Madeleine Allen
Madeleine runs a Leadership Training Consultancy, teaching communication skills to organisations across Scotland and the North East. She developed an interest in Coram after discovering that a family member was brought up at The Foundling Hospital. After researching the history of Coram she became a voluntary ambassador both for The Foundling Museum and for Coram (the modern-day children’s charity which continues Captain Coram’s legacy). She is also a member of the Old Coram Association which preserves the history of the children brought up at The Foundling Hospitaland has been fortunate enough to collect reminiscences from some of the few surviving foundlings. Madeleine regularly presents talks to interested groups about the history of Captain Coram, the role of music and the arts in the creation of The Foundling Hospital, and the personal stories of the foundlings themselves.
Tony Barrow
Tony Barrow has an M.Ed. from Newcastle University and did his Ph.D. (on the whaling trade) at Northumbria University. He was Head of History and Archaeology at Newcastle College, Associate Lecturer of the Open University and Visiting Lecturer of the University of Sunderland. He is regularly consulted on a wide variety of subjects to do with the maritime history of N.E. England and still reviews for several academic journals. His publications include: Tall Ships: Two Rivers (with Adrian Osler) 1992; Press Gangs and Privateers (1992); The Whaling Trade of N.E. England 1750-1850 (2001); Trafalgar Geordies (2005); Collingwood’s Northumbrians (2009); as well as articles for academic journals.
Malgorzata Bugaj
Malgorzata Bugaj is from Gdansk, Poland and studied at the University of Gdansk before completing her PhD in Film Studies at the University of Edinburgh. She currently teaches Film, Media and Contemporary Cultures at the University of Edinburgh, specialising in European, and particularly, Eastern European film. Her broader research interests revolve around avant-garde cinema, the representations of senses in film (an upcoming book chapter on the representations of smell in cinema), as well as the intersections of film and other media (here publications on such directors as Andrzej Wajda, Alexander Sokurov, or Peter Strickland, and videos artists such as Douglas Gordon and Christian Marclay). Malgorzata is currently preparing two short courses for the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Open Learning: “Cinema and the Five Senses”, and “The Cinema of Krzysztof Kieslowski”. She is also a co-founder of KinoKlub, a film collective showcasing rare surreal masterpieces from all over the world in unusual locations and immersive projections.
Maria Chester
Maria Chester is a Senior Lecturer in Art History and Ancient Civilisations of the Americas such as the Maya, the Aztec, and the Inca. She also developed an interest in Archaeology, which gave her a frame for her constant research. Since 2003 she has lived in Scotland where she joined her local U3A: East Berwickshire U3A. From 2005, she became a Group Leader (Art of the XX century; La Belle Époque; Spanish; Italian; Latin Rhythms; Ancient Civilisations of the Americas, among many others). She was elected as East Berwickshire Chairlady in 2010. By then she was already involved as a co-opted member with “U3As in Scotland” and also as a Regional Volunteer. In 2011, she became the National Subject Adviser of American Archaeology and in February 2015 she was appointed a member of the International Committee representing U3A Trust at IAUTA. In May 2016, she was elected Secretary General of AIUTA-Association Internationale des Universités du Troisième Âge. From 2010 to 2016 she has been the Chairlady and Programme Manager of Border Archaeological Society (BAS). In March 2016, she became BAS Vice President. She is multilingual and enjoys travelling, cooking, painting, digging and sailing. She was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina and lives with her husband and beloved dog in the Scottish Borders.
Anne Everest
Anne Everest qualified as a teacher in 1980 and taught part-time at the University of Hull in the early part of her career, delivering undergraduate courses in Roman history, Ancient Greek history and Roman Britain. From 1991 she did all her teaching in Scotland, where she is qualified to teach Latin, Greek, Classical Studies and English. A Deputy Head of Robert Gordon’s College in Aberdeen for five years, she became Head of St Margaret’s, Aberdeen in 2007, and retired from her second headship at St George’s School, Edinburgh at the end of 2016. She and her husband, Paul, have lived full-time in Berwick since November 2018.
Gerry Foley
Gerry Foley has nearly 40 years experience as a broadcast journalist. Starting out as a reporter on Irish Television’s premier current affairs programme in Dublin, he soon travelled north to Belfast where he spent 4 years ( 1984-88) reporting on ‘The Troubles’. Westminster was to be his home for the next quarter of a century, where he travelled with, and interviewed, every Prime Minister from the late Baroness Thatcher to David Cameron. Now living in Berwick , Gerry is a regular chair at book festivals across the country .
Mike Fraser
Mike is a proud Scot who has been exiled in England for many years. He is a former College Lecturer; he graduated from Strathclyde University and has post-graduate degrees from Newcastle and Northumbria Universities. Mike took early retirement in 1997 and initially took great pleasure in being a layabout around Newcastle upon Tyne. In 2004 however Mike and his wife moved to Belford and one day, idly reading a book about Berwick MPs, he discovered that Sir William Beveridge was MP for the Berwick upon Tweed constituency for a brief period at the end of the Second World War. His curiosity aroused, he began to research the political history of North Northumberland. Five studies, three publications and approximately forty talks later, including two successful appearances at the Berwick Literary Festival, he has decided to return to his main interest i.e. the study of twentieth-century culture. Mike and his wife moved to Berwick upon Tweed in 2015 and he is both a Trustee and a Steering Committee member of the Berwick Literary Festival. His leisure interests include football, music, art, literature, drama, photography and hill-walking.
Mariam Ghorbankarimi
Born and raised in Tehran, Iran, Maryam Ghorbankarimi moved to Canada in 2001 to continue her education in film at Toronto's Ryerson University. She completed her PhD in film studies at the University of Edinburgh in November 2012, her dissertation was entitled “A Colourful Presence; An Analysis of the Evolution in the Representation of Women in Iranian Cinema since the 1990”. As well as a scholar Maryam is a filmmaker and have made some award winning short films in both formats of short documentary and fiction. These works have been shown in a number of international festivals, namely: Montreal International Film Festival, Beijing International Short Film Festival, and Tehran International Short Film Festival. She is also a film editor and recently edited an Iranian-Canadian feature length film entitled “The Desert Fish”. Her wider research interests include the concept of third cinema and different national cinemas and transnational cinemas and cultures. Her current research is mostly on world cinema subjects, with a focus on Middle Eastern cinema specifically.
Pasquale Iannone
Pasquale is a Film Academic and Critic, and works at the University of Edinburgh, teaching Open Studies courses such as Childhood and the Cinema, Italian Cinema and The Art and Practice of the Video Essay. He is currently working on a volume on Jean-Pierre Melville's 'L'armée des ombres' for BFI/Palgrave, and upcoming publications include chapters on Luchino Visconti's 'Conversation Piece' (Routledge), sound/music in Hitchcock (Manchester University Press) and Pietro Germi and the Italo-Western (Edinburgh University Press). Pasquale is a regular contributor to Sight & Sound, Senses of Cinema, to BBC Radio 4's 'The Film Programme' and BBC Radio Scotland's 'The Culture Studio'.He has also curated several film seasons for Filmhouse (Edinburgh), Glasgow Film Theatre and BFI Southbank, including seasons on Jean Renoir, Luis Bunuel and Bob Dylan.
Adrian Jannetta
Adrian is a passionate advocate of science (particularly astronomy) and mathematics. His astronomical interests are wide ranging and include visual astronomy (using telescopes), astrophotography and spectroscopy. You can visit his website at
http://www.cosmicriver.net/
He has developed and taught numerous courses and outreach sessions in astronomy - mostly during his role as Training Officer for Northumberland Astronomical Society (NASTRO) during the period 2000 - 2016. He is currently Vice-Chair of NASTRO.
His primary degree is in mathematics in 1997, and he was awarded a PhD in mathematical physics in 2005. In 2017 he gained a MSc in Observational Astrophysics. He has co-authored papers in medical physics, cosmology and astrophysics. He is a qualified teacher, having gained a PGCE in 2007.
Since 2008, he works at INTO Newcastle University as module leader for maths on the Foundation Science and Engineering programme. He is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and a Chartered Mathematician.
Richard Kendall
Richard is currently studying for a PhD in Classics at the University of Edinburgh, specialising in the ancient Greek sites of modern Ukraine. Before this, he studied Classical Archaeology at UCL and Oxford, and Ancient History at the University of Birmingham, where he also taught. He has also worked professionally in the charity sector and in museum posts.
A keen cinephile, he devotes much of his spare time to movies, with a particular interest in silent film. He has founded Silent Film societies in Oxford and Birmingham, and through these endeavours has hosted a number of events, including film screenings, Q&As with an invited speakers and even a book launch.
Roger Mitchell
Roger gained an MA in Film Studies from the University of Newcastle in 1996. He has not only taught in secondary and higher education since then, but has also run courses at the Tyneside Cinema in Newcastle for more than 20 years. Roger’s main interests are the cinemas of Europe and East Asia.
Elaine Oswald
Elaine Oswald was born in the north of England and lived with her siblings in a haunted manse, where her parents read stories and poetry to them. Visiting wondrous places such as Narnia, Middle Earth, and Camelot inspired her love of language. She went on to complete an Arts and Humanities degree with the Open University, followed by a PGCE with Teaching Distinction, and taught at Amersham & Wycombe College before moving to the USA. After a few more relocations, she completed a Master’s degree in Medieval Literature & Linguistics, and a PhD in Literature, at the University of Tennessee, where she won the Excellence in Teaching Award. Most recently, she taught Women’s Studies, as well as TEFL, at Pellissippi State college in Tennessee, and led students on study abroad programs. Travelling and teaching gave her the opportunity to meet and listen to people who live in the informal townships surrounding Lima, Peru; undocumented people who illegally cross the border between the US and Mexico; and women who were beaten and raped in South Africa. Witnessing these horrendous stories and seeing first-hand how reading and writing can empower people has reinforced Elaine’s belief in the importance of literacy. She will continue to share her love of language and stories in the Scottish Borders, her latest home.
Martin Parker
Martin Parker, who is a composer, improviser and sound artist, is programme director of the MSc Sound Design at the University of Edinburgh, artistic director of Dialogues Music Festival, and a member of Unrivalled Jetsam, a computer music laptop trio with Jules Rawlinson and Dave Murray-Rust. Martin’s compositions have been performed by some of the world’s finest experimental performers, including Joby Burgess, Phil Minton, Anne La Berge, Peter Furniss, The Athelas Sinfonietta and New Noise London. He has made collaborative work with Evan Parker, Theatre Cryptic, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Music at the Brewhouse and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and his sound installations have been presented in places as diverse as the Klangturm, Austria and in the National Trust For Scotland’s abandoned library at Newhailes.
Martine Pierquin
Martine Pierquin studied cinema history in Paris and European film studies at the University of Edinburgh, where she teaches general film studies, French cinema and the UALL award-nominee course “An Insight into EIFF”, in partnership with Edinburgh International Film Festival. She has published on film director Jean Eustache and has contributed lectures and film introductions to the French Film Festival UK for many years. She was involved in piloting “Understanding Cinema”, the Edinburgh Filmhouse’s five- year running film-making programme for young people, in collaboration with the British Film Institute and the Cinemathèque Française in Paris. Her current research is on film education and lifelong learning.
Janet Starkey
Dr Janet C.M. Starkey edited the Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies between 2007 and 2018. A former lecturer in the Anthropology of the Middle East at Durham University and a founder member of the Association for the Study of Travel in Egypt and the Near East (ASTENE), she has published extensively on travellers in the Middle East. Her most recent book, The Scottish Enlightenment Abroad: the Russells of Braidshaw in Aleppo and on the Coast of Coromandel (Leiden & Boston: Brill), was published in 2018 and she was a contributor to and joint editor of Travellers in Ottoman Lands: the botanical legacy (Archaeopress, 2018). In 2019 she published on coffee-houses in Edinburgh and on Vanmour in Constantinople. She is currently working on a book about Marco Polo and other medieval travellers.
Paul Starkey
Professor Paul G. Starkey, a specialist in Arabic literature and culture, is Emeritus Professor at Durham University, Chairman of the Banipal Trust for Arab Literature, and until recently was Vice-President of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (BRISMES). His translation of The Book of the Sultan’s Seal by Youssef Rakha won the 2015 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation, and his translation of The Shell by Mustafa Khalifa won a Sheikh Hamad Award for Translation and International Understanding in 2017. He was contributor to and joint editor of Travellers in Ottoman Lands: the botanical legacy (Archaeopress, 2018). In 2019 he will be finalising his monograph on Faris al-Shidyaq and a book on the modern Arabic novel.
Alison Tymon
Alison Tymon graduated from Leeds University with a degree in Geography/Geology, and taught at Greenhead Sixth Form College, Huddersfield for the great majority of her career. She is an organiser for geoconservation in West Yorkshire, lecturer and writer of articles, leaflets and booklets about rocks and landscapes, and a leader of field trips in Yorkshire, Northumberland, Scotland and Iceland over many years. Alison is Chairman of West Yorkshire Geology Trust.
Gill Walton
Gill Walton is the founder and main tutor of Allanbank Arts, a teaching art centre near Duns in the Scottish Borders. She is a practising artist and a former art college lecturer. She has many years of experience in life drawing and teaching, and has found that, though knowledge and experience are important, kindness and humour are equally valuable. She initially trained as a sculptor but her current work includes painting, drawing and sculpture. Her work is mainly figurative and deals with the complexities of human relationships. You can visit Gill’s websites: gillwalton.co.uk, allanbankarts.co.uk.
Maurice Ward
Maurice was born in Spennymoor, Co. Durham, studied at City University in London, and was an Honorary Senior Lecturer in Medical Informatics at Warwick University. He set up and ran an IT business in the early 80’s, which he managed for 15 years. Following this a career in the NHS and Dept of Health, first in medical informatics, later project management of large national projects. Maurice volunteered for 25 years for Amnesty International, being a Board member and Trustee, working, sometimes internationally, on organisational development and Human Rights training. He has recently become a Fellow of the RSA and is a Fellowship Councillor representing Fellows in the North. Locally, Maurice was chair of the Maltings for seven years, co-founder of the Berwick Film Society, ex Chair of the Berwick Chess Club and of the Glendale Music festival.
Catherine Weetman Msc
Catherine is an international speaker, workshop facilitator, consultant and host of the Circular Economy Podcast. She helps businesses, social enterprises and community groups to use circular economy approaches to build a better world. Catherine's award-winning book, A Circular Economy Handbook for Business and Supply Chains, explains the circular economy in practical terms, with lots of wide-ranging examples and tips on getting started.
Mike Worboys
Mike has a PhD in mathematics and is Professor of Spatial Informatics in the Department of Computing and Information Sciences, University of Greenwich, London, where he is leader of the Greenwich GI Science Research Group (g3). Until the end of 2012 he was director of the School of Computing and Information Science, and a professor in the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA) at the University of Maine, USA. Mike is also a composer and sound artist, having an interest in both instrumental and electroacoustic music. He holds a Master of Music degree in Composition from Trinity Laban Conservatoire in London. His instrumental music has been performed at the London Institute for Contemporary Arts (ICA), the National Maritime Museum, other venues around London, and the St. Magnus Cathedral, Orkney. His piano work, ‘Bone Memories’, recently won first prize in the John Halford competition for piano and composition judged by pianist Ian Pace. He also composes electroacoustic works, and has recently collaborated with Allanton artists Charles Paulsen and Pauline Burbidge for an electroacoustic installation at the Edinburgh City Art Centre, showing from November 2017 to March 2018. You can find out more at https://www.worboys.org