Autumn Term 2025 Encounters

All Encounters take place in Warwick School Science Lecture Theatre from 4.15pm - 5.30pm.  All welcome!

Friday 12 September
Dr Stephen Belding
An Encounter with the Chemistry of Explosives

Dr Stephen Belding is Head of Chemistry at Rugby School. His lecture, “An Encounter with the Chemistry of Explosives”, promises a thrilling journey through both the history and cutting-edge science of explosives. With spectacular live demonstrations, students will experience first-hand the reactions that made Chemistry famous for its “wow factor.” The lecture ranges from the volcanic eruption that caused the largest recorded explosion in history to the very latest research, including the 2025 synthesis of what may be the most explosive molecule ever made. This unique event will combine dramatic science with real historical and modern discovery, offering students an unforgettable insight into the power and excitement of Chemistry.

Friday, 19 September
Nicholas Milton
An Encounter with Neville Chamberlain  

Nicholas Milton is a journalist, historian and natural historian. He has written a biography of Günther Niethammer, “The Birdman of Auschwitz” and in this Encounter will investigate whether Neville Chamberlain’s reputation can ever recover from appeasing Hitler and whether modern politicians can learn from his actions.  

This Encounter will include a book sale.

Friday 26 September
Fraser McGuire
An Encounter with Trade Unionism

Fraser is 21 years old and a trade union rep in the hospitality sector, where he organises with other young workers against precarious conditions and low pay. He has also been involved in conversations with young workers – typically not trade union members – about how a decline in community assets and engagement in trade unions has played a significant role in the growth of far-right ideas among young people, and what trade unions and different community organisations can do to challenge this.

Friday 3 October
An Encounter with Donald Trump 

Join Jennifer Ewing and Greg Swenson from Republicans Overseas for their assessment of what Donald Trump means for the US, the UK and the rest of the world!

 

 

 

Friday 14 November
Lord Brady
An Encounter with the Kingmaker

Graham Brady was a Conservative MP from 1997-2024 and chairman of the highly influential 1922 Committee from 2010 to 2024.  The 1922 Committee represents backbench Conservative MPs and Sir Graham chaired it during the most tumultuous period for the Conservative Party since the 1840s.  In his extraordinary memoir he provides an unparalleled insight into the decline and fall of five Conservative Prime Ministers.     

This Encounter will include a book sale.

 

Friday, 21 November  
An Encounter with “The Medieval Moon” 

Dr Ayoush Lazikani is an expert on cross-cultural medieval literature, specifically Christian and Islamic. Her third book ‘The Medieval Moon’ has just been published by Yale University Press in which she explores how across the global medieval people perceived the moon.  

This Encounter will include a book sale.

 

Friday, 28 November
Richard Orwell
An Encounter with my father, George Orwell

Richard Orwell was born in 1944 and moved to the Isle of Jura in 1946 with his father, George Orwell. On Jura Orwell wrote 1984 and George and Richard narrowly escaped disaster by sailing too close to the notorious Corryvreckan whirlpool. After George Orwell’s death in January 1950, he moved to the mainland and was brought on a farm close to Jura. He retired in 2008 to spend more time with the Orwell Foundation and the newly formed Orwell Society, of which he is Patron of both. Richard Orwell married in 1964 and has two sons and five grandchildren. 

This Encounter will include a book sale.

Friday, 5 December
Robin Rhoderick-Jones OW
An Encounter with the last years of the British Empire

Robin was a dayboy at Warwick School from 1949 to 1956. He joined the British army as a National Service Trooper and concluding as a Brigadier.  Robin saw active service in Malaysia and Aden as well as undertaking spells in Germany, Hong Kong, Singapore, Cyprus and Libya. In Aden he flew helicopters. When commanding my regiment, the Queen's Royal Irish Hussars he was detached as a part of the Commonwealth Monitoring Group to oversee the first free Rhodesian elections leading to the creation of Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe.

 

Lent Term 2026 Encounters

All Encounters take place in Warwick School Science Lecture Theatre from 4.15pm - 5.30pm.  All welcome!

Friday, 23 January
Aamna Mohdin
An Encounter with a Refugee 

Please note this will take place in King's High Hall. 

Aamna Mohdin’s escaped the Somali civil war in the 1990s. She spent her early years in the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya and then lived in Saudi Arabia, Germany, and the Netherlands, before arriving in the UK as a seven-year-old refugee. She is the winner of the British Journalism Award 2022, and her work has been shortlisted for the British Press Awards. She lives in London.

This Encounter will include a book sale and signing of “Scattered”

Friday, 30 January
Iain Pears OW
An Encounter with a Novelist 

Iain Pears was educated at Warwick School.  Pears came to international prominence with his bestselling book An Instance of the Fingerpost (1997) and is well  known for experimenting with innovatory narrative structures and for his “stylish and slick prose”. His most recent book is Parallel Lives: A Love Story from a Lost Continent (2024).

 

Friday, 6 February
Chris Howe MBE
An Encounter with the Falklands War and the sinking of HMS Coventry  

Chris Howe’s highly personal account will start from 2 April 1982 when the Falklands were invaded by Argentina and will present a personal story of life and events in HMS Coventry during the Falklands Conflict up until she was lost in action on the evening of 25 May 1982.  The story will recount the sinking of Coventry and how Chris survived the loss with 27% burns.    

 

Friday, 27 February
Neil Titley OW
An Encounter with Oscar Wilde 

Neil Titley is a world authority on Oscar Wilde and has spent 50 years presenting his acclaimed one man show on Oscar Wilde. He also published a book on Wilde called ‘The Oscar Wilde World of Gossip’, and his play on GB Shaw ‘Shaw’s Corner’ was televised in over 20 countries. Neil was a pupil at Warwick School from 1957-64 and this will be his first return to the school in 61 years.   

 

Friday, 6 March
Bill Reed
An Encounter with Murder

In 1942, in the sleepy Wiltshire town of Malmesbury, a farm labourer, Harry Neal was brutally bludgeoned to death.  The crime not only shocked and scarred the community but raised issues of neurodiversity and criminal intent and accountability which still resonate today. Join local historian, Bill Reed, for a fascinating speculation on a gruesome murder.     

  

Friday, 13 March
Professor Subir Sarkar
An Encounter with the Edge of the Universe

Subir Sarkar is Professor Emeritus of Theoretical Physics at Oxford University. He will discuss the ancient question of how far the universe extends – whether it is finite or infinite? This remains an open problem in cosmology but can now be addressed through measurements, rather than just philosophical speculation. He will trace the evolution of ideas concerning this question, in particular the Olbers’ "dark sky" paradox for an infinite universe (and its correct resolution), and conclude with contemporary studies of the cosmic microwave background – the afterglow of the Big Bang – which marks the ‘edge of the universe’ we see today.

 

Friday, 20 March
Gareth Russell
An Encounter with Queen James

James Stuart was the first King of Britain and the first who was known to be openly bisexual.  Married to Anne of Denmark, he had six long term gay relationships. Gareth Russell’s Waterstones Book of the Year “places James – genius, liar, spendthrift, idealist, witch-hunter – and the men he loved at the centre of one of the most dramatic stories in British royal history”.

This Encounter will include a book sale and signing of “Queen James”