Year three in our public speaking class was harder in every way. Our teacher pushed us harder and harder and made us read more papers and listen to more items on the radio. We were all totally afraid that our impromptu subject would be something topical we hadn’t heard about. So we listened, read and discussed everything topical and a lot of things that weren’t… One impromptu speech lingers in my memory. The teacher gave our politician the subject! Christ is dead, Christ is risenâ€� The rest of us gasped but, and we then understood why he was a politician, when he said very simply,â€� Is he? I hadn’t heard but then the newspapers are on strike today.â€� It was true, they were. That’s what is called thinking on your feet!

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In the second year of public speaking our speeches got longer and more ambitious. The teacher invited other groups to come in and we would have discussions on all sorts of topics. What would you say about cutlery for instance? She taught us how to chair meetings and debates although she still didn’t approve of them. All the time she was pushing the boundaries of what we knew and how we should express it. We met groups from Toastmasters and the local seminary and it was good for us to meet public speakers who had been taught differently, and we truly believed, not as well. All this was in preparation for our first official public speaking exam.

That night there were adjudicators in our classroom and we all gave our prepared speeches and, quivering, waited for them to give us an impromptu subject. Mine was “Spies� and to this day I don’t know what I said but I know James Bond did come into it. We were given marks for content, tone, diction speed and variety. We had to wait a few months for our results but it was quite interesting to see the comments of the various adjudicators about our chosen topics and our performances in general. My chosen topic was public speaking itself and I finished with a poem about it and evidently the adjudicators liked it because I got first class honours. Finally, the fact that I was a writer had paid off!

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At the end of the first year of public speaking classes she gave us a little test. We had to give a two minute speech on a prepared subject and a one minute impromptu speech. Most of us were shaking that night but, strangely, we remembered to do our breathing exercises and we all clapped and cheered each other on. Now I know why footballers like supporters on the sideline. It does make a difference. We were all in awe at our genius though whose impromptu subject was tax. He said he felt that it was like the tithe the Christ said we should give the church and he told us that he felt it was his way of helping the widowed and the orphan. Somehow tax has never felt the same. Our teacher liked his speech but had some brusque words to say about his jacket. It was flopping open and, she said, a distraction to his audience. So he was told to button up.

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Our public speaking teacher didn’t like debates. She said they taught people to think on their feet but they didn’t really express feelings. She said good public speakers felt passionately about their subject. I was doubtful about this at first but she was right. When people loved their subject their speeches were so much better. She then went on to say we couldn’t always speak about something we loved but we could take an angle about something, develop it and then begin to feel strongly about it. We spent hours between classes looking up subjects in the library, this was in the days before the internet, and asking people their opinion on topics.
She insisted that we listened to the radio too. So, as a city based group, we dutifully listened to agricultural reports in case she asked us to speak about the market for pigs. We listened to religious programmes and topical programmes. She made us criticise those speakers we heard, telling her how and why they made mistakes. In other words she opened up our minds and told us listen and learn.

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Our public speaking teacher started giving us impromptu speeches and how we dreaded these at first. We never knew if we were going to be asked to speak about the men on the moon or mirrors. Baffled by the latter subject I asked my father, a skilled public speaker, what he would say about mirrors. He said the mistake I was making was that I assumed that people knew what mirrors were before I spoke about them. So there was little I could add beyond that they were on the wall and you could see yourself in them… Explain what they are to people who have never seen one he told me and that was another lesson learned.

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Our public speaking teacher gave us exercises to do and we felt so silly shaking our hands and doing deep breathing exercises that we began to relax with each other. She then asked us to read short sentences until we got used to the sound of our own voices. One week she asked us all to bring in our favourite book and read from it. You would be very surprised at the choices people made. Mary, for instance, loved a blood and guts thriller while our genius went in for what most men would consider as rather soppy poetry. Little by little we were beginning to understand each other and become friends rather than classmates.

Soon the teacher had us speaking about subjects she chose for us. Being a writer I thought I would have no problem at all in writing my speeches. I soon discovered, however, that reading to be said and read are two completely different things. People who are reading can take in more or look back over something you write. When you are speaking your audience has to understand immediately. It is, if you like, a more immediate type of writing.

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The people in my public speaking group were varied. There was an aspiring politician and a trade union negotiator both of whom were doing the course for obvious reasons.

The rest of us, however, were a mixed bunch. There was a retired teacher who was full of fun and who became the light and soul of the group. She wore haute couture and was always immaculately turned out. There was an architect who had to speak in his job and who had a dreadful problem pronouncing his TH sounds. There were housewives and business people and young students. There were those who just came to try out the course and there was a genius who looked the part of the nutty professor. Above all there was Mary. Mary was an elderly lady who whispered her name in trembling tones and told us she was too shy to speak in public. She quickly became the class mascot. If Mary could learn to speak in public anyone could.

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I looked for classes that would help me become a public speaker… I enrolled in a speech and drama class. The teacher spoke as though she was in the Royal Shakespeare society and did lots of reading with us. We learned to speak in parts. To this day I can recite three of the verses of the twelve days of Christmas. I have discovered, however, that the need for this is rather limited in the real world

So I decided to try another class. I joined a public speaking group this time. It was a once weekly night class. Our teacher was Hungarian and her command of English was brilliant. She was kind and understanding and began by asking us to introduce ourselves
and to say why we were doing the course. That was my introduction to the fascinating world of public speaking.

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