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Editorial

It has been a very busy year for the Society. In fact it has been the most active year to date with no less than four meetings completed. The ‘Evening With Chris Burt’ saw forty members and guests pack the Randolph Hotel to listen to one of the key people behind the television series. Next was the ‘Return To The Promised Land’ with another special guest – this time Barrington Pheloung who did us all proud. There is quite a lot of him in this issue of Endeavour. The main event of the year was the weekend spent in Lyme Regis which will be reported more fully in the next issue, along with the Magic Circle evening enjoyed by thirty members. Add to all that the Society was also asked to organise a day for fifty-six members of the George Eliot Society and you can see that there hasn’t been a lot of spare time.

Although there has only been one newsletter this year a great deal of effort has gone into updating the Inspector Morse Society web-site which is now quite extensive and covers all our activities, past, present and future. Do take a look at www.murder-mystery.com and see for yourself. Also on the publications front the long awaited Best and Worst of Morse has now been printed as a supplement. See where your favourite episode or book was placed in the ranking, and whether Colin Dexter would agree with you

Plans for next year are already well advanced with almost enough articles for the next newsletter and also a further supplement. However, our calls for tributes for John Thaw have been few in number and do not constitute enough for a special issue. We hope to run two trips next year. The major one, and most ambitious yet, is our proposed ‘Morse’s Palladian Pleasure’ five day excursion to Vicenza, Verona and Venice in the footsteps of SELF, and including a concert at the Verona arena with Placido Domingo – surely Morse would approve.

Financially the Society is healthier as well. Although we still have too many ties, prints and scarves much of our old stock has now been sold, and we have had a steady increase in membership, which now stands at around the three hundred mark.

In conclusion thank you all for your support during this active year. I look forward to another superb year in 2004 as we embark on our first excursion abroad.

Antony Richards