Boxmoor Playhouse

MONDAY 2 November, 10:00 REFRESHMENTS,

10.30 PRESENTATION

doors open 09:45

Anne Fletcher is an historian and writer. She has a successful career in heritage and has worked at some of the most exciting historic sites in the country including Hampton Court Palace, St Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, Bletchley Park and Tower Bridge.  She is the great-great-great niece of Joseph Hobson Jagger, ‘the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo’.

This is the story of a man who went from Yorkshire mill worker to Monte Carlo millionaire. Amongst the men ‘who broke the bank at Monte Carlo’, Joseph Hobson Jagger is unique. He is the only one known to have devised an infallible and completely legal system to defeat the odds at roulette and win a fortune. But he was not what might be expected. He wasn’t a gentleman or an aristocrat, he wasn’t a professional gambler, he was a Yorkshire textile worker who had laboured in the Victorian mills of Bradford since childhood.

What led a man like this to travel nearly a thousand miles to the exclusive world of the Riviera when most people lived and died within a few miles of where they were born? The trains that took him there were still new and dangerous; he did not speak French and had never left the north of England. His motivation was strong. Joseph, his wife and four children, the youngest of whom was only two, faced a situation so grave that their only escape seemed to be his desperate gamble on the roulette tables of Monte Carlo. Today Jagger’s legacy is felt in casinos worldwide and yet he is virtually unknown

No fee to be paid

Contact: Groups via this link (select addressee: Groups)

The meeting will be hybrid, if you wish to participate on Zoom, use the link that will be supplied in the Group News closer to the date.
If you experience difficulty with the sound, turning on Captions, at the bottom of the Zoom screen on a PC or by clicking on More … on an iPad, should assist greatly. Please bear in mind that the task of getting both sound and picture to members on Zoom is fraught with difficulties. We continue to struggle on, it may not always be totally successful.

Directions

Boxmoor Playhouse
72 St John’s Rd
Hemel Hempstead
HP1 1NP

Parking round the Moor   OR    55 – 57 Park Road, HP1 1JS

The parking outside St John’s church now has a 3 hour limit and no return for 2 hours. This is to discourage commuters going to the station using it for all day parking. The three-hour limit works for our monthly meeting. Warning, there is someone who checks!

Directions

Buses between Hemel and Berkhamsted: 500  and X500 bus.
Buses are approximately every 30 minutes: 500 and X500 Timetable

Local buses running in St John’s Road past Boxmoor Playhouse

H10 https://www.intalink.org.uk/services/9e20e052-b756-4ff5-afeb-f0a0ce466e1c?date=2024-12-02&direction=outbound

H11 https://www.intalink.org.uk/services/9077ed51-eb28-40df-8838-8c69504b3299?date=2024-12-02&direction=outbound&all=on

See Hemel Map

Last Updated: 5 Oct ’26

Views: 268

 

Boxmoor Playhouse

MONDAY 3 October, 10:00 REFRESHMENTS,

10.30 AGM & PRESENTATION

doors open 09:45

Andrew taught in Grammar Schools for over 40 years and is the author of a best-selling book on Contemporary British Politics.  Andrew gives his audiences insights into the times through which they have lived with a sharp eye for detail and anecdote.  His incisive character portraits of many very different men and women at home and abroad whose extra ordinary lives have shaped today’s world, are uniformly vivid and compelling.  He looks, as well, at the huge social, cultural and attitudinal changes which have shaped today’s world and at many urgent and often controversial issues which divide us.

In 2024, Andrew dissected the Profumo Affair for us. The presentation was extremely well received. This year he talks about ‘The Second Elizabethan Age: Reliving our own Story’ which is a vivid pastiche of our many post-war social & cultural revolutions, the upheaval in values and the growth of a more permissive culture. Can you believe it?

No fee to be paid

Contact: Groups via this link (select addressee: Groups)

The meeting will be hybrid, if you wish to participate on Zoom, use the link that will be supplied in the Group News closer to the date.
If you experience difficulty with the sound, turning on Captions, at the bottom of the Zoom screen on a PC or by clicking on More … on an iPad, should assist greatly. Please bear in mind that the task of getting both sound and picture to members on Zoom is fraught with difficulties. We continue to struggle on, it may not always be totally successful.

Directions

Boxmoor Playhouse
72 St John’s Rd
Hemel Hempstead
HP1 1NP

Parking round the Moor   OR    55 – 57 Park Road, HP1 1JS

Directions

Buses between Hemel and Berkhamsted: 500  and X500 bus.
Buses are approximately every 30 minutes: Red Eagle Buses

Local buses running in St John’s Road past Boxmoor Playhouse

H10 https://www.intalink.org.uk/services/9e20e052-b756-4ff5-afeb-f0a0ce466e1c?date=2024-12-02&direction=outbound

H11 https://www.intalink.org.uk/services/9077ed51-eb28-40df-8838-8c69504b3299?date=2024-12-02&direction=outbound&all=on

Last updated: 8 Sep ’26

Views: 150