A MOVING tale of his mother’s stoical endurance of a long and difficult life was voted Best Speech for club stalwart Roger Granville. Members were touched by his account of her two marriages, the first broken by divorce, the other by the death of her second husband after just six months. He told of a stillborn child, of her rearing three others as a single mum – and a fight against diabetes that took her by sheer willpower, without medication, from size 26 to size 10.

By far his best speech since joining the club earlier this year came from Byron Chan, who showed confidence, vocal variety, telling body language, and even some humour, in describing a “Journey of Trouble”. It had started with the cancellation of a train in Cambridge and ended in the depths of the night, after a ride first to Letchworth and finally to London in a taxi with a defective sat-nav! Angela Davison also told us of a journey of sorts. The complete refitting – mainly by d.i.y. - of her Malvern Wells kitchen had proved fuller of pitfalls than of potholes! Cooking in the garden in the rain, trying to find the spices and waiting two months for the new floor to dry were among the reasons she was glad to report that her summer-long journey was almost over!

The six participants in the unprepared table topics session were invited by Tom Elliston to talk about visits to various creatures at the zoo. Highlights were Karen Lowen’s meeting a large snake roaming free in the aquarium, and Jen Cashmore’s disgust at having to watch a giant turtle, when she would rather have been with the baby rhino! The winner – perhaps unfairly as she had worked at London Zoo - was Caroline Bellhouse, whose two-minute talk mentioned many species besides the flamingoes which were her official topic! Jim Ballard won best evaluator for his informative analysis of Roger Granville’s speech.

Next meeting will be at at 7.30pm on Tuesday October 25 at the Great Malvern Hotel. Other upcoming club events at the same venue include a debate evening on the fifth Tuesday in November and a Christmas dinner (with words!) on Tuesday December 13.

COLIN JACKSON