APPROPRIATELY enough in Royal Ascot Week, it was Ladies’ Day at the Malvern Speakers last meeting, with the two main awards going to ladies. Voted the night’s Best Speaker was Jen Cashmore, for her thoughtful and well researched reflections on Top Five Reasons Marriages Survive. She captured her audience’s attention from the outset by quoting two striking statistics – that even today 75 per cent of the population get married at some point – and that sadly 41 per cent of those marriages will end in divorce. Celebrating her own successful union of 20 years (and counting!) she listed the five reasons most cited for marital longevity. Of these, most important were commitment and communication in particular listening to your partner and encouraging their self-esteem.

A long marriage was also key to the subject of Colin Jackson’s (also long!) speech, which described a much-loved library of cookery books built up over 50 years. Starting with his wife’s handwritten notes from domestic science college, it contained recipes handwritten by friends and family, newspaper cuttings and books collected from many countries, some valued as much for their cultural and historical anecdotes and illustrations as their culinary information. Geoff Richardson’s generous, but not uncritical, appraisal of this speech earned him the Best Evaluator prize.

The third main speech was Caroline Bellhouse’s ‘educational’ describing the twin tracks of communication and leadership which are the main focus of Toastmasters International of which Malvern Speakers is already rated a Distinguished club after just three years of existence.

Alan Roberts puzzled many of the volunteers for the short table topic speeches by asking them to find uses for various obscure and specialist items of hardware he pulled at random out of a bag. Several normally fluent speakers were even reduced almost to speechlessness, but not so first-time guest Bridget, whose charming musings on the possibilities of a humble hinge won her the evening’s prize.

The club’s next meeting will be held at 7.30pm at the Great Malvern Hotel on Tuesday June 28. As always, interested guests will be made welcome – and rewarded with the home-made cake.

COLIN JACKSON