Adrian O'dell is the son of a Polish Air Force officer and a nurse from Lancashire and was educated at the City of Norwich School. After an international career in the oil industry, he ‘retired’ to Norfolk and has devoted himself to the study of Norfolk and Norwich’s history and heritage. He is a freelance city tour guide and was also a trustee of the Norfolk & Norwich Heritage Trust (Dragon Hall) before it was passed on to the National Centre for Writing. He has completed post-graduate studies in Landscape History at UEA. He is Chair of the Norfolk Polish Heritage Group which researches and archives stories of Polish immigration into Norfolk since World War II and has dual British/Polish nationality. Adrian has taken an active interest in the present plight of Poland’s neighbour Ukraine and at the end of his talk there will be an opportunity to donate to a fund helping Ukrainian refugees in Norwich.

TALK William of Norwich: 12th century Murder, Miracles and Myth by Adrian O’Dell
Who was William of Norwich, remembered in the city by a street and school named after him (St William's Way and St William's Primary School)? The story of the young boy William's "martyrdom" took root in the mid-12th-century, during the period of Anarchy under King Stephen (1135-1144). What was the social context in Norwich at that time and why was one minority group envied and vilified by the English and French population? When the Norfolk lad was found "murdered", how was his death attributed to the aliens in their midst by the people of Norwich and how was a series of astounding miracles attributed to him? How did William's death engender a genre of racism and myth called “Blood libel” which has fuelled centuries of oppression for the Jewish people?