In my twenties, I decided I was not doing anything with my down time so I cast about for a short course on something practical. In Didsbury, Manchester was an establishment called the Worker’s Education Association [WEA]. It was housed in a run down but formally a very grand country house. Disbury was in the countryside in the 1820s. Now it is is firmly in the Manchester conurbation. For no reason what so ever I decided a course in bee keeping would be the very thing to do over the winter months.