Merry Happy Christmas Birthday!

We were party central for our final talk of 2025, celebrating 20 years of The Arts Society Horsley Lovelace and kicking off the Christmas festivities in the company of Mr Christmas, Charles Dickens. 

Bertie Pearce

Bertie Pearce was our speaker, and he is an expert on the life and times of this most famous of writers.

We came to understand what drove some of the works and imaginings of Dickens, based on his early life experiences.

Life in Victorian England could be harsh and amongst the jollity that Bertie Pearce brought to the talk, we stopped to look at the struggles and sadness faced by people in the 19^th century.  As in a Dickens novel we were soon lifted back into humour and a close up look at the quirky characters that we all know and love.

To say that Bertie was entertaining is an understatement: he is a showman on a par with Dickens himself. As a gold member of the Magic Circle, he was not short on professional conjuring tricks to delight us. There were jokes aplenty which had us all laughing like children at a pantomime.

In case we had quite forgotten that we are an Arts Society, there were plenty of illustrations and artworks, clearly explained throughout. 

I truly think that Charles Dickens would have approved of Bertie Pearce as his representative! Dickens was not without his flaws but we caught the energy, genius and spirit of the writer who is now synonymous with our Christmas traditions

But it was also a birthday party!

20 years ago, TASHL was founded by Liz Onslow , famously the result of a long waiting list, at that time, for TASH.

Over the years the membership has remained strong and lively, with not only a huge range of lectures but also regular outings and charitable events.

Jo Webbern

To celebrate both birthday and

Christmas, our newest member to the committee, Jo Webbern, and her team created a sumptuous fest of goodies for us to enjoy.

Many of the 105 people present, for the talk, stayed on to toast TASHL with prosecco, stollen and mince pies.

The centrepiece of the event was a delicious birthday cake, made by Jo.

We must thank the catering team for a fabulous party and also the Chairman and Committee for all their hard work in 2025 to make The Arts Society Horsley Lovelace such a success.

Here’s to 2026!