Cannock Soroptimists heard about Black Country Murders from speaker Ian Bott at their last meeting. Ian used pictures of places and people to illustrate his talk of murders taking place between 1902 and 1954 in Tipton, Lye, Bilston and Walsall. The murders were all domestic incidents and he didn’t spare any of the gory details! Throat cutting was often the mode of killing; the victims were women and children. In all cases the murderer was caught, tried and sentenced within twelve months of the crime, sentence ranging from 12 years imprisonment to hanging at Winson Green Prison.
President Janis Lomas thanked Ian for his talk – being an historian herself she had a particular interest.
The Club’s next speaker meeting will be on August 19th when the speaker will be Margaret Smallman whose topic will be Memories of a Corner Shop.
SI Cannock meet at The Barns, Huntington and enjoy talks about a wide variety of subjects as well as working to enable, empower and educate women and girls locally and globally. Their focus for this, their Diamond Anniversary year, is the project Violence Against Women – Stop it Now and some fund-raising events will support Pathway and Staffordshire Women’s Aid. Further information is available on the website www.sigbi.org
The club is also looking at ways of raising awareness with young women about the condition Endometriosis and one of their members, Dr Sue Cartlidge, will be giving a presentation on this at their next Business meeting on July 29th.