Beeston resident Ken Burton reflects on the class of 2012/13 at Beeston History Class…
Some 11 years ago Mary Payne and myself attended a talk at the old Beeston Library (now the Community Centre) entitled ‘Richard III was he as bad as we thought’.
This led to Mary suggesting that if we could find the speakers we could probably do the same thing over the October to April period.
After canvassing among people we knew and advertising we got together 24 people who were interested in history in all its aspects so we made a start.
We had managed to contact three different speakers who were all good in their respective fields.
Unfortunately Mary was not available for the photo shoot due to family illness. In 2008 just as our membership was starting to decline we were fortunate to get council funding and this put us on a sound and proper financial footing.
Over the years when we have been on lean times we have been fortunate in getting some funding from various sources such as the Yorkshire Building Society, Leeds Building Society, Hunslet & South Leeds Cars, and the Wades Trust these donations have meant that we were not destitute but had to be careful with our pennies in the struggle with rising costs, but now thanks to the Community First Grant we received in 2012 our lives are now much easier.
I would also like to express our thanks to the staff at Beeston Library for their unstinting help through all these years.
I would urge anyone out there with an idea like or similar to ours to have a go, there is plenty of help out there if you only know where to look for it and don’t be afraid to ask.
It would be really interesting to know what you have been looking at this autumn and what’s planned for the next few months so if you have time to tell us in another article that would be great.
Good to see the staff at Beeston Library being thanked – I always find them very helpful and cheerful.