Rod’s Military History Talks

On 5th March I gave my talk on The Roman Invasions of Britain to the Friends of the Royal Engineers Museum. The talk was in the museum itself, which is only a few miles down the River Medway from where the Romans forded it during the Battle of the Medway in 43 AD.

The talk was well received and raised a considerable amount for Help for Heroes.

On 12th February I gave another talk on The Roman Invasions of Britain, This talk was to the Crowborough Probus Club and was well received.

This was my first talk of this year. I have two more bookings for this talk later this year. I also have provisional bookings for two different talks later in the year.

In November 2025, I gave two more talks on Royal Engineers Bomb Disposal. The first on 10th November to a Care Home in Tunbridge Wells and the second on 18th November to the Bexhill Historical Society.

Both talks raised funds for the Felix Fund, a charity supporting Bomb Disposal personnel, serving and retired, plus their families, whether Army, Navy, Air Force or the Metropolitan Police. Felix is the cartoon cat with nine lives that was adopted as the badge, and radio callsign, of the Bomb Disposal teams in Northern Ireland.

On 18th October 2025 I gave a talk on The Battle of Waterloo to the Royal British Legion Branch in Tunbridge Wells.

I have given them several talks before and this one went down equally well.

I haven’t kept this website up to date with my talks recently, so am now correcting that.

On 16th October our planned speaker at the Tunbridge Wells Probus Club pulled out at short notice due to an urgent hospital appointment. I had previously given the Club a talk on The ’45, but had to cut it short just before describing the battle of Culloden, when one of our members became ill. This time, I therefore stepped in and finished off this talk, fleshing it out with bits about the organisation of Clan Regiments, which were very similar whether on the Jacobite or Government side.

The talk went down well.

On 16th September 2025. I gave my first talk on “The Roman Invasions of Britain”. This was to the Bexhill Historical Society (formerly known as the Bexhill Hanoverian Study Group).

The talk was very well received and raised some funds for Combat Stress.

On 9th June 2025, I gave my talk “The Story of a Medal” to the Cranbrook Probus Club.

I belong to the Tunbridge Wells Probus Club and we have a deal with the Cranbrook Probus Club, so that each club provides one speaker per year to the other club, thus keeping the cost down for both clubs. One of the members of the Cranbrook Probus Club gave a talk to our members earlier this year.

My talk went down very well and another of our Tunbridge Wells Probus Club members will give the Cranbrook Probus Club a talk next year, in return for a talk from them..