Angela Lansbury Speeches and Making Speeches

Yesterday I gave a speech at my mother-in-law's funeral. I thought it would be useful to both me and you to write down immediately afterwards the successful parts and suggest any changes which could be made.

We had three speeches at the funeral,
a) one as an introduction by the official conducting the ceremony,
b) a second by the deceased's older son,
c) the third by me (the deceased's daughter-in-law, a speaker trained in Toastmasters International speakers' clubs).

The official asked us to send him our speeches:
a) So he could be sure we had prepared.
b) So he could be sure to allow the right amount of time for each speech.
c) So he had a duplicate in case we forgot to bring it.
d) So he could take over (with a typed copy he could read) if the speechmaker was overcome with either emotion or nerves.

He had met us in a coffee shop to discuss what we would say. We had a thirty minute slot at the crematorium. The various crematoriums allow different times. Fifteen minutes or half an hour. You can have double time if you pay extra (and if the bookings that day allow it). We opted for half an hour rather than fifteen minutes since somebody always arrives late and they could then miss the entire event or delay it.

He sent us his schedule for the half hour. We had selected opening music and ending music. You can have serious organ or orchestral music and a 

dress code of black.

We ended up with two main speeches of five minutes. We had a tiny amount of leeway. You can play the ending music longer, or cut it short. I think the minute's silence is unnecessary.

My speech draft opened: 'The only reason there aren't more people here is that Pearl lived to 98 and outlived everybody.' 

My First revision added on the end of the sentence 'of her generation'. 

My Second revision changed it to 'One reason ..., ' 'the other is that her successful family are now living all over the world - and we have received messages of condolence from x and y.

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