Member Article

Diversify - but carefully!

This month has seen me starting a new venture: public speaking.

Earlier this year I was invited to give a talk to Ponteland Rotary Club. The event was hosted by Ponteland Golf Club, on May 19. I needn’t have been quite as nervous as I was; I received a warm welcome from the steward and was taken into the club house to meet the other members.

A fascinating evening followed. I was amazed to learn that Rotary was founded in America (during the early years of the last century.) I had always thought it was as English as cricket. I also learned that Bill Gates does quite a bit of work in partnership with Rotary. Rotary in Great Britain and Ireland is involved in a huge amount of good works, raising thousands and thousands of pounds for charity.

After a good meal there was a bit of a hush as the president asked us to stand for a toast. He held up his glass and intoned, “The Queen.”

“The Queen,” we all said and sipped our drinks. Another ritual was the great, brass bell placed on the head table (at which I was seated.) Whenever the president wanted everyone’s attention he gave this a ring. After dinner we went downstairs to the lounge and I prepared to give my talk. I was introduced and received a warm round of applause as I stood up.

“Oh I’m just enjoying that sound,” I said. Laughter – I was off to a good start!

I was all prepared. In figuring out how to approach my assignment I’d decided to stick to what I know. So I’d written a plot and created five chapters for my presentation. Within these I listed the topics I wanted to talk about. Then I spent a morning rehearsing it all.

The time and effort worked because the talk went without a hitch. Life Story Books (clients commission me to write them), were studied with interest by the audience. The best laughs I got was when recalling a press trip in 2004. This was for the 60th anniversary of the Battle of Arnhem. I accompanied a World War 2 veteran, Len, who was from Middlesbrough.

There were a lot of laughs with the veterans. Their witty one-liners were consistently of a very high standard indeed. When me and Len (he was in the Royal Army Medical Corp) arrived in Hull, we met up with his old comrades, all in their 80s.

The sergeant major duly arrived and the men immediately straightened up, shoulders back, chests out. Old habits die hard! The sergeant major had a bright pink suitcase with him, courtesy of his grand-daughter. He regarded us sternly and pointed at the suitcase. “That,” he said, “is red, not pink.” Then the same steely look from him, daring anyone to say different. No-one did!

So started several days that featured some sombre occasions but, as I say, a lot of laughs. There was also quite a bit of drinking. I must say I was impressed by the way the veterans could put back the whiskey. They were similarly impressed by the same ability shown by the Press accompanying them!

When the ferry arrived at Europort, Rotterdam, we all queued up with our passports. And a veteran came out with a classic one-liner, “Well they weren’t asking for our passports the last time we were here.”

Everywhere we went, the veterans were received rapturously by the Dutch people. One day, we were walking along the riverside to the bridge itself (the Bridge too far). A young woman stopped her bicycle, jumped off it and came running across the road. She threw her arms around a veteran and kissed him. We all stood there, watching in amazement. The sergeant major meanwhile was looking at his watch – he was timing the kiss.

Then the young woman flashed us all a grin, got back on the bike and continued along her way. The sergeant major was regarding the recipient of the kiss. “This happened to you the last time we were here, Armstrong. There’s a bit of trend developing here!”

It turned out that when the men were last here, in 1944, they had found some Dutch civilians hiding in a basement. The Dutch were so relieved to find that it was British soldiers greeting them and not the Germans arriving back on the scene, that one lady kissed Private Armstrong. Well we all laughed when this had been recalled to us by a rather sheepish Mr Armstrong.

“Well just … steady on now, Armstrong,” said the sergeant major, “and wipe that lipstick off your face before your Mrs sees it.” That had Mr Armstrong muttering, “Oh Gawd Blimey,” and searching for a handkerchief.

But the best incident of all – and this got the best laugh during my Rotary Club talk – was when I recalled how we were taken on a coach trip to a magnificent, gothic castle on the German border.

The place was crowded with many nationalities; Canadians, Americans and Brits especially (with all sorts of ceremonies taking place in the area.) We were settling down to lunch, the guide telling us about the history of the castle. And then she said, “Oh yes and Himmler was here during the war.”

Every conversation in the room just stopped. You could, quite literally, hear a pin drop. Forks transporting food from plates to mouths froze in mid-air. The silence was broken when one of the journalists said under his breath, “What, is that like a selling point?”

And then, from the back of the room, one of our veterans remarked, “So, we finally caught up with the miserable little [deleted expletive.]”

My talk at the Rotary Club over, there were several questions for me and – I received another round of applause!

I walked into the sunshine feeling a lot better than when I had walked in a couple of hours before! I hadn’t forgotten what I was going to say, hadn’t been seized by a sudden urge to climb out of a window, and, similarly, none of the audience had run screaming from the room.

Result!

Moral of the story: Diversifying your business is good but needs to be well planned, using tools from your What I Know kitbag!

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Christopher Rooney .