Public Meeting Spring 2008

The annual spring conference took place on Saturday 26th of April, 2:30 pm, Quaker Meeting House, 7 Victoria Terrace, Edinburgh EH1 2JL.

Speaker:

James Fergusson BA Hons (Oxford)

Author and journalist

"The Vitamin Murders - Who Killed Healthy eating in Britain?"

James Fergusson, Edinburgh based author and journalist, has been asked to talk about his book on the murder of Sir Jack Drummond, Chief Food Adviser to the British Government during World War 2. Drummond and his family were murdered in France in August 1952.

This was the most famous murder mystery in France of the 20th Century. In his book he explores the mysteries surrounding the murders and he goes on to discuss how the agrochemical industry has controlled so many aspects of the nation’s diet and agriculture.

Sir Jack Drummond responded to the nation’s need for a supply of food. Not only did he prevent starvation, but he produced the healthiest fed population that this nation has seen. His was the golden age of nutrition.

James Fergusson

Since the early 1990s James Fergusson has been a foreign correspondent for several national newspapers. He has a particular interest at the moment in Afghanistan. He is now resident in Edinburgh.

He says that “The Vitamin Murders” was a bit of a departure for him, but he was moved to write this ‘whodunit’ account when he came across the Drummond grave in the south of France in the summer of 2004.

Other books include “Kandahar Cockney” an account of the Afghan refugee community in London (Harper Collins May 2004) and “A Million Bullets”, a critique of Operation Herrick lV in Helmand Province, based on interviews with the participants in the combat - British and Taliban (to be published by Transworld in June 2008).

James Fergusson talking about Drummond.

The Drummond Family.