Aside from experience gathered over more than 12 years as a cruise ship lecturer, Stuart had many public speaking engagements in his former roles as Ambassador in the British Foreign Service, and then as Head of a Cambridge College. He has given courses on Middle East politics at the Marlborough Summer School, an adult education venue. In his lectures his main focus is the history and politics of the peoples of the Mediterranean and the Arab world, but the work he has done for an MPhil degree at Cambridge, and writing two books, has given him research skills that enable him to deliver talks on a wide range of topics on the history of other places visited on cruises, in the Indian Ocean, the Atlantic, and round Britain.

Outside history, Stuart enjoys playing music (piano and organ), and is engaged in charity work in the church, education and culture. His wife, Sibella, is also a lecturer, and – as a Lay Minister in the Church of England – sometimes takes inter-denominational services on board cruise ships when required.

Some lecture titles from Stuart Laing’s repertoire

Are we nearly there?
Stuart narrates, through the voice of one of Odysseus’s sailors, the ups and downs of their voyage home after the siege of Troy, drawing on Homer’s graphic story-telling and scholars’ interpretations of the poetic narrative.

Et tu, Brute?
Stuart recounts the story of Julius Caesar, his conquest of Gaul (France), the civil war that followed his assassination, the peace established by Augustus, the first emperor, and the early growth of the Roman Empire.

Mosque, Messenger and Minaret
Stuart gives an outline of the beginnings of Islam with the revelations received by the prophet Muhammad, its growth out of Arabia, Muslim beliefs and practices, and its relationships with European religions and culture.

Hon John Company
Stuart tells the extraordinary story of the East India Company, from its beginnings as a venture capital trading company starting in 1600, through its growth in early days and then its transformation into a governing power, and its decline in the 19th century. Through the story we meet people classed as both heroes and villains (such as Clive and Warren Hastings), rich nabobs, and less exalted folk who fought in and administered the Company and the Empire.

Breaking the bonds
Stuart tells the story of the political battle fought by Wilberforce and his companions to end the slave trade in the Atlantic Ocean, and the subsequent British efforts – ultimately successful – to end the less well-known but extensive trade in the Indian Ocean.

‘Who rules the Med?’
Stuart traces the conflict between the Ottoman Empire and Western Europe in the 16th century, introducing the audience to figures such as Suleiman the Magnificent (the Ottoman emperor who led his troops as far as the gates of Vienna) and de Valette (the leader of the Knights of St John who resisted Ottoman forces in the siege of Malta).

‘Is it the Nile?’
Stuart tells how the English-American explorer Stanley came near to finishing the work of David Livingstone, aimed at solving the mystery of the source of the River Nile, by sailing down the River Congo and completing one of the most remarkable crossings of the African continent in the 19th century.

I have lectured on cruises with Noble Caledonia, Fred Olsen, Viking, Cunard, and (when they were operating) Swan Hellenic, mainly in the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean, but also round Britain, and Atlantic (off West Africa).