Wolverhampton Speakers Club
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Speech Archive
Site last published: 09/28/08
Speech Archive - Some Selected Speeches
In this archive we will from time-to-time include the full texts of some of our members' speeches. They are included here to illustrate either what we typically do or because we feel that they are outstanding in some way.
Please note that each author retains the copyright of the speech.
"I've Killed off my Granny!" - Brian Micklethwaite - in an Area Contest
Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen
I think it’s time I ‘came out’. I don’t
know how to tell you this, but feel I must
confirm what a lot of my friends have been
suspecting about me for a long time – I am.... a
Nutter! I cannot deny it – I even have the
T-shirt!
Yes, it’s true ... my great-great-great-great grandmother was Nancy Nutter, and she was born in 1781 in
Yorkshire.
So although my name is ‘Micklethwaite’, I do have Nutter genes!
So you’ve probably guessed that I’m into Family History. I find my family rivetingly interesting – and I’m
sure you will too........
One of our main tools, the National Census records, give us 10-year snapshots of our ancestors’ lives. We are privileged onlookers and we can march back with them through the generations ... we can follow them in their joys and their hardships, their sorrows and their deaths. ... To find that my great-grandfather was killed at work in Tipton by a train is still shocking to this day.
When I started, all I knew about was my families in Tipton, and Dewsbury in Yorkshire. But imagine my surprise when I found out that I’m quite the cosmopolitan gent. I come from long lines of canal boat people - from both Staffordshire and Gloucestershire - that came together in Tipton. And from another long line of Yorkshire coal miners - with some Devon paper-makers thrown in along the way.
Do you have any family anecdotes? I bet you do, and they may well be true! Some of mine are! Imagine my great-great-aunt being forced to get a job hauling coal into canal barges to pay off her mother-in-law - who had taken them to court to help maintain her!
But what about family skeletons? Now many of us have illegitimacy somewhere in our family’s past, so why hide it? My great-grandfather in Yorkshire was illegitimate, and we’ve all had endless fun imagining who his father might have been – was it a friend, a worker from t’mill ... or was it ... incest?
Moving on quickly!! Given names can be fascinating – especially how, until recently, they were passed from generation to generation. Judging by names in my families, I could easily be called Solomon, or Josiah, or Abraham, Absolom or Moses. I could even be speaking to you now as ‘Uriah Micklethwaite’!
And I have to reveal that one of my great-great grandfathers had the middle name ‘Fairy’ – and him working as a policeman in London!!
So I have fairy genes as well as Nutter genes!
Did you see the recent BBC series ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ – programmes tracing the family trees of some celebrities?
Now I watched those series, and while they were absorbing I couldn’t help noting how easy they made it all seem! It all seemed to drop into place, with wise historians instantly ready with plenty of information to share.
But I’m here to tell you it’s not that simple – there’s a lot of painstaking research to do, and a lot of ‘blind alleys’ to go down.
You’ll have to imagine me late at night in a yellow pool of lamplight, poring over semi-legible sheets from the 1861 Census in an attempt to decipher my great-great-great-grandfather’s place of birth, or trying to find out what my 3-times great-uncle was doing in 1891 as a guest of HM in Wakefield Gaol!
It’s a sobering experience using death certificates and eavesdropping into the medical history of your forebears.
One side of my family is scary – heart disease, strokes, asthma - by rights I’ve already outlived my allotted span – so many of them died in their 30s and 40s. I’m earnestly hoping I take after my Father’s side!
But on a positive note, I’m proud that a few weeks ago I satisfied 2 women in one night! ... Susan said it was ‘real cool’, and Celia said I’d ‘made her year’!
They’ll all have to stop doing it - they’re at it all the time - all these women - I just can’t stop them. They’re after me all the time. But what a joy when another woman comes into my life late at night wanting to share something with me... their Family History ... of course!!
As I’m sure you’ve guessed, it’s all about our family. I'd e-mailed Susan and Celia - two third cousins (one of them in the US) - and I’d been the one to ‘kill-off’ the one remaining granny in our family.
That’s what you do, you know – find their death certificate and ‘kill them off’ so you can round off their lives and confirm a particular branch of your family. We'd been searching for this particular 'Granny' (great-great-great granny, actually) for some months.
So, Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, at the end of it all, I know who I am – I’ve killed off my granny.
And no – I’m not related to royalty or anybody famous – I’m just an ordinary working class lad from the back streets of Tipton. So perhaps I can sum it up with a Limerick:
"If a man tracing lineage believes
That no royal blood flows, then he grieves
But I don’t despair
For I’m fully aware
That my forebears were untitled thieves"
Yes, it’s true ... my great-great-great-great grandmother was Nancy Nutter, and she was born in 1781 in
Yorkshire.
So although my name is ‘Micklethwaite’, I do have Nutter genes!
So you’ve probably guessed that I’m into Family History. I find my family rivetingly interesting – and I’m
sure you will too........
Why Family History?
One of our main tools, the National Census records, give us 10-year snapshots of our ancestors’ lives. We are privileged onlookers and we can march back with them through the generations ... we can follow them in their joys and their hardships, their sorrows and their deaths. ... To find that my great-grandfather was killed at work in Tipton by a train is still shocking to this day.
When I started, all I knew about was my families in Tipton, and Dewsbury in Yorkshire. But imagine my surprise when I found out that I’m quite the cosmopolitan gent. I come from long lines of canal boat people - from both Staffordshire and Gloucestershire - that came together in Tipton. And from another long line of Yorkshire coal miners - with some Devon paper-makers thrown in along the way.
Do you have any family anecdotes? I bet you do, and they may well be true! Some of mine are! Imagine my great-great-aunt being forced to get a job hauling coal into canal barges to pay off her mother-in-law - who had taken them to court to help maintain her!
But what about family skeletons? Now many of us have illegitimacy somewhere in our family’s past, so why hide it? My great-grandfather in Yorkshire was illegitimate, and we’ve all had endless fun imagining who his father might have been – was it a friend, a worker from t’mill ... or was it ... incest?
Moving on quickly!! Given names can be fascinating – especially how, until recently, they were passed from generation to generation. Judging by names in my families, I could easily be called Solomon, or Josiah, or Abraham, Absolom or Moses. I could even be speaking to you now as ‘Uriah Micklethwaite’!
And I have to reveal that one of my great-great grandfathers had the middle name ‘Fairy’ – and him working as a policeman in London!!
So I have fairy genes as well as Nutter genes!
‘Who do you think you are?’
Did you see the recent BBC series ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ – programmes tracing the family trees of some celebrities?
Now I watched those series, and while they were absorbing I couldn’t help noting how easy they made it all seem! It all seemed to drop into place, with wise historians instantly ready with plenty of information to share.
But I’m here to tell you it’s not that simple – there’s a lot of painstaking research to do, and a lot of ‘blind alleys’ to go down.
You’ll have to imagine me late at night in a yellow pool of lamplight, poring over semi-legible sheets from the 1861 Census in an attempt to decipher my great-great-great-grandfather’s place of birth, or trying to find out what my 3-times great-uncle was doing in 1891 as a guest of HM in Wakefield Gaol!
Family Mortality
It’s a sobering experience using death certificates and eavesdropping into the medical history of your forebears.
One side of my family is scary – heart disease, strokes, asthma - by rights I’ve already outlived my allotted span – so many of them died in their 30s and 40s. I’m earnestly hoping I take after my Father’s side!
'Killing off my Granny'
But on a positive note, I’m proud that a few weeks ago I satisfied 2 women in one night! ... Susan said it was ‘real cool’, and Celia said I’d ‘made her year’!
They’ll all have to stop doing it - they’re at it all the time - all these women - I just can’t stop them. They’re after me all the time. But what a joy when another woman comes into my life late at night wanting to share something with me... their Family History ... of course!!
As I’m sure you’ve guessed, it’s all about our family. I'd e-mailed Susan and Celia - two third cousins (one of them in the US) - and I’d been the one to ‘kill-off’ the one remaining granny in our family.
That’s what you do, you know – find their death certificate and ‘kill them off’ so you can round off their lives and confirm a particular branch of your family. We'd been searching for this particular 'Granny' (great-great-great granny, actually) for some months.
Conclusion
So, Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, at the end of it all, I know who I am – I’ve killed off my granny.
And no – I’m not related to royalty or anybody famous – I’m just an ordinary working class lad from the back streets of Tipton. So perhaps I can sum it up with a Limerick:
"If a man tracing lineage believes
That no royal blood flows, then he grieves
But I don’t despair
For I’m fully aware
That my forebears were untitled thieves"
"The Death of the Old Black" - Ralph Weaver - Vocabulary and Word Pictures
Madam Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen
Am I getting old or do you too feel our
past life seemed better?
I was witness to the demise of the old Black - more than three and a half decades ago - and to those last gasps of life.
There was no mourning - no sense of loss or feelings of bereavement – then.
For over 80 years the Black had stood - grown sturdy, solid and developed: seen two world wars and the fall of empire and worked on thousands of tons of iron and steel throughout.
My grandfather had worked with the Black - dressed in the waistcoat, neckerchief and flat cap that were the workers uniform of the day. My father too had worked with the Black, but I was the one to see the life essence ripped from this major part of three generations.
I had known the Black for nearly half of my working life till then. The other half enduring the high pitched screaming and chattering, ear-wrenching of the ‘Bright’, where the multi-spindle automatic lathes made the silvery steel stock yield into screws and fixings by gouging out the metal from the rotating steel that whipped and screamed their pain through the works that was flooded with the stench of hot cutting oil - and always, always the crunch of swarf underfoot.
Not so with the Black - here was a dark, cavernous netherworld - the lighting dimmed and hooded by a shroud of smoke and fume and soot - not quite a fog - that gave an eerie primordial subterranean feel and restricted vision into its further reaches - till you got used to the light that was infected with the ruddy glow from the growling fiery furnaces that heated the billets.
Each furnace stood sentry to a steam driven forge hammer - each a great ominous bulk of metal, oil and dirt - wheezing steam and compressed air, dribbling oil and water as it strained to hoist the top die. Struggling to hold it the two foot or so above the die block while the forgemaster, one of the two men who pandered to the whims to feed the snorting monster, wrangled a fiery tipped billet from the furnace and wrestled the tongs to locate it in the die (whilst fighting shy of the heat) - to leave just the yellow-hot nub just visible above the dieblock.
- WHOPPP!!! -
The top die lowered with the grace of an Olympian in slow motion to kiss the billet locating it firmly in the die - there was no escape now. Then, just as quickly, the die head reared up its slide - reversed and ...
- BANG!!! -
The full force of eighty tons of steel, steam and gravity shook the very foundations of the area as hardened steel die smashed onto the still glowing hot billet. Showers of red-hot scale festooned from the impact, and the top die withdrew back to its attack position - poised there - waiting - while the other servant of the machine wrestled the now reformed billet from the die and tossed it aside to its next process.
The forgemaster had already dragged the next billet from its inferno and loaded the die to do it all again - and so it went on sixteen sweltering hours a day - there the two gladiators of iron, heat and noise tended the forge hammer, synchronised like a clockwork toy - this ballet acted out on the 40 odd hammers that populated the Black, assaulting the body with an unorchestrated percussion - each and every blow felt through the air and through the black scale coated floor through your feet - through your legs and into every fibre - as though each forge were forcing you to pay heed of its the presence and pure power.
What made the Black welcoming for me were the smells:
- of heat
- of burnt, black iron and the taints from the furnaces when the men cooked their food and brewed their tea.
- of the fragrance of sweat and machine oils blended with the steam from the lumbering monoliths and the acrid acid stench of the pickling vats at the far end of the shop - smells of honest labour, toil and heat.
To outsiders it was just another part of another nut and bolt factory in Darlaston spewing out dust and fumes and noise into the world.
But to me, at the time, the Black was my world.
And so Madam Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, although that world has long since passed away - some may say thankfully so - I feel for the old Black as a vibrant, strong, dark and pounding lifeforce - dirty, almost diabolic, almost demonic in nature - but to me - remembered as always warm and welcoming and alive.
I was witness to the demise of the old Black - more than three and a half decades ago - and to those last gasps of life.
There was no mourning - no sense of loss or feelings of bereavement – then.
For over 80 years the Black had stood - grown sturdy, solid and developed: seen two world wars and the fall of empire and worked on thousands of tons of iron and steel throughout.
My grandfather had worked with the Black - dressed in the waistcoat, neckerchief and flat cap that were the workers uniform of the day. My father too had worked with the Black, but I was the one to see the life essence ripped from this major part of three generations.
I had known the Black for nearly half of my working life till then. The other half enduring the high pitched screaming and chattering, ear-wrenching of the ‘Bright’, where the multi-spindle automatic lathes made the silvery steel stock yield into screws and fixings by gouging out the metal from the rotating steel that whipped and screamed their pain through the works that was flooded with the stench of hot cutting oil - and always, always the crunch of swarf underfoot.
Not so with the Black - here was a dark, cavernous netherworld - the lighting dimmed and hooded by a shroud of smoke and fume and soot - not quite a fog - that gave an eerie primordial subterranean feel and restricted vision into its further reaches - till you got used to the light that was infected with the ruddy glow from the growling fiery furnaces that heated the billets.
Each furnace stood sentry to a steam driven forge hammer - each a great ominous bulk of metal, oil and dirt - wheezing steam and compressed air, dribbling oil and water as it strained to hoist the top die. Struggling to hold it the two foot or so above the die block while the forgemaster, one of the two men who pandered to the whims to feed the snorting monster, wrangled a fiery tipped billet from the furnace and wrestled the tongs to locate it in the die (whilst fighting shy of the heat) - to leave just the yellow-hot nub just visible above the dieblock.
- WHOPPP!!! -
The top die lowered with the grace of an Olympian in slow motion to kiss the billet locating it firmly in the die - there was no escape now. Then, just as quickly, the die head reared up its slide - reversed and ...
- BANG!!! -
The full force of eighty tons of steel, steam and gravity shook the very foundations of the area as hardened steel die smashed onto the still glowing hot billet. Showers of red-hot scale festooned from the impact, and the top die withdrew back to its attack position - poised there - waiting - while the other servant of the machine wrestled the now reformed billet from the die and tossed it aside to its next process.
The forgemaster had already dragged the next billet from its inferno and loaded the die to do it all again - and so it went on sixteen sweltering hours a day - there the two gladiators of iron, heat and noise tended the forge hammer, synchronised like a clockwork toy - this ballet acted out on the 40 odd hammers that populated the Black, assaulting the body with an unorchestrated percussion - each and every blow felt through the air and through the black scale coated floor through your feet - through your legs and into every fibre - as though each forge were forcing you to pay heed of its the presence and pure power.
What made the Black welcoming for me were the smells:
- of heat
- of burnt, black iron and the taints from the furnaces when the men cooked their food and brewed their tea.
- of the fragrance of sweat and machine oils blended with the steam from the lumbering monoliths and the acrid acid stench of the pickling vats at the far end of the shop - smells of honest labour, toil and heat.
To outsiders it was just another part of another nut and bolt factory in Darlaston spewing out dust and fumes and noise into the world.
But to me, at the time, the Black was my world.
And so Madam Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, although that world has long since passed away - some may say thankfully so - I feel for the old Black as a vibrant, strong, dark and pounding lifeforce - dirty, almost diabolic, almost demonic in nature - but to me - remembered as always warm and welcoming and alive.
"Greed" - Brian Micklethwaite - in the Blarney Stone
Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen
Are you greedy? I hope you are, because I
am! Greed is all right – greed is healthy. I’m
here to tell you that you can be greedy and still
feel good about yourself! Now greed spreads like
a virus, but I believe it carries the seeds of
its own salvation. I’ll come to that soon, but
first let’s talk about this thing called greed.
Greed, of course, is one of the so-called ‘Seven Deadly Sins’. It is an intense and excessive desire for resources, wealth and power. Greed and lust feed off one- another, and their children are envy and pride.
We see greed in individuals, and we see it in corporations. Greed almost invariably rides on the back of the disadvantage of others and involves the ability to ignore or rationalise those consequences.
As individuals and families there are very few things we ‘must have’. Imagine the family that has it all. The executive house (and maybe a country home as well, bought at a price that locals can’t afford), the clutch of 4x4s, the ponies and paddock, exclusive holidays, tickets for the opera, the best education, the latest of this, the best of that – the list is endless.
Now, these things are not bad in themselves – what is bad is the mindset that these things are actually deserved!
Increasingly we are becoming a divided society, where a group of ‘winners’ are taking an ever-larger slice of our national income and resources. We are becoming a ‘winner takes all’ society – but remember, where there are winners, there are also many more losers.
‘Money talks’ - in this country the top one percent of earners account for about 13 percent of earnings and own nearly a quarter of all personal wealth, and they are getting richer and richer. In fact, 'Money swears'.
How do you feel about that?
Now don’t think I’m being envious - I do believe in reward for those who contribute to our society, but what we are increasingly seeing is a nation where a few take a slice of the nation’s resources which is out of all proportion to the contribution they make. We have to put all this down to greed, maybe even unconscious greed, and we shouldn’t forget that greed is often nurtured in our children each Christmas time!
Which brings me to ‘Corporate Britain’. Corporations, especially large ones, have institutionalised the sin of greed, and this is reflected through the prism of their practices. Their priorities are distorted - ‘Fat Cat’ executives, rewarded even for failure, and the fight for a living wage for the rest of us, scream out for remedy, for this is not only greed, it is arrogance and contempt made manifest.
And how sad that in 21C we still have to fight for that living wage!
These corporations compound their greed by feeding off one-another - you know what I mean - hostile take-overs and asset stripping, and ‘downsizing’ – you know what that means!.
And those in jobs find themselves at the wrong end of the ‘long hours’ culture in our institutions, whether private or public. Here is corporate Britain being greedy for our time and for our lives. Perhaps the vaunted low-cost flexible workforce is a euphemism for ‘exploitation’.
It is sometimes argued that greed and reward drives progress – that greedy people generate opportunities for others. I think we may regard that as special pleading and at least an over-simplification!
But wait! I said that I wanted us all to be greedy. Have I just dug a hole for myself?
How does it work?
We need to be greedy - not for ourselves and for resources and wealth to cling on to but for the contribution that we can all make. Greedy for the good things, the essential things that support the wellbeing and dignity of those around us.
As nations, we certainly need to look at the way our contributions to the world are far outweighed by what we take - there is enough in the world for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.
I’m greedy for time – time to do things in - and greedy for the loss of every wasted moment. I’m greedy for knowledge. I’m greedy for friends and companionship. I’m greedy for that which makes our life complete. I’m greedy to see our nation take a lead in being greedy for the wellbeing of all humanity.
So where have we arrived at? We’ve looked at some of the depths that greed sinks us into ... but we’ve perhaps glimpsed a hint that some greeds can be positive.
That’s what I’m greedy for. Can we all be greedy please?
Here endeth the sermon.
The Blarney Stone?- I’m greedy for it!
The Nature of Greed
Greed, of course, is one of the so-called ‘Seven Deadly Sins’. It is an intense and excessive desire for resources, wealth and power. Greed and lust feed off one- another, and their children are envy and pride.
We see greed in individuals, and we see it in corporations. Greed almost invariably rides on the back of the disadvantage of others and involves the ability to ignore or rationalise those consequences.
Individual Greed
As individuals and families there are very few things we ‘must have’. Imagine the family that has it all. The executive house (and maybe a country home as well, bought at a price that locals can’t afford), the clutch of 4x4s, the ponies and paddock, exclusive holidays, tickets for the opera, the best education, the latest of this, the best of that – the list is endless.
Now, these things are not bad in themselves – what is bad is the mindset that these things are actually deserved!
Increasingly we are becoming a divided society, where a group of ‘winners’ are taking an ever-larger slice of our national income and resources. We are becoming a ‘winner takes all’ society – but remember, where there are winners, there are also many more losers.
‘Money talks’ - in this country the top one percent of earners account for about 13 percent of earnings and own nearly a quarter of all personal wealth, and they are getting richer and richer. In fact, 'Money swears'.
How do you feel about that?
Now don’t think I’m being envious - I do believe in reward for those who contribute to our society, but what we are increasingly seeing is a nation where a few take a slice of the nation’s resources which is out of all proportion to the contribution they make. We have to put all this down to greed, maybe even unconscious greed, and we shouldn’t forget that greed is often nurtured in our children each Christmas time!
Corporate Greed
Which brings me to ‘Corporate Britain’. Corporations, especially large ones, have institutionalised the sin of greed, and this is reflected through the prism of their practices. Their priorities are distorted - ‘Fat Cat’ executives, rewarded even for failure, and the fight for a living wage for the rest of us, scream out for remedy, for this is not only greed, it is arrogance and contempt made manifest.
And how sad that in 21C we still have to fight for that living wage!
These corporations compound their greed by feeding off one-another - you know what I mean - hostile take-overs and asset stripping, and ‘downsizing’ – you know what that means!.
And those in jobs find themselves at the wrong end of the ‘long hours’ culture in our institutions, whether private or public. Here is corporate Britain being greedy for our time and for our lives. Perhaps the vaunted low-cost flexible workforce is a euphemism for ‘exploitation’.
It is sometimes argued that greed and reward drives progress – that greedy people generate opportunities for others. I think we may regard that as special pleading and at least an over-simplification!
I’m Greedy For
But wait! I said that I wanted us all to be greedy. Have I just dug a hole for myself?
How does it work?
We need to be greedy - not for ourselves and for resources and wealth to cling on to but for the contribution that we can all make. Greedy for the good things, the essential things that support the wellbeing and dignity of those around us.
As nations, we certainly need to look at the way our contributions to the world are far outweighed by what we take - there is enough in the world for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.
I’m greedy for time – time to do things in - and greedy for the loss of every wasted moment. I’m greedy for knowledge. I’m greedy for friends and companionship. I’m greedy for that which makes our life complete. I’m greedy to see our nation take a lead in being greedy for the wellbeing of all humanity.
Summary
So where have we arrived at? We’ve looked at some of the depths that greed sinks us into ... but we’ve perhaps glimpsed a hint that some greeds can be positive.
That’s what I’m greedy for. Can we all be greedy please?
Here endeth the sermon.
The Blarney Stone?- I’m greedy for it!
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