Upcoming Events.
Spring 2012 Dinner
Spring Dinner – Monday 21 May 2012
- Speaker: Sir Christopher Ondaatje - Explorer & Author of " The Last Colonial"
- Venue: Travellers Club - Pall Mall
Christopher Ondaatje is a true child of the British Empire. Born in Ceylon, the son of a tea planter from a well-known island family, he was broughtup on the tea plantation. As a teenager he was packed off to a private school on England to "get a decent education". But soon after Ceylon was granted its Independence in 1948, his family found themselves destitute, which forced the young Ondaatje to leave school and get a job. He spent his seventeenth birthday in the City of London drudging in a bank. However in 1956, following a hunch, he made his way to Canada with just thirteen dollars in his pocket. From this improbable beginning there followed a series of spectacular commercial triumphs, until in 1988, he abandoned high finance at the peak of his career and re-invented himself as an explorer and author, focusing on the colonial period.
It is the curious encounters behind these often precarious adventures that make up "The Last Colonial". The stories tell of Ondaatje's childhood days in Ceylon; his lifelong pursuit of elusive leopards; his early struggles in Canada; his fascination with inexplicable events and local superstitions, including those in Exmoor in Devon, where he now lives; and his sometimes perilous travels researching his biographies of Ernest Hemingway in Africa and Leonard Woolf in Ceylon. "
We will be personal guests at the private members Travellers Club in Pall Mall and will be joined by members of the Travellers Club on the evening.
Tickets will go on sale January 2012
For further information and to join the Canada Club, please contact us at info@canadaclub.co.uk
Previous Events
2009-2011 Dinners ( all dinners sold out):
* 8 July 2009 - Michael Ignatieff MP,
Leader of Her Majesty’s Official Opposition, Ottawa. Venue: The National Liberal Club
* 7 October 2009 - Mike Lazaridis, President & Co-CEO, Research in Motion and Founder and Director, The Perimeter Institite for Theoretical Physics . Venue: The Royal Society
* 20 May 2010 - Honourable Louise Arbour, President & CEO of the International Crisis Group. Venue: Reform Club
* 15 November 2010 - Bicentennial Dinner hosted by H.R.H. The Duke of Edinburgh, Patron of the Canada Club. Venue: St. James's Palace
* 15 June 2011 - Rt. Hon Michaëlle Jean – UN Special Representative for Haiti, former Governor-General of Canada. Venue: Royal Society of Arts ( RSA)
* 20 October 2011 - Ian Dejardin - Director, Dulwich Picture Gallery, Curator Painting Canada: Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven. Venue: Dulwich Picture Gallery
Past Canada Club speakers have included Canadian Prime Ministers from the first, Sir John A. MacDonald, to the current Prime Minister, Stephen Harper as well as many British and international speakers in the fields of public affairs, cultural debate and science and innovation.
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