The Venice Course Archive 1965 to Now

What you see here is only a tiny snapshot of what will exist in your hearts and minds. Over the years, various students and professors got out a camera and took photos, and we thought that on our sixtieth anniversary we’d put a selection up for old times’ sake.
It’s a scattergun approach, I’m afraid. Many of these are taken from John Hall’s own archive of images and only a few of them are titled.
Some of the lecturers and stars are familiar and others not. Nick Penny, Charles Hope, Jeremy Sams, Peter Phillips, Sarah Quill, Jane Glover are some familiar faces whilst the likes of Rodney Milnes, the brilliant lecturer on Opera, Bill Baker the alumnus and wine and food expert (clearly), The Hales, Stella Rudolph and others would only be recognisable to the 20th century students.
Some of you will recognise yourselves; don’t hesitate to let us know so that we can subtitle the photos.
There are other faces; so important to the course. Corrado and Enrico Spalazzi who run the Clementson Travel organisation in Venice who have been our fixers for sixty years, the brilliant and hospitable Severino, whose restaurant provided an unofficial ‘lock-in’, where students, professors, gondoliers, policemen could all meet and drink carafes of cheap wine and smoke ourselves silly on MS Italian cigarettes (his wonderful son runs the ‘Giardinetto’ restaurant still, a really worthwhile place to visit for a great meal – near to Campo Santa Maria Formosa)
But what drew us all together, and I shall never tire of saying it, was my father’s genius in inventing this brilliant experience.
This year we have the first third generation student and we hope for more to come. A large percentage of people who sign up do it on personal recommendation, whether from friends or relatives and that is a really rewarding element of what we do.
These photographs go some way to show what the course is about; happiness, friendship, and the chance to call one of the most beautiful cities in the world home for six weeks, something that absolutely nobody else can offer.
We are still looking for more photos, so please, of you have some, send them to us at info@johnhallvenice.com

Charlie Hall