Mike was born in Newcastle and brought up in Scotland, where he learned Highland dancing and piping. Mike was an academic tart graduating from 3 universities starting with medicine in Aberdeen. His first year in the RAF as a GP included being Pipe Major of the RAF Central Flying School Pipe Band. He spent the next 10 years at the RAF Institute of Aviation Medicine doing fulltime research. After escaping from Farnborough, Mike had a variety of exciting posts ranging from aeromedical evacuation, senior medical officer on a flying station in Germany, command of RAF Headley Court (the Defence Services Medical Rehabilitation Unit), the first Medical Adviser to the Permanent Joint Headquarters and various posts in the Ministry of Defence. During an exchange post in the United States, he became the only British medical officer to be given 14 hours of air combat training in the F-16. He was Honorary Surgeon to Her late Majesty the Queen from 1997 to 2002.

After leaving the RAF with the rank of air commodore, Mike joined the oldest independent occupational medicine service in the UK, becoming managing director in 2004. He was trainer of the year in the Oxford Deanery in 2012. After "retirement", he joined HM Court and Tribunal Service as a medical member as well as becoming involved with various local charities. He is a Liveryman of the Society of Apothecaries, Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and of the Royal College of Physicians.

In addition to Alison (his wife) and family, Mike's passions include history (he is currently undertaking a history degree with the Open University) bagpipes, travel, cookery and writing, with 2 books & 6 chapters in books published. More recently he has been involved in vaccinating people against Covid-19.

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Scotland

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1. Bagpipes. The bagpipes were not a joke played on the Scots by the English, nor are the Scots the only daft people in the world. This is a talk on the history of bagpipes in general, describing how they spread throughout Europe and elsewhere together with an account of how Scottish bagpipes have infected the rest of the world. With live demonstrations.
2. Kilts & Capers. An account of male and female Highland dress with descriptions of how to wear it. The talk ends with a description of some Scottish celebrations throughout the year.
3. Hot Air & Hops. This talk covers the types of instrument found in Scotland with the various forms of music and an account of both Highland and Scottish Country dancing.
4. Neeps & Nips. There are some foods that are particularly Scottish. This talk takes us through some of these from starters to desserts and ends with an account of Scottish drinks.
5. The Borders, Ballads & Baddies. It was not just Scots fighting the English. When things across the Borders were quiet, the families kept themselves occupied by feuding with each other. This talk follows the history and tales of the Border as seen through the Scottish ballads.
6. Great Scots. The story of two Scots who created most people's perceptions of Scotland, one Scot who had a significant impact on the United States and one who won the accolade as the worst poet in the world.

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England

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1. Some Exceptional English Men & Women. The lives of the the scholar and clerics the Venerable Bede and William Tyndale, Thomas Tallis - a Catholic composer who kept his head during four reigns, the horologist John Harrison who made navigation much safer, the pioneer mathematician Ada Lovelace, & Mary Seacole for many years a forgotten heroine of the Crimean War.
2. More Exceptional English Men & Women. The lives of the engraver Thomas Bewick, Thomas Clarkson a prominent campaigner against slavery, the author Mary Shelley, Marie Stopes the feminine health pioneer, a physicist Reginald Jones who played a prominent part in the Second World War & the chemist and Nobel Prize winner Dorothy Hodgkin.
3. Heraldry. The rules and conventions of British heraldry with an account of how to read a coat of arms and what hoops you have to jump through to obtain letters patent for a grant of arms.
4. London Liveries. W hat are livery companies and how did they come into being? Why are they still there? This talk covers the history and strange traditions of some of the London livery companies.
5. Weekly from Southampton, Great Steamers – A history of Southampton. (The title is a quote from Kipling). This talk takes the city of Southampton and Southampton Water from earliest times to the emergence of a major container port and terminal for cruise lines.
6. Forties, Tyne, Dogger. The British Isles are surrounded by 31 sea areas covered by the shipping forecast. This talk covers the history of the shipping forecast followed by an idiosyncratic journey through the shipping forecast areas.
7. Waters of Tyne. Why are Geordies called Geordies? W here does the Tyne come from? This talk is an eclectic journey through the history, industry, people and culture of Tyneside.
8. Liverpool & the Mersey. What is Merseyside famous for apart from the Beatles? This a gallop through the history, culture, people and industry of Merseyside.

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Flight

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1. The American who became Britain's First Pilot. How an American cowboy became a great inventor and British aviation pioneer.
2. The Development of Medical Tests for the Royal Flying Corps. How the introduction of medical standards improved the life expectancy of pilots in the Royal Flying Corps.
3. Those Magnificent Men. An account of some incredible human experiments carried out at the RAF Physiological Laboratory at Farnborough during the second world war. This was before the days of ethics committees but that national need was great and the doctors went to incredible and dangerous lengths to develop aircrew equipment.
4. The Ice Cream Machine & the Puffing Billy. Some of the improbable bits of equipment developed at at the RAF Physiological Laboratory Farnborough during the second world war.
5. Things that go Bump in the Flight. An account of what happens to your body when you fly rather than sail over the Atlantic.

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Scandinavia

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1. Hans Christian Andersen. The strange life and literature of Denmark's genius – from cobbler’s son to the friend of royalty – and an inspiration for Walt Disney.
2. Three Great Scandinavian Composers. This is a talk contrasting the lives and music of Sibelius, Nielsen and Grieg.
3. Poles Apart. The lives and adventures of Norway's two greatest explorers - Nansen who was a polymath, diplomat and not a good people person and Amundsen who was arguably a more successful explorer but too single-minded to be nice.
4. The Vikings in the British Isles. This is the story of the Viking depredations and invasions of the British Isles and the impact that they had, and still have.
5. Northern Mythology. The legends of the Scandinavian gods make good reading. But how were they recorded and remembered? This talk is a canter through the rumbustious characters and legends of Scandinavian mythology and how they are still remembered today.
6. Great Danes. (people not dogs). The fascinating lives of the biologist Ole Worm, Tycho Brahe the astronomer, the composers Christoph Weyse and Friedrich Kuhlau, Bertel Thorvaldsen the sculptor, the physicist Niels Bohr, Anders Lassen a second world war hero who fought for the British & Victor Borge the pianist and humourist.
7. Super Swedes. (not the vegetables!). The interesting lives of Johan Roman the composer, the botanist Carl Linnaeus, the industrialist and philanthropist Alfred Nobel, the composer and feminist Elfrida Andrée and ABBA.
8. Notable Norwegians - the story of Tryggve Gran, Ole Bull, Vidkun Quisling and a surprise at the end.
9. The Icelandic Sagas.
10. Norwegian culture.
11. The history of Iceland.
12. More Norse myths.
13. Viking nicknames.

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Mediterranean

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1. Stones & Bones of Venice – the history of three locations (the Rialto bridge, the Fenice Theatre and the Lazaretto island interspersed with the lives of three famous Venetians (Canaletto, Vivaldi and Casanova).
2. Damned to everlasting fame. The story of the rise and fall of a Florentine family (the Medici) and and an originally Spanish family who gained a name for infamy (the Borgias). (The title is from Alexander Pope).
3. Men of the Med – the lives of three astonishing characters: an architect (Antonio Gaudi) , an artist (Salvador Dali) & a con-artist (what he did will be revealed during the talk).
4. Interesting Italians – the lives of Niccolo Machiavelli (of whom who Lord Macauley wrote “Out of his surname they have coined an epithet for a knave, and out of his Christian name a synonym for the Devil”, Fibonacci - the man who introduced Arabic numerals rather than Roman ones (imagine trying to multiply XLV by XXXIII), Antonio Meucci (who is claimed to have invented the telephone) and Giuseppi Garibaldi who contributed to the unification of Italy and gave us a biscuit.
5. Pilgrimage. A history of pilgrimages throughout the world with emphasis on the Camino de Santiago.
6. Interesting Iberians – the story of two explorers Vasco da Gama and Ferdinand Magellan, the blind composer Joaquin Rodrigo and the creator of Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes.
7. A ceiling, a feast & a fight. The lives of three very different artists: Michelangelo – primarily a sculptor who created magnificent paintings in the Sistine Chapel; Veronese whose Wedding Feast at Cana is full of hidden meanings; and Caravaggio, a troubled genius whose style changed art and who lived a short and turbulent life.
8. Triumph & Tragedy. The story of the ups & downs in life of three significant French people: an illiterate girl who went in three short years to leading an army and death as a heretic - Joan of Arc; Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish soldier wrongly accused of treason and sent to Devil’s Island; and a maverick pilot and author, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
9. The Iliad and the Odyssey - the history in the story. How much history is there in these two great poems - or is it just a rattling good yarn?
10. Great Greeks - the stories of some ancient and modern Hellenes.
11. Greek gods and myths. The pantheon of Greek gods and goddesses and what they got up to.
12. Croatia & the Croatians. Learn about the turbulent history of this wonderful country and hear about some of its eminent people.
13. Stones and Bones of Rome.
14. The Olympic Games - then and now.
15. The Knights Hospitaller - the real men in black.
16. In the shadow of Vesuvius.
17. What did the Romans do for us?
18. Sicily and the Sicilians.
19. The Byzantine Empire.

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South America

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1. Don't Cry for Me. The story of the three Perons - Juan, Eva and Isabel.
2. Beagling Round South America. The tale of Darwin's experiences in South America on HMS Beagle.
3. Around the Horn. The exploration of the notorious cape and an analysis of why it is so dangerous.
4. A Wager Lost. A tale of mutiny, murder and mayhem following the wreck of HMS Wager on the Pacific coast of Pategonia.
5. The Liberators. The men who set South America free of their colonial masters.
6. The Real Indiana Jones? The tale of Hiram Bingham III, the rediscoverer of Machu Picchu.
7. Brazil in a nutshell. A history of Brazil, including the role played by the Emperor and the Sea Wolf.
8. Argentinian Adventures. A history of Argentina, including the invasion of the River Plate by the British in the early 1800s.
9. Some famous south South Americans. Hear about some outstanding lives of people from Chile and Argentina.
10. South American music - the music of Argentina and Chile.
11. The Great age of sail. A history of clipper ships and windjammers.

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Middle America & the Caribbean

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1. The Conquistadors. The Conquest of the Aztecs in New Spain and the Incas in Peru.
2. Finding & Founding of Florida. The history of Florida from pre-Columbus times to its becoming a state of the Union.
3. Che. How did a middle class Argentinian become a hated terrorist and a revered hero?
4. Caribbean Colonies and Characters. A history of the Caribbean in general, with detail on the various ports of call together with an account of some famous inhabitants of the Caribbean.
5. Three colonies - a dream, a disaster and a deception. The story of Willoughbyland, Darien and Poyais.
6. Cuba - from Columbus to Castro.

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North America

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1. A brief history of (parts of) Canada.
2. Some Famous Canadians. People who should be famous but aren't and some who are famous but you didn't know were Canadian.
3. New York, New York. Highlights of the history of an iconic city.

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Trans-Atlantic

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1. Trans-Atlantic Crossings - E- W. A story highlighting some firsts and some unusual crossings.
2. Trans-Atlantic Crossings W-E. As for the other but heading in the opposite direction.

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Ireland
1. The Emerald Isle - A history of Ireland. An eclectic choice of historical nuggets from pre-history to the formation of the Republic of Ireland.
2. Oileáin Mhor, Meain & Oirr – the Aran Isles.
3. Isle of Poets, Playwrights and Pipers – a journey through Irish culture.

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Russia

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1. Rasputin - the mystic manipulator.
2. Why were Peter and Catherine great?
3. Meet the Mighty Five – the development of Russian music in 19th century St Petersburg.

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Christmas

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1. I saw 3 ships a sailing by - a history of Christmas Carols.
2. Ding Dong Merrily - a history of some more Christmas carols.
3. Deck the Halls - a history of Christmas traditions.

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Medical

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1. What's in a name? Medical eponyms. Many of the people who gave their names to medical tests, conditions & treatments had fascinating lives & interests.

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Far East

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1. Trade with the Celestial Empire. How the United Kingdom gained a foothold in China.
2. Spices from the east. A history of oriental spices together with the role played by the early explorers and the great trading companies in bringing spices to the west.
3. Fists of Righteous Harmony. The Boxer Rebellion and the later evolution of the Chinese Republic.
4. A cup of tea. A brief history of porcelain and tea.
5. The English Samurai. The story of how an Englishman became a samurai.

Started 2017.

Spoken on Cunard (all 3 Queens with Queen Anne booked in 2024), Viking, Saga and Fred Olsen. Over 30 engagements completed.

Willing to travel at short notice. Both my wife and I hold Seaman's Discharge Books, ESTA/Visa for USA and Bermuda ID cards.

Able to host and perform at Burns Suppers (piping, reciting, speaking but NOT singing!)

The following recent Cruise History has been recorded for this candidate.