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
All buses running close to the Playhouse are now run by Red Eagle. https://redeagle.org.uk/
Buses between Hemel and Berkhamsted from 19th May – the 500 and X500 https://redeagle.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/TT_500_0525.pdf
Local Hemel buses along St John’s Road – the H11 https://redeagle.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/TT_H11_0421.pdf
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!
2026 Dates (see below for Refreshments Rota)
5 October Hemel: Andrew Baker – New Elizabethan Age
2 November Hemel: Ann Fletcher – The tale of the man that broke the bank at Monte Carlo
7 December Hemel: Ukulele & Folk Singing – Christmas Party
Refreshments Rota 2026
75 October Cribbage and Scrabble
2 November Italian (Step 2)
7 December Walking
This may change close to given date if a group notifies me that they are unable to find enough people
2027 Dates
4 January Hemel: Bobbie Derbyshire – Where a writer gets inspiration
1 February Hemel: Paul Barwick – The Salisbury Novichok Poisonings
1 March Northchurch: Roger Gibbons – Butterflies of Britain and Europe
Refreshments Rota 2027
4 January French Book Club
1 February Table Tennis A
1 March Book Group
This may change close to given date if a group notifies me that they are unable to find enough people
See Northchurch Map
See Hemel Map
Last updated: 5 Oct ’26
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