Remembering when the quality of pop music was off the charts

At the latest meeting of East Kilbride Speakers Club its president, Tony Dinwoodie, invited David Webster to take the chair.

The first speaker he introduced was Paul Munday.

Right from the start Paul left his audience in no doubt that he was returning to his teenage years by flourishing the readily recognisable cover of The Beatles’ LP Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Paul expertly used this as a springboard to create a wellstructured, illustrative speech in which he laid claim to the 1960s being the heyday of popular music, substantiated by the growth in the number of pop groups, the introduction of Radio 1 and television programmes like Top of the Pops.

George Stevenson followed with a speech that opened with a vivid description of a family spending an idyllic summer’s day in their garden, only to have it spoiled by wasp attacks. It also skilfully led into the main thrust of George’s speech, which was an account, full of surprises, of the life of wasps.

Ending on a positive note, George stressed that wasps were essential to controlling the numbers of many garden pests such as greenfly, ants and caterpillars.

Laying a false scent for the members of the audience to follow was the ploy used by Harvey Littlejohn to attract attention as he opened his speech by saying he was going to talk about the original bunny girl – before gradually letting it be known that he was really speaking about Beatrix Potter, the author famed for her tales of Peter Rabbit and his other furry animal friends.

Asking the impromptu speakers to choose and speak about a book, song or film that they wished they had written or appeared in was the challenge set by Isobel Dinwoodie, and Ken Murray provided his overall insight on the evening’s programme in his general evaluation.

Visitors to the club are most welcome and details can be found on East Kilbride Speakers Club facebook group page or emailing secretary@ eastkilbridespeakers.co.uk