Talks
Colonel Richard Charrington
Colonel of the Royal Lancers
‘The Battle of Waterloo’
12pm on Saturday 13th July 2024
Stansted Park Chapel
Richard Charrington was commissioned into the 9th/12th Royal Lancers (the successors of the 12th Light Dragoons who charged at Waterloo) and had a career involving tours in Cyprus, Bosnia and Northern Ireland before commanding the Regiment from 2003-5 including a tour in Iraq. He left the Army in 2012 and is now a consultant specializing in culture change and leadership development.
He was appointed a member of Her Majesty’s Corps of Gentlemen at Arms in 2014, and Colonel of The Royal Lancers in 2019. A keen historian, Richard authored Spearmen, an illustrated Regimental history and was Chairman of the Royal Lancers Museum Trust prior to assuming the Colonelcy. He is married, has three grown up children and lives in Dorset where he is attempting to tame too large a garden.
Lieutenant General (Retired) Sir Simon Mayall KBE, CB
‘A Solider in the Sand : Decoding the Modern Middle East’
2pm on Saturday 13th July 2024
Stansted Park Chapel
Much of General Mayall’s 40 year military career has been marked by a focus on the Middle East, and his experience and understanding of the region is long-standing and deep. In 1985, having learned colloquial Arabic, he was seconded to the Sultan’s Armed Forces, commanding an Omani tank squadron. He was the Operations Officer for the 1st (UK) Armoured Division in Operation DESERT STORM, the liberation of Kuwait. Before commanding his Regiment, 1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards, he went to Balliol College, and then St Antony’s College, Oxford, where he wrote a book on Turkish security policy. He subsequently completed an MA at King’s College, where his thesis was on Jihad philosophy and the ‘Civil War’ within Islam. He is also an avid student of Crusading history.
As Commander of 1st Mechanised Brigade, he was deployed to Kosovo in 2002, and in 2006-2007 he was Deputy Commanding General of the Multi-National Corps (Iraq), based in Baghdad, during the period of the fight against AQ-I, the Sunni ‘Awakening’ and the ‘Surge’. The following year he was appointed Assistant Chief of the General Staff and then, in 2009, Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff (Commitments) with policy responsibility for global operations, particularly in Afghanistan. With the election of the Coalition Government of 2010, he was appointed as the first Defence Senior Adviser Middle East (DSAME), responsible for re-energising the UK’s security relationships with partners in the Gulf, the Near East and North Africa. This period coincided with the complexities of the ‘Arab Spring’, the overthrow of Gaddafi in Libya, the Syrian ‘civil war’ and the rise of ‘Islamic State’. In 2014, after the fall of Mosul to ISIS, he became the Prime Minister’s Security Envoy to Iraq and the Kurdish Regional Government. He was instrumental in establishing the new Royal Navy base in Bahrain.
General Mayall retired from the Army in July 2015, and was appointed Lieutenant of the Tower of London. He is a Senior Adviser with Greenhill, Coutts Bank, and Viaro Energy, and the Director of Sandcrest Consulting. He is a regular contributor on Middle East and Defence and Security issues on television, radio and in the press, and he lectures on related subjects to many academic and business fora. His book, ‘Soldier in the Sand - a Personal History of the Modern Middle East’, was published in late 2020. He was knighted in 2014, and has also received the US Legion of Merit for services in Iraq.
Jason Salkey
‘Life at the Sharpe End’
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12pm on Sunday 14th July 2024
Stansted Park Chapel
Jason is an actor, a regular on screens, small and large down the years. His first big job was a major commercial campaign for Miller Lite beer UK that made his face instantly recognisable to every television viewer in Britain.
Roles in films, TV shows, commercials and theatre followed. In 1992 he auditioned for an adaptation of a little-known action-adventure story called Sharpe. A regular part in one of British television’s most cherished shows took up the best part of the next five years.
Jason is now the official, go-to source for questions concerning the TV production and cast of Sharpe. While on location he shot a huge amount of video which has become a series of films documenting life on Sharpe which has entertained battalions of fans across the world.
Jason’s documenting of Sharpe wasn’t limited to shooting video he also wrote a diary recording his unique journey through Sharpe in the chaos of the disintegrating Soviet Union which has formed the basis of his Sharpe memoir, From Crimea With Love, of which signed copies are available here today. www.riflemanharris.co.uk
Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles KCMG LVO
‘A Conversation on a Troubled World’
2pm on Sunday 14th July 2024
Stansted Park Chapel
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This conversation with a highly distinguished public figure will prove to be an enthralling and informative event. Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles is extremely experienced and knowledgeable in the field of geo-politics and there is much for him to comment upon from the situation in the Middle East and Ukraine to the Asia-Pacific Region. Sir Sherard will bring significant insights to the diplomatic implications of the many elections throughout the world in 2024 including, of course, the UK General Election, the results of which will have been announced just a week prior to his appearance at Stansted Park. It will be fascinating to hear the views of this eminent former diplomat on the state of the modern and, indeed, rather troubled world.
Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles is a Senior Adviser at HSBC Holdings, having retired from full-time employment with the firm on 31 December 2023 after 10 years, initially as Senior Adviser to the Group Chairman and Group Chief Executive, and for the past eight years as Head of the Group’s Public and Government Affairs functions. He is Chair of the China-Britain Business Council.
Before HSBC Sherard worked for two and a half years as International Business Development Director at BAE Systems. Earlier he spent over 30 years in the British Diplomatic Service, which he joined straight from reading Classics at Oxford. He served in Cairo, Washington and Paris. He was also Principal Private Secretary to the UK Foreign Secretary, the late Robin Cook, and was Head of the Foreign Office Hong Kong Department from 1994 up to the handover to China in 1997. His final diplomatic jobs were as Ambassador to Israel (2001–2003), Ambassador to Saudi Arabia (2003–2007), Ambassador to Afghanistan (2007-2009), and the UK Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan (2009–2010).
Sherard was the first Chair of the Pitzhanger Manor & Gallery Trust, from November 2013 until December 2022, which raised £12m to restore and then run Sir John Soane’s “dream” country house. He is Honorary Vice President of the UK Financial Inclusion Commission; a Committee Member of The Hong Kong Association; and a Board Member of Asia House. He is an Ambassador for the Money Advice Trust, and for the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust. He is a member of the fundraising committee for Maggie’s Building Hope Campaign. He is an Honorary Fellow of Hertford College, Oxford, and has an honorary DLitt from the University of Westminster. He is President of the Jane Austen Society, and is a Liveryman of The Skinners’ Company and of the World Traders.
Sherard is the author of two books about his diplomatic experiences: Cables from Kabul and Ever the Diplomat. He speaks French and Arabic, some Hebrew and rudimentary Pashtu.
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David Jones
Is it Too Late to Save the Ocean? The Musings of an Environmental Optimist.
3:30pm on Sunday 14th July 2024
Stansted Park Chapel
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David Jones is a scientist, speaker, writer, photojournalist, film maker diving instructor and ocean advocate. In a previous life he spent a thoroughly enjoyable 17 years in the Army and when he wasn’t either playing rugby or skiing, he served as a military engineer, diver, and bomb disposal officer. His time in the military also included five years’ serving with the Queen’s Gurkha Engineers and he was also fortunate enough to have commanded the Army Diving School and a Bomb Disposal Squadron. His final post before deciding to retire early was as the senior staff officer in Sarajevo responsible for coordinating all bomb disposal and mine clearance operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
After finally ironing his uniform for the last time David decided to pursue a second career in the diving industry. The early years following retirement included a brief dabble into civilian underwater munitions clearance in Russia and Iraq (not the best decision he ever made) and running his own diving business which he finally sold in 2022. During that time his knowledge and experience underwater led to work on several TV and film productions alongside the likes of David Attenborough, Bear Grylls and Ben Fogle.
David was heavily involved in the production of the award-winning documentary film A Plastic Ocean and during the six years it took to produce the film he spent a lot of time travelling the world and speaking about the then relatively unknown issues of marine plastic pollution. Since then, he has undertaken a great deal of academic research and work about ocean plastic pollution and other marine conservation topics and is a well-known speaker on the subject appearing on TV news as well as programmes such as the One Show and the Victoria Derbyshire Show. He also continues to present at numerous academic and environmental conferences and speaking events around the world.
Through his work on marine plastic pollution, he became increasingly exposed to the plethora of issues facing the oceans and as a result decided to establish his own conservation organisation, Just One Ocean, to try and make a difference in these other important areas of concern. The organisational mission focusses on utilising science, communication, and education to protect the ocean for future generations. David also has an MSc in Coastal and Marine Resource Management, speaks Nepali with a very British accent, and is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.
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