The next members’ meeting for U3A Tauranga Inc is Friday 17th October. Normal Tauranga Yacht Club Venue, 90 Keith Allen Drive, Sulphur Point.
Time: 9:45am for 10:00am start through to 12:00 Noon.
Entry Fee: $5.00, to cover morning-tea and Venue.
Main Speaker:
Simon Keable-Elliot
Topic: Robert Keable, utterly immoral WW1 chaplain?
Outline: Simon is a writer, lecturer and speaker visiting from Britain where he also speaks to U3A groups about his grandfather, a World War One chaplain Robert Keable who wrote a scandalous 1920s war novel Simon Called Peter about a military chaplain having an affair with a nurse in wartime France. Although virtually unknown today the book was a huge best seller in the UK, USA, Australia and New Zealand whom he visited in 1921. The book was mentioned in The Great Gatsby, banned in Boston and turned into a Broadway play and the sequel into a major Hollywood movie.
Robert Keable led an extraordinary life including as a priest in Zanzibar and Basutoland. His life was changed by his war experience as a chaplain to appallingly treated Africans who served in France with the South African Native Labour Corps. After the war he left the church, and his wife and went to Tahiti where he lived in Paul Gauguin’s house before marrying and having a child with a Tahitian princess. He was famous in the 1920s but again virtually unknown today.
Short Speaker:
Chris Moore, U3A Member
Topic: ‘NZ Natives that Poison, Maim or Kill’.