Angela Lansbury Speeches and Making Speeches

My Winning Speech

Feel the fear and do it anyway

Feel the fear and do it anyway was a book written by Susan Jeffers. 

I shall start with fear of Scarecrorw.

SCARECROWS

Are you afraid of scarecrows? Crows are afraid. Most adults aren't. Have you ever seen a scarecrow? If you haven't, you have now. My Scarecrow, Sarah the scarer, is designed to scare crows by looking like a human. We aren't scared of Scarecrows because we know that a scarecrow won't kill us. Let's look at four common fears, fear of giving a speech, fear of dying, fear of heights, and fear of flying.

Fear of giving a speech is like fear of a scarecrow.  It won't kill us.

We are afraid we will die on stage. Very few people will die on stage. Most people are afraid of dying alone. If you die on stage, you won't be alone. It's better than dying in a hospital. 

To ignore the reality of dying on stage, the metaphor means forgetting your lines. With a scarecrow, or a prop, you cannot forget your lines, because you have your speech pinned in the back of the prop.

If I turn the scarecrow, you can see my speech pinned on the back.

Actually I forgot to pin it on the back. Once I pinned it on, and in the middle of the speech I hunted for my glasses and found that on the back of my prop was a shopping list. I read the punchline of my speech, which was two pints of milk. People still come up to me asking, why did you end your speech two pints of milk.  

, but we are scared of people. We remember people who made us feel small. A crowd of strangers. Until you know people, you don't know if they are enemies or neutral or friends. 

At the beginning, the speaker is afraid of the audience and the audience is afraid of the speaker. How do you know the audience is afraid? 

How do you know the spider is more afraid than you are? Because the spider runs away.

How do you know the audience is afraid?

They don't sit in the front row.

Let's go back to the scarecrow. After a few days the crows get used to a scarecrow. It doesn't move or make a noise or follow them or try to kill them.

Same goes for your audience after you become a speaker.

Eventually the crows get bored and start ignoring the scarecrow.

The scarecrow has to move and make a noise. You attach ribbons and bits of metal which make a noise to get the attention of the crows. Create tension. They don't know what will happen next.

Do not run away. 

I've been told not to retreat to the back of the stage. Never turn your back on the audience. Have your assistant sitting in front of you.

Face the front and speak slowly. Usually the people with hearing aids sit in the front row to hear better.

Keep smiling.

My late mother came to a talk I gave to a local synagogue about the Rothschilds and my lunch with the Rothschilds at Exbury Gardens.

I kep smiling at my mother in the front row, and she smiled back.

Afterwards I asked what she thought of my speech. She said it was wonderful. I looked so happy and confident and everybody laughed at my jokes. I asked her what was the best joke. She replied, I don't know, dear, I didn't hear it because I forgot my hearing aid.

What happens next in my speech is that I put down the scarecrow and pick up the galloping horse.

Here's my neighing horse. His name is Harry, the hairy. I thought that sounded rude. I changed his name to Harry the hurry. If you want him to hurry off you press his right ear like this. (Gallopping sound.) To turn if off you press his ear again. I promise you it doesn't hurt. I asked him if it hurt and he said Neigh neigh. I asked if he wanted to speak but he said neigh, neigh. Press his left ear and he says neigh. Press again and he stops neighing. In rehearsal I kept pressing and it set the neighing off again. I thought the mechanism had broken so I threw the proper into a corner and tried to finish the speech talking over it. The audience was in hysterics. I won the prize for the funniest speech.

He talks. I asked if he wanted to speak but he said neigh, neigh. You see how easy it is. All you need to do is go into every toy shop, every party shop, every novelty shop, every souvenir shop, and ask Do you have a puppet or toy which makes a noise. Then you have to spend up to £20 on each one. Then you have to store them in bags labelled Ad- e-k, l-r-s-z in your spare room. I have twenty years of collected talking toys, about 20 years of collecting talking toys and puppets. Anybody can do it. Funnily enough, I'm the only one who does.

I once asked my son if he was afraid what other people thought of him, if he was afraid his friends might think was odd. 

He replied, "After my friends have met my mother who greets them with a talking toy and waved goodbye with hand puppet - my friends, they think I'm remarkably normal."  

Let's go back to the subject of the talk.

What is the relevance to the horse and fear? The first time I got on a horse I was afraid, it was so far from the ground. I got over that. I went on holiday and rode on a camel. That's even higher than a horse. After that a horse was a doodle. I wanted to bring a camel as a prop. My husband said, pretend this is a camel. Most of them won't ono the difference. I said what is the difference. He said, a camel is just a horse designed by a committee. 

I said, "I know what you mean, I'm on a Toastmasters committee, and we always try to design a horse and end up with a camel."

After I conquered my fear of heights, I thought I would try conquering my fear of flying. One component of fear of flying is fear of dying.

When I packed my trousseau to fly with my husband on our honeymoon, I confessed I was afraid of flying. My husband is a statistician and he reassured me, "You are more likely to die in the taxi on the way to the airport than in the air." I felt much better. I now had two things to worry about.

I had other things to worry about fear of heights, and fear of forgetting things. Like giving fear of giving a speech, fear of flying includes fear of forgetting the paperwork, the passport.

I got all the way to America safely. 

But - coming back to board the plane from the USA to the UK, at first all went well, I had my prop, my passport, around my neck. Unfortunately I had to take it off at security. I counted all my props, coat, brolly camera phone, got on the plane. Recounted. Phone, passport - I told my husband. "I've lost my passport!' 

"Get it back!' he said.

 I raced to the door of the plane. 

The air hostess said, "You can't get off the plane."

 I gasped, "My passport's at Security - if I don't get it, I won't get off the plane at Heathrow."

I ran back to security. They'd shut. I grabbed the nearest person in uniform. He said go upstairs to Lost property. I couldn't wait for the lift. I galloped up the stairs. (Gasping.)

I burst through the door. A lady behind the desk was dealing with somebody else.

She glared, "Would you mind waiting!"

I shouted, "The whole plane's waiting - you've got my passport."

She picked it up and demanded, "Have you got any identity."

"No - you've got my identity I said. That's my passport. Look at my picture."

"How long agao was this taken/" she said.

"It's me, blue eyes, blonde hair, short."

"Sign here, she said, and her, and here, and here Have a nice day.."

I ran down the stairs, align the corridor, tripped over the step onto the plane, raced back to my seat and flopped down. I thought my husband would say, "You poor thing. Don't worry, you've got it back. at least it'll make a funny speech. 

He said, "I'm always afraid something will go wrong when we take a flight. Don't ever do that to me again. I'm not fling with you again."

I said, "Feel the fear but do it anyway.'

The International Speech and Evaluation Contest for Area 61 was hosted by HOD Speakers Club at Glebe Hall in Stanmore. 

Each club in the area has held a competition and two winners, placed first and second by the judges, have now met the contestants from other clubs in the area. The clubs represented are HOD, whose premises are used for the contest, Harrovians, Watford and another club. 

The Chief Judge Coralie briefed the judges, timers and counters. 

The Contest Chair Alan Gillman, of HOD, oversees the speakers drawing numbers to decide the order. Some prefer to speak first and get it over with, others to be last and remembered. Others don't care. All the speakers will hear the others, since every speech is prepared in advance, is original and different.  

The first speaker was Kabita Dulai of Watford Speakers.

After the speeches, while waiting for the judges to do their tally, Alan interviews the contestants and asks them about their speeches, their roles in Toastmasters and their hobbies.

The fourth speaker was Gill Ornstein, President of HOD Speakers. She is wearing a wonderful co-ordinated costume of black, cream and white with matching designer shoes.

The sixth speaker was Alan McMahon of Watford Speakers, a former member of Harrovian Speakers.

Alan Gillman presents a certificate of participation to his good friend and previous President of HOD, David Phelops.

Alderman Keith Toms presents a certificate to Gosbert Chagula.

Alderman Keith Toms gave a speech explaining how he represents the Worshipful the Mayor of Harrow at events, sometimes fearing he has been sent to an event which will make him lose the will to live. He was gracious enough to say that he had thoroughly enjoyed the entertaining and informative speeches at this contest, and the earlier club contests.  He also explained how an alderman was originally an elder man who advised. He was a councillor for many years. 

Contest Chair Alan Gillman is relieved he can at last sit down. 

Angela Lansbury, representing Harrovians Club (also a member of HOD Speakers) came second place in the Evaluation Contest. Receiving a certificate from Hon Alderman Keith Toms.

Next on the agenda:

1 Voting for Area Governor. 

Coralie Frances could stand again but she invited proposals from the floor to give somebody else a chance and Alan McMahon offered to be the next Area Governor. This will later be put to the vote by post (actually email nowadays).

2 Next event is the next level of contest on Friday April 4th in London.

3 HOD is holding a meeting at Harrow Civic Centre attended by the mayor and many VIPs.

Photo of Angela Lansbury and Alderman Keith Toms by Trevor Sharot.

All other photos by Angela Lansbury.

Copyright photos. For permission to copy or for other photos of this event please contact the photographers. 

Laughing snowball (from Tesco at Christmas)

Sheep

Dog

Bear

Whale or shark?

Monkey

Hand puppet, policeman

Hand puppet

Hand puppet

Owl from Harry Potter Studio Tour shop.

I can put my hand inside him and turn his head.

When I press the top of the wing, he squeaks.