Talks take place on Thursday afternoons, starting at 2pm, and usually take place in the Lecture Hall, Rewley House, 1 Wellington Square, Oxford OX1 2JA. These are free for Oxford u3a members but you are welcome to attend as a guest for a donation of £5 (£2 for members of all other U3As).
Most talks are recorded on Zoom for the benefit of those Oxford u3a members who are unable to attend Rewley House.
In the event of adverse weather conditions, please telephone Rewley House (01865 270360), to enquire whether the talk has been cancelled.
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Professor Richard Bosworth – The “Grate” Christmas Cricket match
20th November 2025 @ 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Richard Bosworth is Emeritus fellow of Jesus College, and Emeritus Research Professor of the University of Western Australia. He is the author of several books about Italian Fascism.
In this talk, based on his 108th ‘learned article’, Richard Bosworth will, for the first time, unite his lifetime devotion to cricket and modern Italian history. He will do so by exploring the story of Lieutenant Douglas Tatham Collins, Somalia Gendarmerie. Collins, born in1920 at Aslockton (Notts), the home village of Thomas Cranmer, hoped to convert the population of the Majertein Sultanate to civilization and cricket. But Somalia (or Puntland) are still not listed as major cricket playing nations. In fact, the locals said they preferred the Fascist version of tyranny to cricket on Saturdays. Collins was not burned at the stake. But he was relegated to life as a not very successful Big Game Hunter. How could this have been?