Singular life
Speaking out
Petronella Wyatt Ihad to make a speech the other day at an Oldie magazine lunch. I forbore to won- der aloud how many of them would see in the millennium. I still can't quite get into the habit of insulting an audience although everyone assures me they like it. I suppose it's just cowardice. Making speeches never gets easier; it becomes worse as the realisa- tion of how banal one's remarks are hits home more forcibly every time, with the cumulative effect of being struck by lead tennis balls.
If you are speaking with someone experi- enced it is worse still. In this way public speaking is like sex. The one who has been at it longer always makes the other feel inadequate. This time the lover — I mean speaker — after me was Roy Hattersley. There are two types of good speakers. There are the sort who are good because they have stolen other people's jokes. Jef- frey Archer used to do this shamelessly and remark afterwards, 'Oh, I hope you didn't mind that I changed the bit in the middle.'
Really viper cunning people, though, make jokes about you or your family. Hat- tersley told a story alleging that my father, as a Labour MP under Harold Wilson's premiership, ruined Hatters's career. Apparently, they had all been sitting round discussing the nationalisation of British Steel. Everyone was against it except Hat- tersley, who made a speech in a Yorkshire accent he described as even thicker than the one he has now.
The company of MPs burst out laughing, which Hattersley took to be a flippant and insulting reaction to his views. Afterwards, my father lolloped up to him and said, 'That was the best impression of the little man I have ever heard. What a brilliant mimic you are.' But I wasn't mimicking Wilson,' Hattersley protested. Later on, in the Chamber, my father began to shout, 'Hattersley's done the most marvellous take-off of the little man. You should have heard it.'
A few weeks after, Wilson met Hatters- ley at a conference. 'I gather you've been doing impersonations of me all over town,' he growled. Promotion came there none.
This reminded me of the first speech I ever had to make — the embarrassment quotient, that is. A friend of mine was involved with the Anglo-Argentine Society. It was a few years after the Falklands war. A special conference was being set up in Argentina at which Argentinians and Falk- land Islanders would sit together for the first time post helium. Would I make a speech at it? My knowledge of Argentina extended little further than a line from Cole Porter, viz 'some Argentinians with- out means do it' — 'it' not being speeches. Naturally, I accepted.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about Iberia, the airline that doesn't take you there. It doesn't take you anywhere because its flights are always cancelled. Well, the Argentine national airline was a good run- ner-up. During the flight, out of grey bore- dom, I wandered in the direction of the cockpit. The door was ajar, and through the space I could see three empty bottles of liquor. The pilots seemed to be enjoying themselves. Of course they may have been empty bottles of washing-up liquid or surgi- cal spirit but I never smelt gin-flavoured Fairy before.
The conference took place in a small town at the bottom of the Andes. It began with a dinner in a winery. Blair would love Argentina. It is the ultimate stakeholders' society. In fact they do nothing but hold each other's rare steaks. This was followed by gaucho music and various terpsichorean displays. The town was full of rainwater holes, nicely invisible to the eye. A well- known Labour MP and I fell into one.
I remember sitting up all night writing my speech, with a bandage on my foot. It was incorrect etiquette, we had been told, to refer to the Falklands either by that name or as the Malvinas. The war was to be described as 'the conflict in the South Atlantic'. For some reason I shoved some puns into the first few paragraphs. Little did I know that there was to be a bone- headed translator for the benefit of those delegates who didn't understand English.
It was only afterwards that the full extent of the disaster was made known to me. Two of my jokes had been mistranslated into dirty words. I suppose that explained why the priest attending refused to speak at the reception afterwards, But worst of all was a slip-up entirely and gloriously my own. In my anxiety to remember to refer to the conflict in the South Atlantic I had repeatedly spoken of 'the conflict in South London'. I cannot say that my speeches have much improved since then.
'Is there a mayoral candidate down there?'
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