Bill will be exploring three generations of one of England’s finest engineering families and their achievements. The father, Marc Brunel (son of a Normandy farmer), who provided the boots for Wellington’s Army and the ship’s blocks for Nelson’s Navy, and who built the first tunnel under the Thames. The son, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who built the Great Western Railway, and the three largest ships in the world at the time, the Great Western, The Great Britain and the Great Eastern. The grandson, Henry Brunel, another great engineer, but less well-known today, who helped design Tower Bridge and other structures, as well as another ship.

Bill McNaught: I started work in 1961 as a Westland Helicopters engineering apprentice spending 25 years with the company before moving on to manage a number of other aviation and defence companies. I retired in 2008 and started giving talks as a hobby. My talks are all the result of extensive research of the subject and I try and include as many pictures and film as possible. I particularly like ‘fascinating historical characters’ .