The last three months have provided me with some wonderful opportunities to catch up with HA members. In April I got as far as Carlisle, one of my favourite places, to talk to the Cumbria branch and in May I went to Grimsby, where the branch was celebrating its 50th birthday with a rather large and delicious cake! In June I was at the mid-Lincolnshire branch where the arrival of the Olympic flame was eagerly anticipated. The annual conference in Reading last May was also a great chance to find out more about the activities of our members and I enjoyed meeting so many of you there. David Cannadine's lecture attracted a large audience keen to find out about his thoughts on ‘the Right Kind of History'. But all of the HA's constituencies were well served with talks on primary and secondary history, a heritage strand and the general history talks. I greatly enjoyed hearing Dr Frank Tallett speaking about his research on the Military Revolution in early modern Europe and I gained lots of new insights from him for teaching my students.

The highlight in July was...