Caroline told the story of the discovery of nuclear fission (and its consequences) through the lives of two women scientists: Irene Joliot-Curie, who was French and Lise Meitner, who was Austrian.

Irene was Marie Curie’s elder daughter, born at the end of the 19^th century and worked with her at the Radium Institute, both of them running a mobile X-Ray unit during WWI. There she met and married her husband Frederic Joliot who also because her working partner. In the 1930s they carried out and published many experiments in the field, though did miss out on recognising two sub atomic particles: the neutron and the positron. But in 1935 they discovered how to create artificial radiation and for this they were given the Nobel Prize in chemistry.

Frederic and Irene were both socialists and were also firm believers that they should share their work with other scientists. In 1938 they published the results of an experiment of theirs bombarding aluminium foil with sub-atomic particles and this caused another pair of scientists, Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner, working in Berlin to run further experiments.

Lise Meitner was born in Vienna in 1875 and was not able to access secondary education until she was in her late 20s. Then she because the first woman to gain a doctorate in physics in Vienna and only the second in the world. She went to Berlin and there met Otto Hahn with whom she had a long, successful working relationship. Despite not being allowed to work in the main Institute initially things gradually loosened up and she became a full professor and Head of Department. Einstein called her the German “Marie Curie”. However, the anti-Jewish laws when Hitler came to power in 1933 affected her. She was no longer able to attend conferences, speak in public or put her name to published work.

In 1938, after the Anschluss, she had to escape to Sweden. There at Christmas in 1938 she finally worked out that radiation was produced by the atom splitting, something that had not been understood before.

This was the first big problem in nuclear physics solved. The next was how to achieve a continuous release of energy; the chain reaction. Here the equipment in the Radium Institute was important. Also, scientists across the world realised that there was a possibility of developing a bomb of unimaginable proportions. Irene and Frederic stopped publishing and archived their work. They also smuggled their stocks of heavy water out of the country. But they couldn’t move their Cyclotron (a particle accelerator). Irene left for Switzerland and treatment for TB, but Frederic returned to Paris and joined the French Resistance. Every time the German scientists arrived to use the Cyclotron, he made sure it never worked.

However, the atom bomb was of course developed as part of the Manhattan project in the United States. Lise Meitner had been invited to join the project but refused categorically. She hated being known as the mother of the atom bomb.

Irene survived for 10 years after the end of WWII. She was an active member of the Peace Initiatives and also, as a committed feminist, made several applications to the French Academy of Scientists which didn’t accept women to make a very public point.

Lise went on teaching in Sweden after the war, only retiring to the UK in 1960. She spent many years working to convince the German scientists to accept that they had supported an evil regime and even propped it up, to Germany’s detriment, in the final years of the war. She is buried in Hampshire, where the legend on her gravestone says “A physicist who never lost her humanity”.

We were quite a nervous group to start with, but keen to learn how to do cryptic crosswords. Then Rosemary told us that the point to remember about cryptic crosswords is that they are meant to be FUN and FAIR. They are a game, not some struggle with the twisted brain of the setter.

In fact, as we worked through a sample together (see the examples below) we started to enjoy the cleverness and wit of the clues. Rosemary also told us to think that these crosswords are easier, because we aren’t just given what the answer should be (as in a regular crossword), we also get a puzzle that helps us see if we have picked the right word.

The first British crosswords appeared in 1923. The first all cryptic version was published in the Observer in 1928. In the 20s, the crossword in the newspaper had the same effect as Sudoko when that was introduced in the UK in the Times in 2004. It became a craze. The grids are symmetrical and originally there were only a limited number available, because of the typesetting technology used then. There are national differences too. The UK versions are unique. In the US, the cryptic crossword is known as “the British Crossword”. Wikipedia is full of information for those who want to delve into the topic.

There are many different levels of crossword. Some are crushingly difficult. But Rosemary suggested we should start with the easier ones: the quick cryptic in the Times 2 or the Guardian Quiptic which is available online at Quiptic | Crosswords | The Guardian. You can do these ones online, which is good because there is some help available, or print them out.

Rosemary gave us all a list of the types of clue we should look out for, which was enormously helpful and went through each type, giving example clues.

We then spent the rest of our session working through one of the example crosswords together, which was very enjoyable. We all learned a lot.

I have put up the handouts we were given here

List of Rules

Sample Crosswords (with answers) Nov 8^th, Nov 9^th, Nov 10^th, Nov 11^th, Nov 12^th

We had a good discussion about WISE. We agreed that informality was very important and that we like the format of women talking to women. Something we did want to add to the mix though, was to give people the opportunity of meeting others when they come to a live meeting. We also felt it would be interesting to experiment with some different formats: to try out some workshops and to include discussion. We did feel it would be good to be exposed to alternative points of view, but if there are strongly held views on several sides, we should be sure that discussion is on Socratic lines (no criticism of people only of ideas) and follow Chatham House Rules (not attributing ideas to people outside the discussion).

We are happy with keeping the session completely free, except in the odd case. An example of this would be a craft workshop, where some payment may be needed. Otherwise, we will continue to fund the fees for use of the library by asking for a donation for tea and biscuits. Where the session needs some payment, those attending will be asked to contribute. There were many, many ideas about topics for session and we will be looking into these in the coming months. It was agreed that we will prioritise space for issues that matter to women.

There was a fundamental point made that WISE was something we all participate in and not just something we turn up to.

We talked about various ways of giving people the chance to meet others. For now, we will continue to serve tea as people arrive (a break in the middle of a session was thought to be difficult). However, we will delay the start of the formal part of the session (talk or discussion) to 4:15. Also, and especially while COVID continues to be a risk, we will lay out seating in what is called café style; chairs arranged around tables. Then people can take their tea and sit down to chat, since we still need to wear masks in the library while moving about. This gives us time for general chat and discussion and hopefully makes for a good mix of people.

Marti came to the UK in 1964 because she was interested in left-wing politics.  She went to Leeds University and in 1965 married and then stayed in the UK.  She has written two books “Be Careful What You Wish For” and “The Rising Cost of Staying Alive”.

Marti began by talking about her early life in South Carolina near the Blue Ridge Mountains, her father’s communism and his political confusion.

Marti became aware of McCarthyism and the danger facing her family when her father was dismissed from the army for being a communist, although subsequently he was allowed to join the merchant navy.  When in 1939 Hitler and Stalin concluded a non-aggression pact her father renounced his membership of the communist party and became a reporter for the Daily Worker although his politics always remained at variance with the society in which he lived and this shaped Marti’s life.

Marti was eleven months old when her mother took her to live in South Carolina where she had a much-loved black nanny, Lily.  At that time the people in South Carolina were following in the footsteps of the English (her mother was a debutante) but then came The Great Depression, followed by the war, and many families had a much-reduced standard of living.  Much of the country was too swampy for traditional English agriculture and Marti‘s description of the freshwater Salamanders and South Carolina marshlands where there were alligators, snakes, racoons, Snowy Egrets and Jaybirds roosting in the trees on the inlets of the marshlands was wonderfully evocative.

Marti went on to discuss segregation which had it’s roots in the slave trade when British ships took slaves from the Caribbean to the American colonies, including South Carolina.  Thousands of slaves were brought in to work on the plantations growing cotton, rice and sugar cane crops and it was during this time that they developed their own language, Gullah, which gave them some degree of privacy.

The slave trade was abolished in England in 1833 and in America in 1865 and the subsequent reduction in the supply of slaves may have reduced the worst treatment for some.  But vagrancy laws, which were introduced in 1866 and continued until the 1940s, could force anyone who appeared to be unemployed or homeless to work on the plantations.   However, although some slaves were able to grow fruit and vegetables, both for themselves and to sell, only a tiny minority were able to buy their freedom through trading in the market.

For this session, we were fortunate to collaborate with ALF (Aldeburgh Library Foundation) and the talk was given by one their most popular tutors, Sue Pine. Sue has run courses for ALF on classical philosophy, on other cultures and on philosophy applied to topics such as “the mind”, “climate change” and many others.

Sue Pine is a teacher of philosophy and a dowser, so this talk was bound to contain much interest and present different angles of thought. The topic was deliberately chosen to give us an opportunity to “think outside the box”. So, in true philosophical tradition, Sue helped us first to define our terms “what do we mean by” and then asked the question “why should we be open to the possibility”. She also introduced us to Swinburne (the Oxford philosopher rather than the poet) who has set up a framework for judging if an account may be considered valid evidence; the principle of credulity and the principle of testimony.

She took us through some background, showing that:

• A belief in fairies, or other nature spirits, exists consistently across many different cultures
• There are potentially credible accounts of encounters with nature spirits

Sue then took us through some of the related science. As a dowser, Sue detects earth energy, which is assumed to be on the electromagnetic spectrum. Our brains operate on electrical transmission between neurons and it has been shown that the brain is influenced by magnetic waves. The study of neuroscience itself is a rapidly developing area.

A strand of thinking Sue introduced us to is Panpsychism (“mind is everywhere”), a fairly recent branch of philosophy, which suggests that consciousness is not binary (e.g. humans are conscious, vegetables are not) but may be a continuum allowing for vegetables and even inanimate objects to have a degree of consciousness, though slight.

Sue then talked about some of the ideas of quantum physics. Starting with Einstein’s famous equation linking energy and matter, we raced through the dual behaviour of light as waves and particles and the mysteries of string theory with its multiple dimensions and the consequent appearance and disappearance of particles.

Putting these things together gave context to some of the instances of fairy sightings; especially a well documented example from Mr S from Stowmarket in the 19^th century. This account passed the Swinburne tests so deserves consideration. Sue suggested that some fairy sightings such as that of Mr S may be the human’s way of making sense of something unusual it cannot otherwise recognise. Coming up against unusual patterns of energy may therefore be interpreted as sightings of fairies or other supernatural beings.

Sue then took us through some of the typical fairy behaviours from UK folklore, such as dancing in rings, large troupes of fairies encountered at the equinoxes and the fact that time passes differently in “fairyland” for those who are said to have entered their realm. She also talked about the ways in which nature spirits are experienced in other cultures.

In conclusion, we can say that some sightings of fairies are bona fide. Sue suggested that these may be related to energy phenomena and that some of these may be sufficient to affect the human brain. The unanswered question remains, could these energies be conscious?

So, we might believe in fairies, though perhaps in a different form to the spangly winged beings of Peter Pan. We can also benefit from feeling more connectedness to nature and adopting a less human centric view of the world.

There was much comment and discussion following Sue’s talk, covering crop circles, changelings and other phenomena and including mention of:

• Shinto, which has a belief that there is consciousness and sprit in everything
• The fact that honey bees (and birds) are thought to respond to electromagnetic fields

This impression of the extent of the proposed development in Friston may help explain.

Ahead of more information, I am posting some resources for those who want to go further. SEAS has an excellent set of videos on YouTube

as well as its own site here and a template letter for those wishing to write to the Secretary for State for Business.

Two or three years ago, Amy realised, what Monty Don has been telling us recently, that mowing your grass damages the environment, destroys insect habitat and reduces biodiversity. Describing gardeners as a group of people who spend their time killing plants and destroying creepy crawlies, also showing statistics such as the loss of 97% of our grassland habitat in the UK since the 1930s, she made us think of the advantages of gardening differently and leaving our grass long. She also told us that there are more microbes in a teaspoon of soil than there are humans on the planet. And she told us about glomalin, only discovered in 1996, which retains carbon and nitrogen and may be a possible means of carbon sequestration.

We still need to cut grass (or trees and shrubs will take over), at least once a year, after seed from annuals as well as grass has had time to set. She does three cuts using her old lawn mower, first from the highest then to a lower setting each time. It is important to remove the cuttings to allow for regrowth. The area looks brown after cutting but then soon greens up again. She did suggest mowing pathways through the areas that will become meadows. We don’t need to seed for flowers, these will just appear, but it can be helpful to add some seeds (beware of meadow seed containing mostly grass though!) especially yellow rattle which weakens grass and leaves more resource for other plants.

Amy talked about the Blue Heart Project (bluecampaignhub.com ) that she works with. She also showed us some of Saxmundham’s verges which were being left to grow and only mown round the edges to prevent fallen plants getting in the way of paths and roads. She told us a bit about how she and a friend dealt with the council and Norse, the contractors who cut the verges, to achieve this. The Blue Heart site also hosts an excellent Good Verge Guide from Plantlife.org.uk.

A couple of the WISE members already have experience of managing areas of long grass and Amy has clearly inspired others among us to plan something similar this year. She has kindly offered to answer our questions as they come up.

Amy has provided an inspiring list of websites, books and gardens to visit, which you will find here

We had a large turn out on Zoom for this conversation. People joined from London and even from Portugal (in Kerstin’s case).

Jane took us through some of the points she made in her first talk for WISE showing that walking helps delay Alzheimer’s and other dementias. Research shows that walking regularly increases blood flow to the brain and so supports cognitive and mental health.

Kerstin told us that walking helps reduce risk of strokes and of hip fractures. As we age, our joint cartilage can suffer from wear and tear or inflammation, and the synovial fluid which lubricates the joints becomes more viscous. Low-impact exercise increases blood flow to cartilage supplying the nutrients it needs. Walking helps lubricate the joints, decreases pain and stiffness, and increases range of motion. We need to find a balance between too much which can cause inflammation in those with rheumatoid arthritis and sufficient to feel the benefits.

Keeping feet mobile and flexible aids balance and muscle symmetry while walking. The sensitive plantar fascia on the sole of the foot which supports our body weight and frame can be massaged and stimulated by rolling a spikey ball over the whole area. Walking on shingle is great for balance and helps us use different muscles.

We talked about pace of walking and agreed that mixing pace is helpful. Faster walking is great for blood flow, interspersed with slower periods so that we can enjoy being outside and concentrate on what we are seeing.

Walking in nature is great. It can be a meditative experience and often gives the “back brain” time to sort out problems while we aren’t really thinking about them. A rhythm to walking is beneficial. The difference between walking in town and in the country was noted; town can give opportunity for curiosity and discovery.

We talked about walking in groups and on our own. Although some of us really like walking on our own, others had realised they felt uncomfortable, explaining the high level of dog ownership in Aldeburgh.

The Ramblers, https://www.ramblers.org.uk/, was strongly recommended. Our local group https://www.ramblers.org.uk/alde-valley can be contacted at its website here http://aldevalleyramblers.onesuffolk.net/ There is also https://www.suffolkramblers.org.uk/

Long walks are a different commitment and, though often in groups, some people like to walk on their own so that they meet people locally and discover more about the area they are passing through.

Jane and Kerstin put together this brilliant list of books about the experience of walking to which I have added some further suggestions which came up.

Our second lockdown group had to be held on Zoom, but as it turned out that was no barrier to lively discussion. Rachel took us through the importance of strength training, building muscle and helping strengthen bones; important for arthritis, osteoporosis and sarcopenia (shrinking muscles). We also need the benefits of aerobic exercise to improve blood flow and hold back aging. Finally, we were all reminded not to neglect the pelvic floor.

Balance too becomes increasingly important as we age. Rachel suggested we use everyday activities, cleaning teeth, washing up etc, to practice standing on one leg, with closed eyes for advanced practitioners. Indeed, all opportunities to keep moving should be encouraged, even if it is simply moving our legs and turning our ankles while sitting down reading or watching.

We talked about: Feldenkrais, the opportunity for repair in the body, and our opportunities for exercise in town and country.

Rachel showed us one the videos she has made for her own students and told us about some sites with valuable information.

Our first meeting of a WISE lockdown group was on Human Rights and the effect of COVID. Six of us met, in real life just ahead of the November lockdown, and Celia led the conversation.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has reported on the impact of COVID restrictions on life and the figures are directly relevant to Human Rights such as: Right to life, Right to family life, Right to education. Women have been especially affected, taking on more social care, more child care and home schooling; with more women than men changing full time to part time working. Personal security is also affected, with a 50% increase in calls to the violence helpline in the second week of the first lockdown. Food bank use has nearly tripled.

We discussed the balance between Life, Liberty and Livelihood that the government must make when setting COVID restrictions and how this could be best managed. We also discussed the balance between personal privacy and track and trace technologies.

Finally, we discussed the issue of trust in authority and the way rules are applied. Interestingly, South Korea, after the SARS outbreak, held a referendum to establish the population’s attitudes to rules and regulations affection privacy and everyday activities for use in future pandemics.