Jul 2013 Speaker Peter Hering -The history of diamonds and Citation presentation

The evening opened with Trevor Sayer presenting PP Mike Smith with a Presidential Citation for the quality and extent of the Peace work done by the club, and initiated by him, in 2012. RI does not give these awards lightly and Trevor was delighted to represent the Rotary President Tanaka on this occassion.

The talk for the evening then followed and, with one of our founder members about to celebrate a diamond wedding anniversary, it was especially appropriate to invite Mr Peter Hering from local jeweller Cellini to tell us about the history of diamonds.

Peter has been in the jewellery business for over 40 years and, as technical director, is involved with buying high-quality gemstones and diamonds and many of the clever techniques to cut, polish and mount them.

His illustrated talk covered the various forms and qualities of diamonds, how they are mined and processed, techniques for hiding and detecting imperfections and some of the more famous jewels such as the Taylor-Burton diamond.

The history of Cecil Rhodes (who acquired land and developed a lot of the diamond mining in South Africa), de Beers and issues of ethical trading and diamond certification were also covered.

Our members, partners and guests were treated to a fascinating talk and also the chance to briefly try on a