churchill’ 

Matthew Parris. The Times 

“Enthralling” ..............  “spell-binding” ………….  “knowing nothing about Oscar Nemon before, I felt afterwards as if he had been a personal friend” ……..  “Aurelia gave an amusing and fascinating account of a talented and interesting man”

Richard Smith-Wright