Narrabri

Monday 9 March 2026
GREAT RAILWAY STATIONS
Presented by Ian Swankie
Venue & Time: The Crossing Theatre, arrivals from 6.30pm for a 7pm start

If you think of St Pancras International or New York’s Grand Central Station, you imagine long romantic journeys. You know they are special places promising excitement and adventure, and there are dozens of other glorious stations all over the world. This talk explores some of the most evocative and splendid railway stations. We look at the magnificence of station architecture and engineering, and the many depictions of stations in art – like Monet’s Gare St Lazare or William Powell Frith’s Paddington. A journey which is lavish, colourful and fun, evoking the spirit of romance and adventure.

A Londoner with a contagious enthusiasm for art and architecture, Ian is an official guide at Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Guildhall Art Gallery and St Paul’s Cathedral. He is also a freelance London tour guide.

Monday 11 May 2026
NEW VISIONS: PARIS AND IMPRESSIONISM
Presented by Joanne Rhymer
Venue & Time: The Crossing Theatre, arrivals from 6.30pm for a 7pm start

During Napoleon III’s reign, Paris underwent an extraordinary transformation. Medieval neighbourhoods were cleared making way for wide boulevards, elegant apartment blocks, parks, and monumental public buildings that reshaped the landscape and social fabric. Theatres, cafés, and entertainment venues flourished. The dynamics inspired the Impressionists, who were keen to capture the fleeting sensations of the modern capital. By examining works by artists including Manet, Renoir, and Caillebotte, we will discover how their radical techniques reflect the attractions and complexities of modern Parisian society.

Since completing an MA at University College London in the History of Art, Joanne Rhymer’s areas of specialism include 19th-century and early 20th-century French art, and her interests include the visual skills involved in the sustained viewing of paintings.

Monday 15 June 2026
DOGS IN AUSTRALIAN ART
Presented by Steven Miller
Venue & Time: The Crossing Theatre, arrivals from 6.30pm for a 7pm start

The story of Australian art is incomplete without its wonderful canine stars. Learn their names and the stories heralded by artists since early colonial times. The deep connections Indigenous Australians have with the dingo, illustrated in cave paintings, on barks and ceremonial objects, is where it all began. Australians love their dogs – with nearly 3.5 million dogs registered, we are said to have one of the highest rates of dog ownership in the world. This talk will conclude with some of our local talented artists own work – all featuring our legendary best friends.

Steven Miller was the head of the National Art Archive at the Art Gallery of New South Wales from 2009 to 2023. He has worked in commercial and public galleries since the late 1980s and published widely on art.

Monday 13 July 2026
IS THIS THE REAL LIFE
Presented by Mary Sharp
Venue & Time: The Crossing Theatre, arrivals from 6.30pm for a 7pm start

When Lucy ventures through the wardrobe into Narnia, when Harry Potter opens his acceptance letter, and when Neo takes the red pill from Morpheus, they all discover that the worlds they thought they knew are only part of the truth. From Plato onwards, writers and artists have been inspired to push beyond the everyday and to create other worlds that inspire our imaginations. This lecture explores what these stories tell us about how we view our lives and what it is that we most desire.

Mary is an experienced broadcaster and teacher with particular expertise in literature and drama. She has worked as a producer and commissioning editor for BBC Radio 4, a teacher and director of sixth form at a leading girls’ grammar school, and now runs her own company ‘Opening Up Literature’.

Monday 17 August 2026
A PHOTOGRAPHIC ODYSSEY
Presented by Mark Cottle
Venue & Time: The Crossing Theatre, arrivals from 6.30pm for a 7pm start

On Ernest Shackleton’s third Antarctic expedition in 1914, his ship the Endurance was trapped, eventually crushed in pack ice. Shackleton sailed with five companions over 800 miles to South Georgia, returning over three months later to rescue his stranded crew. Australian Frank Hurley was the expedition’s official photographer. His images capture with great artistry the amazing landscapes within which this remarkable human drama unfolded. This talk illustrates Hurley’s great talent behind the lens, in the first flush of human contact when the Antarctic remained essentially ‘terra incognita’.

Born on the Isles of Scilly and educated at Truro School, Cornwall, and Birmingham University, Mark Cottle has enjoyed a career in education and training at home and abroad, lecturing at colleges and universities on medieval, Tudor, and Anglo Saxon England.

Monday 14 September 2026
AROUND THE WORLD WITH ISABELLA BIRD: Victorian Lady Traveller
Presented by Marie Conte-Helm
Venue & Time: The Crossing Theatre, arrivals from 6.30pm for a 7pm start

This talk traces the story of the intrepid Isabella Bird, who set out to see the world and brought glimpses of it back to her readership at home. Isabella Bird’s written accounts of her globetrotting adventures from the 1850s offer insights into the challenges faced by women travellers in the Victorian period as well as the growth of travel and tourism that helped to make the world a smaller place.

Professor Conte-Helm is a long-established Lecturer of The Arts Society with a BA in History of Art and an MA in Asian Art. She has most recently served as Executive Director of the UK-Japan 21st Century Group, as Visiting Professor at Northumbria University, and as a Member of the Board of Governors of the University for the Creative Arts. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She was Director General of the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation from 1999-2011 and has held senior academic positions at various UK universities.

Monday 19 October 2026
LEE MILLER’S WAR
Presented by Antony Penrose
Venue & Time: The Crossing Theatre, arrivals from 6.30pm for a 7pm start

Lee Miller is thought to have been the only woman combat photographer with the allied infantry in Europe during the second World War. This lecture presents her war photojournalism from shortly after D Day in Normandy, through the Siege of St Malo, the liberation of Paris, fighting across Germany, the liberation of Buchenwald and Dachau to the flames leaping from Hitler’s Berghof near Berchtesgaden that signalled the end of the war, and then the post war traumas of Austria and Hungary. The story is told through extensive use of Lee Miller’s own words, set to her photographs.

For the past 45 years, Antony has conserved and disseminated the work of his parents, Lee Miller and Roland Penrose. With his daughter Ami he is the co-director of The Lee Miller Archives and The Penrose Collection at Farley Farm House in Sussex.

Image credit: David E Scherman © Lee Miller Archives, England 2026. All rights reserved