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Speech Writing

The feeling of dread which overtakes many people when they’re required to make a speech at a wedding, Burns’ Supper, etc.can ruin what would otherwise be a very jolly occasion.
Don’t let this happen to you. “Yourstory-biographies” will be delighted to write your speech for you - and other members of the bridal party or top table, too.

Contact Lovina@yourstory-biographies.co.uk or telephone 07721777243.

Rap Address to a haggis

Yo man! Lookcha honest frienly face,
You sure are de king of de puddin race,
De highest of de high is yo place,
Yo’s so full o goodness is wicked,
So like, respect man, respect.

An yo’s awesome! Dis huge plate y’all fill,
Yo ass as big as a hill,
Yo insides so thick an splenderiferous,
                     Yo just finger lickin  delicious,
Yo gravy oozing out yo pores
                     Make folks call out for more, more!

Now dere some poor deluded folks, it’s true,
Eat chicken korma an vindaloo,
Tikka masala, pizza an chips,
              Man de enough t’ give yo de …… pips,
An des got the nerve ti dis haggis and pooh pooh
When what de eatin’d make you spew.

But look at us, man, haggis fed,
We’s healthy, beautiful an  magnificent in bed,
We’s talented too.  We can carve a whistle
Make yo sing an dance til you sizzle.

Yo Dude, that looks after us all,
An makes sho our food feeds our soul,
We, in Scotland cast aside, we reject foreign grits
              Because as I’ve said, they are the pits,
But if yo want our luv’n’kisses,

Stop messin about – give us A HAGGIS!

Copyright Lovina Roe.

Speech to Chartered Institute of Bankers, 2010

Thank you Arthur,

Ladies, Gentlemen… and bankers… may I say what a bonus it is to be here tonight.

I’m also pleased to see that the haggis was piped in properly. One morning this week I was listening to Ken Bruce reading out a letter he’d received about a memorable Burns Supper at which the piper was deemed to be too drunk to play a single note to pipe in “the beastie” so the organisers asked around and someone came to their rescue. The haggis was marched in to “She’ll be comin’ round the mountains when she comes” played on a banjo. Thank you… for staying sober.

As a teacher, I am one of a much maligned and misunderstood profession. Burns once wrote an epitaph for one dominie,

                  Here lie Willie Michie’s banes,
                  Oh Satan when ye tak them,
                  Gie him the schailin o yer bairns,
                  For clever deils he’ll mak them.

And I wondered how he’d adapt these lines to suit a member of your profession. Perhaps,

                  Here lie Fred Goodwin’s banes,
                  Oh Satan when ye tak them,
                  Check the pooches for stocks and shares,
                  For a multi millionaire he’ll mak ye.

Of course, some people would suggest that Burns had already written a poem for him,

                  Oh thou! whatever title suit thee –
                  Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick or Clootie.

But far be it from me to suggest such a thing.

Maybe he’d have urged Polonius’ advice to his son Laertes,
        
                  Neither a borrower nor a lender be

If only we’d all heeded that advice!

Burns was all too aware of how difficult it can be to find suitable accommodation, especially in a bear market. Obviously the “puir wee coo’erin timorous beastie”, had been living in a sub prime property which is why its “silly wa’s” were so easily strewn to the winds by Burns’ plough. I hope none of you gave it a mortgage.

Now in literary terms the definition of a tragic hero is that of a noble man with one weakness or fault which some outside force, let’s say Fate, plays upon to his utter destruction.  I wondered how our menfolk would measure up to this description and I can do no better than to quote Rab himself in the closing lines of “Tam O Shanter:

                  Now wha this tale o truth shall read,
                  Ilk man and mither’s son tak heed:
                  Whene’er to Drink you are inclin’d,
                  Or Cutty sarks rin in your mind,
                  Think! Ye may buy the joys o’er dear
                  Remember Tam O Shanter’s Mare.

Drink and Cutty Sarks! They’re enough to mak most of you lads “tint your reason a thegether”.  As Arthur has said, they certainly had that effect on Burns. Because as he said himself, Robin was a rovin boy, Rantin’ Rovin Robin whose sweetest hours were spent amang the lassies.  Recalling one romantic adventure he wrote,
        
                  I hae been blithe wi comrades dear;
                  I hae been merry drinkin:
                  I hae been joyfu’ gath’rin gear:
                  I hae been happy thinking:
                  But a the pleasures e’er I saw,
                  Tho’ thre times doubled fairly,
                  That happy night was worth them a
                  Amang the rigs o barley.

But this was with Annie, not Jean Armour.  And OK Annie wasn’t that unwilling:

                  Wi’ sma’ persuasion she agreed
                  To see me thro’ the barley.

What can a girl do? They’d probably had a good time at a harvest dance, a dram or two: mix that with a good looking, sweet talking guy and the next thing we know it’s “A Poet’s Welcome to his Love-begotten daughter”! D’you remember the song? 

                  Sweet talking guy,
                  Tells you sweet kind o’ lies,
                  Don’t you believe in him,
                  If you do, he’ll make you cry.

And what sweet talk! To Agnes McElhose,

                  But to see her was to love her
                  Love but her and love forever.

To Mary Morrison

                  Oh Mary at thy window be,
                  It is the wish’d, the trysted hour
                  Those smiles and glances let me see
                  That mak the miser’s treasure poor.

And what love!  Wi Annie

                  I ken’t her heart was a my ain:
                  I loved her most sincerely,
                  I kiss’d her owre and owre again,
                  Amang the rigs of barley.

Oh dear oh dear! The things we believe! Shakespeare wrote, “Frailty thy name is woman” but he also penned, in a rare moment of honesty:

                  Sigh no more ladies, sigh no more
                  Men were deceivers ever,
                  One foot in the sea, and one on shore,
                  To one thing constant, never.

Yes, it’s true that you men are unaccountable things: mad til you have your mistresses and then stark mad til you are rid of them again. 

It’s not only us they deceive, however. The combination of Drink and Cutty Sarks is a recipe for disaster to men of all ages. Think of Holy Willie: a mature man, an elder of the kirk, who ought to have known better. Believing that he was one of The Elect – a St. Johnston supporter – he apologised to God, man to man fashion, because he’d erred: there was Meg, but he promised never again to “lift a lawless leg upon her” and it might have rested there but no – he was forced to confess that he’d had houghmagandie

                  Wi Leezie’s lass, three times I trow,
                  But, he continued,
                  That Friday I was fou,
                           Whan I cam near her,
                  Or else, thou kens, Thy servant true,
                           Wad never steer her.

Well there you have it! I was drunk at the time so it wasnae my fault. And, I have no doubt that his Calvanist God IN HIS INFINITE MERCY!!! did understand his point of view – and blame Meg and Leezie for leading him astray. The Johns Calvin and Knox have a great deal to answer for.

One more thing before we leave the old lecher. Drunk? Three times? I don’t think so girls, do you?  Sounds like creative accounting to me.

Nevertheless, we wouldn’t change you. I cannot agree with the French writer, Toussenel, who wrote, “The more one gets to know men, the more one values dogs. Well, not all the time anyway!! Nor with Gertrude Stein, the famous American journalist of the forties and fifties who said that a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle. I’d rather believe Burns when he wrote, “A man’s the goud for a’ that” or should I, in this illustrious company say, “the gilt”?? Goud or gilt you’re precious to us.

So then, ladies, let us be upstanding and toast our men folk. To our men folk! May they always remember St. Valentine’s Day, our birthdays and special anniversaries!!!

Copyright Lovina Roe.

Contact Lovina@yourstory-biographies.co.uk or telephone 07721777243.