I already raise money through golf competitions and I am the patient and public rep on a number of prostate cancer research projects so doing local interest talks seemed a suitable additional activity. I hope I have put my geography, geology and history knowledge to good effect.

The POWER of PLAGUES: How Pandemics Have Changed the Way we Live Our Lives; Ever since homo sapiens emerged in East Africa 200,000 yrs ago we have been plagued by plagues, most of them local but just occasionally infectious enough to spread across the then known world and deadly enough to change the way we lived our lives in the past and on into the present day..

BUILDING A BOUNDARY: The History of the Anglo-Scottish border; This is a story of collision, conflict, control and change. The division goes back a lot further than you think. Back past Bonnie Prince Charlie, Sir Harry Hotspur, Robert the Bruce, William the Conqueror, King Athelstan, Emperor Hadrian and on into the mists of time...geological time! It is a boundary that has been defined by rivers, ridges, walls and even just lines on a map and also one that has changed its position many times and may change again in the future.

TYNEDALE: The Landscape and History of the Valley; How the landscape of the Tyne Valleys, with their deep cut denes and flat plains, came into being. It’s a story, which started over two million years ago and continues today, involving glaciers over thousands of feet thick and lakes hundreds of feet deep. And how this influenced the development of settlements from pre-roman times through to the present day. A tale of changing fortunes, a repeating cycle of growth and decline with a bit of destruction thrown in for good measure. 

THE GREAT WHIN SILL: An Intrusion into Our Landscape and Our Lives; 295 million years ago molten volcanic rock was injected into layers of sandstone and mudstone deep below the surface of the earth and then cooled quickly to become solid. 295 million years of erosion has brought this hard resistant dolerite to the surface and created cliffs for castles and walls, reefs for shipwrecks and lighthouses, and stone for roads and buildings. Add to this gorges and waterfalls, what has been exposed has affected the lives of many and helped to forge their stories now to be told.

JERUSALEM 1965: The Middle East and Back by Post Office van; Back when I was a 17yr old sixth form student, me and my head of history, his wife and six other students set off on a 3000 mile adventure spanning the full six weeks of our summer holiday. Using maps plus photos taken at the time this is the story of a journey through an area recently devastated by an earthquake, border zones tense after previous conflicts and a country preparing for a possible war. It is a tale of mishaps, breakdowns and unique experiences plus some insights into the struggles that are still taking place today, nearly 60yrs later.