Monthly meetings with a speaker are held in the Noverre Suite of The Assembly House, Theatre Street, Norwich, NR2 1RQ on the third Wednesday of each month at 2.00pm, doors open 1.30pm.

Two hours are set aside after the speaker to allow members to mix and socialise with each other and the committee.

Tea, coffee, biscuits and tables are provided.

​There’s no charge for members (find out how to join here: https://www.u3anorwich.org) and guests cost £2.50.

Manifestations of Madness, Women's Voices from the Norfolk Lunatic Asylum, features female patients diagnosed with gender-specific causes of insanity during the period 1851 and 1870. Biological factors were highlighted in the nineteenth century to explain the incidence of insanity in women, and the debate concerning the female malady, as it was termed, continues to be of interest in the 21st century. Victorian psychiatrists held the view that 'women were more vulnerable to insanity than men because the instability of the repdorductive systems interfered with their sexual, emotional and rational control. Julie was educated at Carew School, Ealing and studied at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, obtaining a Licentiate Diploma in Drama. On moving to Norfolk I taught at Lonsdale School in Norwich before joining Norfolk Careers Service. My MA in Local History from Leicester University stimulated my interest in Victorian asylums and my dissertation was based on Norfolk County Lunatic Asylum in the years between 1851 and 1870. I subsequently researched the personal histories of female patients following their discharge when they were back in their domestic situation.