The following is an article from Heybridge U3A:

Perhaps it was inauspicious to have our last AGM on Friday 13th March 2020. In normal times Heybridge U3A meets each month in Plantation Hall and usually we would be preparing now for our next AGM but this past year has, as we all know, been different.

While we cannot meet in person we are continuing to meet by Zoom (more about that later) but the committee has decided to delay this year's AGM until June in the hope that we will be able to have a normal meeting.

Membership has been automatically extended (without cost) until the end of June and the committee will be contacting all members to let them know the new arrangements when we can.

Heybridge U3A, one of four u3as in the Maldon area, has 25 interest groups covering everything from Art to Yoga. Group leaders have tried to stay in contact with the members of their group during lockdown and some have been able to arrange Zoom meetings, with the Photography group being particularly successful. The committee now organises monthly speakers using Zoom and our Secretary has arranged voluntary practice sessions for those members new to Zoom.

So far this year we have had two entertaining but very different talks. In January we were delighted to have one of our own members, Chris Rose, give us an illustrated talk entitled 'A Garden Seat Called Arthur'. This intriguingly entitled talk was about his lock-down project.

Chris told us that on a canal-side walk in London he had seen the back half of a Mini Cooper being used as a seat. The idea caught his imagination and he determined to make one for himself. Sourcing a suitable car proved difficult but in February 2020 he found one in Battlesbridge.

He bought it and had it cut in half by the breaker's yard; it arrived at his house on 4th March. Then the fun began! He worked on it almost continually for two months but by the end of that time the boot was hinged at the bottom to reveal a drinks cooler, there was an electrical socket under the filler cap, a radio with built-in speakers, the back lights worked and there were lights underneath the car/seat.

The back seat was levelled and re-upholstered and the wheels worked, meaning that it could easily be moved around the garden to catch the sun. Chris told us that the grandchildren love it. And the name? Well that came from an elderly Cockney friend who remarked that he had got "'Arf a" car.

Chris used lots of photographs in his presentation and the ones shown here are the 'before' and 'after' photos of this stunning transformation.

In February our meeting included an illustrated talk by Margaret Mills on Old Remedies for Ailments. Margaret has studied the cures and remedies passed down through Essex families in particular, although many of them were widely held beliefs. Many cures were an effort to put the four 'humours' of the body in balance. During the 13th to 16th centuries it was believed that there were four humours – liquids – that made up the body. These were blood, black bile (from the liver), yellow bile (vomit), and phlegm (white or colourless fluid).

It was also believed that your star sign was linked to different parts of the body and had to be considered when an illness was being diagnosed by a 'cunning' man. A 'cunning' man or woman was someone believed to have special powers of curing people, or seeing the future and telling fortunes or even cursing someone. George Pickingill of Canewdon who died in 1909 was one such person who became quite well-known.

Margaret showed us an early photograph from 1860 of blood letting, a practice that only died out in the late nineteenth century. Some of the 'cures' go back a long way and a few exist to this day. The wearing of a copper bracelet to help arthritic or rheumatic pain goes back over 1500 years and is still practised by some people. Some cures such as the use of herbs or applying a paste of soda crystals to a sting might be recognised today but luckily the more bizarre ones – such as digging a hole and putting a child in it to cure whooping cough – have died out, and I expect our Queen is pleased that the practice of the laying-on of a monarch's hand as a cure stopped with Queen Anne. I wonder how many children realise that the vinegar and brown paper of the Jack and Jill nursery rhyme was once accepted medicine?

Both talks were knowledgeable and fascinating. It is amazing what you can learn at u3a!

The next Zoom talk, on 12 March 2021 is to be given by Annamarie Dall'Anese, a Blue Badge guide, on 'Jewels of London's Museums and Art Galleries'.

If you would like to be entertained and informed do give us a try. Our Zoom talks are arranged for 2pm on the afternoon of the second Friday in the month, the same time as our meeting would be in normal circumstances. We are open for new members and you can 'try before you buy'. The only 'qualification' for joining a u3a is that you are no longer in full time employment.

If you are interested in finding out more about our group please go to our website using the link here.