Speaking of which…

CHRIS BENNETT reflects on an aspect of his career as a broadcaster; in a manner of speaking.

A MOVIE due to be released soon will be of interest to anyone with a liking for history; essentially British history, but so many other countries are intertwined with that history that the movie will have great relevance to most people.

It is called The King’s Speech. It tells of the battle of the shy and retiring Duke of York with his heavy stammer, a difficulty he overcame only with hard work and great perseverance; this enabled him to conduct with flair his role as king when his brother, Edward VIII (after whom Port Edward was named), abdicated in 1936. To me the movie is interesting because of the emphasis it puts on the importance of speech, whether in public or in private.

In this country we have a ruling elite that can scarcely express itself, something that is to the detriment of the running of the country and to its future.

“It is a contradiction of an age in which communication is more important than ever that exact, clear, crisp public speech is so rare.

“So many opportunities are missed. So many important things go unsaid, or badly said. Lionel Logue, who was an Australian, was part of a culture that saw good speech as a form of democratic emancipation. He helped a king, but he believed in good speech for all. Logue was part of an “elocution movement” that encouraged people to learn literature by heart and recite it clearly. He regarded speech defects as one of “the evils of civilisation” because they so compromised people’s capacity to play their full part in modern life.

“He was right, and he is still right.”

So wrote the English commentator Charles Moore in his recent Daily Telegraph review of the forthcoming movie The King’s Speech.

Mr Moore was writing about today; Mr Logue helped the then King George VI in the 1930s, hence the neatness of the last line of the quote.

The burden on our teaching profession, who themselves rarely are able to speak good English, the principle medium of communication in this country whether one likes it or not, is immense. It is not easy to explain to young people why speech is so important when the teachers themselves do not know.

Seldom do we hear the words lucidity, fluency and clarity used these days in connection with the way people speak; and it is hardly surprising.

In England today the standard of speech is recognised as having fallen to its lowest level; some blame education, others blame parents, and yet others blame the self-consciousness of English youngsters debilitated by that county’s weird class structure and its subsequent linguistic divisions. Remember My Fair Lady?

This sorry state was not so noticeable in the years that I attended school in England, although the looming Mr Walton and the rather ascetic Mr Kidger, our French and German masters, frequently pointed out that French boys and German boys took a pride in the proper use of their respective languages, and in many cases each other’s languages.

I have a good friend who visits me from time to time here in Palm Beach who speaks beautiful English, with scarcely a trace of accent, French par excellence and excellent German. She lives in The Hague and is a

Dutchwoman. I need hardly add that she lives a fulfilled and happy life.

We should be offering such to our coming generations.