Open Writing

When speaking at grand occasions I always make sure that I am addressing the subject to which the occasion is dedicated. That is, when the decision is in my hands. Otherwise, I accept no responsibility.

This attitude is born out of an unusual experience I had in the long ago before rocket ships burst through the heavens bringing decimal coinage in their train. The caution-producing event occurred when I was living in Southampton, Hampshire, and began when I was informed of a forthcoming speech festival for all branches of the Mormon Church in the south coastal area of England, to be held at the Latter-day Saints’ Church’s British Headquarters at Nightingale Lane in upscale Balham, adjacent to the leafy greenness of Wandsworth Common.

In response to this information I made a funny little squeaky sound, expressive of uncertainty conjoined with timorous curiosity and gravely assumed enthralment such as causes one’s lips to purse. With pursed lips it is impossible to speak, so hence the mouse impression.

Not that the prospect of making a speech in front of ten thousand – oh, all right then, a hundred – people phased me. Any hesitancy my informant thought he read in the throttled trill was only because the event was to take place on the morrow, and the fellow was talking to me in an almost intimate, soothing voice such as heralds a request for a favour. I was not wrong.

He went from soothing to pleading, to which he added an intonation approaching the ridiculous. It was a perception that opened to me the vision of my buttonholer cast as Charles Dickens’ unctuous Uriah Heap.

Heap stood too close to my side, a nauseating phantasm, his waxen face lit by the glow of a distant yellow candle that exaggerated his spiritless melancholy. His shoulders were hunched almost to the width of his scrawny neck, his spindly extremities were squashed inwards, merging close to his backbone, his teeth yellowed with neglect, his rat-tailed hair coarse and loose, his gummy nostrils filled with an abundance of ready-to-harvest grey whiskers turned dark ochre by years of stuffing snuff up his nostrils, his clothes reeking with the accretions of neglect of personal hygiene.

Heap, almost less than a shadow in the glim, wrung his hands, attempting, as it were, to rid himself – here, Uriah Heap detransmogrified before my eyes from the illusory spectacle he was a second or so ago, and restored as man under the obligation to find a speaker for tomorrow’s Speech Festival.

His head cocked to one side in deferential manner, Uriah Heap as was a second ago, looked me in the eyes, smiling such a smile that would have frightened hungry vultures from warm and well-fleshed carrion.

"Ronnie," he began, appearing to be himself, "We need someone to speak in the adult category. Someone let us down." He grimaced, "We have speakers entered in all the other age groups" then paused a pause that Shakespeare would describe as ‘lengthy – ponderous – and pregnant’ … before continuing, "and I was wondering whether you would ... "

"What’s the subject?" I interrupted, smiling small at the recollection of him as Uriah Heap, revenant.

"Anything you like. You have nine minutes."

His voice had brightened by several thousand candlepower, and his previous manifestation fell from him as melting snow falls from a rooftop when a door is slammed shut incautiously. He took my response to be a positive sign, like a lifebuoy thrown to an overboard seafarer about to go down for the third time.

Not being able to resist a challenge, I embraced it, saying, "That’s fine. Nine minutes!"

"Nine minutes," he repeated, turning to flee before I could retract my assent. I thought his parting shot sounded as if he wasn’t entirely sure that I had grasped the requirements of the speech correctly. But then, perhaps he was used to disappointment.

On the day of the Festival, I was collected by car and transported with despatch eastwards to the Metropolis and the Festival venue. We arrived in good time, settled into good seats, and then found out when each orator was to be called to the lectern, to stand and deliver, and then sit as the judges stood and delivered notes, bouquets, and brickbats.

As I listened to the speeches up through all the age divisions I marvelled at the serious nature of subject that each speaker from the youngest to the oldest had chosen, recognising that I was in the assembly of the great. Not only were they energetic and passionate in their deliveries, but each had chosen to speak on topics closely matching the rest of the utterers. So readily apparent was their solidarity of themes that I detected the direction of heavenly inspiration, and was thrilled thereby.

I will explain that at this period in my life I sported a full beard, and very handsome it was too, in fact it was a Dickens of a beard! I must also confess that although I have a grave and serious side, I am also endowed with an outrageous sense of humour that I am not afraid to let wander abroad.

This has often saved me from disaster, and because there was so little time to prepare for the speechifying combined with my own choice of subject, I scribbled down a small collection of witticisms relating to beards and those that wore them.

My guileless humility obliges me to divulge that for nine rollicking minutes I held the audience spellbound, seat-edged, and as merry as waste-enmired sus scrofa domesticusii. Then, my task completed, I descended from the high place accompanied by thunderous applause and resounding shouts of ‘encore.’ At which I felt considerably pleased with myself.

But when the winners and runners-up were announced I was surprised at not being numbered among the medallists, and confused that my entertainment was not mentioned in dispatches, a seemingly sure thing judging by the animated reactions of the audience (which was the behavioural version of a hapax legomenon that evening). Well, there were no cash prizes, just certificates, so it was no great loss, only a great mystery.

The mystery was revealed a few moments later when the festival was formally closed and I was making my way outdoors to find my chauffeur. By this time I had left disappointment behind, and was thinking about some unrelated frippery, when the chap that had been Uriah Heap gripped me at my elbow. He was not himself – again – but neither was he Uriah ‘Sneering Weasel’ Heap. Yet he remained faithful to the Yorkshire writer by presenting himself as Dickens’ criminal-cum-hero, Abel Magwitch.

The Magwitch busy boring mineshafts into my elbow with his puissant finger and thumb had not, at this point in the play, transmuted from evil thug to benevolent patron, but was still a bloodthirsty felon. The convict began his inquisition standing in the moonlight half hidden behind an ornate tomb.

"Why did you speak about beards?" he demanded gruffly.

"Well, Mr Magwi…. " I began, and then, realising what was jumping off the tip of my tongue, I repented - on grounds that discretion is the better part of valour - sucked the half-formed frightful name back into my mouth as quickly as frogs catch flies, and hid them where words not intended for public discourse are stored, and made another start to my explanation, saying, "You … " But I was cut off tyrannically in mid flow.

"You were told to speak on the subject, ‘How to Instil Moral Character in the Youth of the Nation!’" he roared, his distressed voice being forced upwards through a ton of pea-gravel lodged in his chest. I could tell that he was not a happy bunny.

"But … " I began again, eager to explain that he had given me licence to speak about whatever I wished.

"You made a mess of the whole thing!" he snapped, and then continued what he deemed to be a lecture, and I deemed to call it what it was, a rant. I will not repeat the content of his intemperate frenzy, but suffice it to say that none of it was complimentary. He was good, but I had been insulted by those with more skill and with vocabularies sufficiently stocked making repetition unnecessary, but I heard him out and let him get it off his heaving chest.

Shortly, he was spent, and stood eye-gazing me. But I was not to be changed from my cheery disposition to one of vulgar rancour. I grasped him warmly by the hand, saying softly, tenderly, and intimately so that he and I alone could hear, "I’m awfully sorry, brother," and meant it. His jaw sagged allowing his mouth to open so wide, that he was deprived of the faculty of speech and the Magwitchian persona in an instant. I left him wondering in silence. He needed to be calm.

That one night I learned three life-changing lessons. First, is that it pays to find out what kind of an event I am going to and what I am supposed to do there. Second is that if I misdirect anyone, I seek them out, grovel in the dust at their feet, and deliver an unreserved apology. The third moiety of enlightenment is that I determined to readily forgive anyone that misdirects me by affecting the role of offender, begging their forgiveness, and throwing myself upon their mercy, albeit without saying as much.

The point of this deception is that it takes the heat out of uncomfortable situations, because I do not stand on my offended dignity and have no compulsion to be hostile, and that allows the offender to escape the consequences of his solecism with his self-esteem, reputation, and feelings intact. It is a win-win result that makes for happy people, besides which, I have never felt miserable taking this course of action.

Avoiding using any word or deed calculated to make an enemy from a friend is a small price to pay for peace. It also occurred to me that it might be all it takes to make the world a better place. Seen from any angle it is a good start, and respect lets comfort and serenity visit poor souls about to surrender themselves to alienation’s endless night.

Thoughtful actions illuminate sombre masks of sadness, bring relief to those crushed by rejection, sorrow, and injustice by calming the stormy seas that surround us as we painfully proceed on life’s journeys. Kindness soothes the troubled brow as it confirms the humanity of those whose self-esteem is severely damaged. Such sicknesses can not be healed by any means other than uncritical support and acceptance containing large doses of unconditional love.

And when things go wrong in the family that is all of humanity, the wise and compassionate are lenient to any that have wronged them, just as we would have others be gracious to us when we are agents of their misfortunes. This method does so much good to everyone, and encourages noble thoughts such as those Charles Dickens put into the mouth of Scrooge’s nephew, Fred:

"I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time … "

And having been forced to ponder weighty concerns relevant to his mortality, Ebenezer Scrooge overcomes his sullen stinginess, and becomes a man endowed with gleeful liberality. So thorough is the former miser’s transformation that in an attack of unfettered merriment he vows, "I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year!"

That is the spirit that readily forgives mistakes made by others, whatever the cost, because no matter the cost, the blessing of touching another’s heart is priceless, even when those not motivated by godly enthusiasm clumsily step on our toes, or thoughtlessly tug at our beards, even if it is the Dickens of a beard!

© 2009 – Ronnie Bray

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Be Well, Be Faithful, Be Forgiving, Be Blessed.