The perils of public speaking
IT was a schoolboy error - and I have no sympathy for it. The Prime Minister’s embarrassing speech to CBI business leaders in Tyneside just reinforced the Prime Minister’s image of an overgrown schoolboy who occasionally forgets to do his homework.
Public speaking is never easy, of course. Although the great public speakers will have the wonderful ability of making it look very easy.
Just occasionally, I have been asked to deliver a speech.
My pal, Lieutenant Colonel David Mathias, gave me solid advice many years ago. Remember ‘The Six Ps’, he stressed. As a military man, David believes in following the orders. His ‘Six Ps’ were Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance.
David will allow for some dramatic extension of the Six Ps to Seven Ps when the occasion demands.
For example, you can insert another ‘P’ (almost literally) into the gap between ‘Prevents’ and ‘Poor’ (work it out for yourself; this is a family newspaper).
It’s a phrase which has stuck with me in my ‘public speaking career’.
Although, I will confess to some early mistakes when starting out as a public speaker.
For example, there was the time when I was the guest speaker at the ‘Old Boys Dinner’ of past pupils of the former Queen Elizabeth Grammar School for Boys in Carmarthen.
The speech had been written and rehearsed well beforehand. But I got careless during the meal and left my 10 pages of immaculately-typed A4 on the table as I went for a ‘comfort break’ before the appointed time for my talk.
I returned to the table to see page 1 of the speech still in its place.
What I didn’t know was that, during my absence, some of the Old Boys had filleted out every other page as a practical joke. What larks, eh? When I stood up, I only had odd number pages in my hands. As speeches go, it was a tad disjointed, but as I knew most of it off by heart I (just about) got away with it.
The Boris blunder could, one supposes, have been prevented by the addition of a paper clip, staple or a small ring binder. Page numbers would also have helped.
But mentioning the above also leads to the suspicion that perhaps one of the Prime Minister’s assistants thought it was payback time and jumbled the papers up at the podium?
Surely, not. But any speech with references to quantum computing, Artificial Intelligence, Moses, Lenin and Peppa Pig World has got conspiracy theory written all over it.
Those of you who have listened (often unwillingly) to me give an after-dinner speech will know that I have five ‘set texts’ - my life and work as a journalist; working for the Olympics and Paralympics news service; the work of the Llanelli Talking Newspaper for the Blind; a mercy mission to war-torn Kosovo and the Llanelli Railway Goods Shed project.
If I’m invited to give an after-dinner speech, then my hosts are invited to pick from the set menu above.
Rule one of public speaking is don’t touch a drink before standing up. I’ve seen too many disasters as an afterdinner ‘spectator’ to know never to break that rule.
Rule two is know your audience (refer to the Six Ps above).
This is why, for example, it came as no surprise to be pelted with bread rolls during my speech to Llanelli Round Table. I’d done my research and knew it was their ‘customary’ way of ‘welcoming speakers’.
Rule three is never look startled or surprised. As an example, I remember attending a school hall to give a talk to a WI conference. I entered through an escape exit and directly onto the stage, where there were 10 lovely ladies sitting on a long table. This will be a walk in the park, I thought, until the stage curtains were pulled back to reveal the assembled audience of 300-plus in the main body of the school hall.
Rule four is try not to be distracted. At a meeting of a west Wales Probus club, one of their older members (who had a seat in the front row) approached me and delivered the following ‘advance apology’.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he said. “But I suffer from incontinence and if I have to get up halfway through your speech you will understand why.”
He was, of course, sitting a little too close to the podium for comfort and I was distracted by potential flooding problems throughout my speech.
Rule five is retain a sense of humour. I once gave a talk to a ‘hard of hearing club’, which I assumed would be quite a challenge.
I was reassured by the chairman “Don’t worry, you deliver your speech to a microphone and your voice is relayed by an electronic loop system to a sound jack in the desks which enables the audience members to hear you perfectly well.”
Afterwards, the chairman came over for another chat. “That went well,” I ventured, before suggesting that there was a problem with the ‘loop system’.
“There must be some sort of time delay in your loop,” I told the chairman. “When I told a joke, there was silence. Yet, when I mentioned something serious a little later, there was a lot of laughter.” The chairman set me right. “That’s not a problem with the loop system,” he said quite bluntly.
“What happens is that when some of our members got bored with a speaker they turn the loop switch over to listen to the Comedy Hour on the radio!”
Rule six is always remember you are . . . Not. That. Good.
For this, my example is a visit to a Mothers’ Union meeting deep in rural west Wales.
At the end of my speech, we all sat down for a chat over tea and Welsh Cakes.
The treasurer approached my table and asked, “Now, then, Mr Lloyd, what do we owe you for your trouble this evening? Any travel expenses?”
Blushing, I responded with what was my standard answer on these occasions, “Nothing at all. As a journalist representing my newspaper, I consider it part of the job to get out into the community and talk to our readers. So, no fees, no expenses.”
The Mothers’ Union treasurer smiled before closing the lid on the old biscuit tin which now doubled as the petty cash box.
“That’s wonderful news, Mr Lloyd,” she beamed while clutching her metal biscuit tin. “I am so glad - as the money we save on people like you coming to give a talk enables us to save up for special events later in the year when we can afford a proper speaker!”