Lunches
The lunches are held on the third Thursday of each month at 11.30 for 12.30 in the Homestead Court Hotel in Welwyn Garden City. Dress is normally smart casual with a jacket and tie for the men. Expect to get away by 3pm. The three course lunch with coffee costs £30 and includes a starter, meat main course, a dessert or cheese and biscuits, and coffee. An alternative main course “chef’s selection of fish”, may be pre-booked when registering for the lunch.
On arrival for lunch members check in by the hotel reception. Those who have ordered a variant from the menu will receive an envelope containing cards which indicate a diner's choice of alternative for the 'Starter, Main Course and Desert or Cheese and Biscuits’. They should be displayed on their lunch table to help the waiting staff. A cash bar is open for drinks before, and with the meal.
Lunches must be booked no later than the Friday of the week before the lunch. The club has recently introduced an online lunch booking scheme which has made life easier for both lunch attendees, the Lunch Secretary and other committee members. Links to the online booking forms are emailed to members about one month ahead of each upcoming lunch. Details of the lunches, along with the necessary booking forms are also included in the Newsletter. The club also strongly encourages lunch payment by online bank transfer.
Any Member who is unable to attend after booking is responsible for the cost unless a cancellation is notified by the Friday previous to the booked lunch.
Some individual members reserve seats for themselves and their guests by placing cards on the tables. Whilst this has disadvantages and is less than ideal, nobody has yet come up with a more acceptable idea!
Details of the talks to be given at the next two lunches are given below. The dates and times of Lunches, outings and other upcoming events, can be found on the Google Calendar of HELC Events. This is currently set as Agenda view, but you can change to Week or Month view; you can also print a list of events over any range of dates you choose. Public Holidays are shown in green text, all HELC items are a different colour. Click on an event to see full details, including a link to a map of the meeting point or venue.
18 December 2025
The Topsy Turvey World of Gilbert and Sullivan
Jim Stebbings
Performed still throughout the world, the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas have been part of the fabric of British life for over a century. Beyond the success of the operas themselves however, behind the lives of these two extraordinary men and that of Richard D’Oyly Carte whose business acumen brought their operas to public attention throughout the world, lie stories involving jealousy, greed, tragedy, drugs, gambling and sex! In a presentation illustrated with images and musical extracts we learn about this unique partnership and the enduring legacy of their work and times.
Before retirement Jim had a professional career in financial management which took him to over 30 countries. Today, apart from giving talks he devotes much of his spare time to producing music festivals, directing and participating in various forms of musical and dramatic entertainment. He also gives talks on
the lives and work of the most prominent contributors to “The Great American Songbook” such as Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin and Cole Porter amongst others. He is also a keen walker and has successfully completed the four-day Nijmegen Marches in Holland sixteen times.
15 January 2026
‘Agent Z’: the only woman to parachute from Britain to Nazi Germany occupied Poland in WW2
Clare Mulley
Agent Zo aka Elżbieta Zawacka / Elizabeth Watson, was the only woman to parachute from Britain to Nazi-occupied Poland during the Second World War. As the only female member of the Polish special forces, the ‘Silent Unseen’, being secretly trained in British country houses, this didn’t faze her. Zo had already spent three years serving in the resistance behind enemy lines across Europe, while being hunted by the Gestapo, and she would go on to serve in the largest organised act of defiance against Nazi Germany: the Warsaw Uprising. After the war Zo was demobbed as one of the most highly decorated women in Polish history. Yet the Soviet-backed post-war Communist regime not only imprisoned her, but also ensured that her remarkable story remained hidden for over forty years. Now, through new archival research and exclusive interviews with people who knew and fought alongside Zo, Clare Mulley brings this forgotten heroine back to life, transforming the way we see women's agency in the Second World War.
Clare Mulley is an award-winning author focused on female experience during the Second World War. Her books include AGENT ZO, about the only woman to parachute from Britain to enemy-occupied Poland, to play a key role in the largest organised act of defiance against Nazi German occupation, as well as THE WOMEN WHO FLEW FOR HITLER, THE SPY WHO LOVED and THE WOMAN WHO SAVED THE CHILDREN. Popular on TV, radio and pods, Clare reviews widely across the papers, and has served as a judge for the Historical Writers Association and Biographers Club book prizes. She is a recipient of the Polish honour, the Bene Merito, and the Daily Mail Biographers Club Prize. She lives in Essex with the sculptor Ian Wolter, too many books, and a dog.
