Paddy Ashdown: personal & public reflections on a friend

1. PERSONAL
The death of a spouse, father, mother, close relation or close friend is always an awful experience for those who survive them. And, having lost every one in this list, I think I may be a bit more expert on experiencing grief than a lot of people. 

My first wife died from sudden heart attack after supper one night in April 1992 when we were both quite young (48). But I was lucky that someone who came to her funeral in Oxford was also one of her best friends, whom we'd known in Lancaster 20 years earlier - when we'd all had small children. She and my wife had stayed in close touch and I knew that she was about to be divorced.

By the end of 1993, we had started living together and were married four years later. Since then, the number of deaths among our relations and friends (young and old, sudden and expected) grew dramatically. Now in our seventies, we find ourselves going to more and more funerals of close friends and neighbours.

2. PERSONAL and PUBLIC
Among the many other friends who came to my first wife's funeral were Paddy and Jane Ashdown, who (typically) had a practical and generous plan to  help me and my younger son in the immediate aftermath of his mother's death. Thrusting keys into my hand they said "These are keys to our house in Burgundy. We're going there at Easter. But you know where it is so you and Joe can go there whenever you like and we'll join you later." So that's exactly what we did.

I had written and organised every last detail of Moira's farewell at the Oxford crematorium.  And, although I'd worked with Paddy on loads of speeches, I was very flattered when he said (at the wake in our local pub) "I want a funeral like that" to which I replied that it was the first one I'd ever written and I hoped I wouldn't have to write his.

But, as you'll see in the ITN report below, it turned out that he did plan every last detail of his own funeral, which concluded with the blessing, read by his younger brother - and with which he'd ended his last speech as leader of the Liberal Democrats at the party conference in 1999:


May the road rise with you. 
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face. 
And the rain fall soft upon your fields. 
And until we meet again, 
may God hold you in the hollow of his hand.

3. TOWARDS THE HOLLOW OF GOD'S HAND
We'd known that Paddy had bladder cancer since October last year and that he was being seen by specialists Southmead Hospital in Bristol. 

When he was eventually admitted there, he was his usual cheerful, bouncy, Tiggerish and optimistic self. A senior nurse who was going to be looking after him (and also happens to be the daughter of neighbours of ours) told us that, before actually meeting him, she was a bit nervous about meeting him - and what she should call such a famous peer of the realm. She needn't have worried. Before she'd time to tell him her name, he was on his feet holding out his hand to shake hers with the words: "I'm Paddy!" which immediately put her at her ease.

The operation was a success. But afterwards, he contracted 
pneumonia. He'd never looked like an elderly man, nor would he  have considered 77 to be on the outer fringes of fogeydom. 

But my medical relations (two GPs and two nurses) tell me that the older we get, the more vulnerable we become to illnesses from which younger people would recover more easily.



Saved from BeMcGrail ITV's post 

Using props as visual aids

Some of hose who attended the European Speechwriters and Business Communicators Conference in Helsinki last week had to put up with watching me giving a short presentation using my iPhone to show short DVD clips to illustrate the main points I was making on a screen 

The reason for risking the use of technology in this way was that I had left the original DVD in a restaurant at Heathrow airport en route to Helsinki - or so I thought last week.

But today, I found the said DVD, neatly deposited in its container on my desk! I hadn't taken it with me at all, so it was just as well that I had a copy on my phone.

The following has a few more examples of speakers using props as visual aids than the DVD used at the conference where time was very limited.

Below the picture, I've attached a copy of the handout used with my talk.



Autumn conference, House of the Estates, Helsinki,
11 & 12 October 2018 #esnfinland18
Max Atkinson’s talk: ‘USING PROPS AS VISUAL AIDS' (handout)

British political party conference
Ann Brennan: “Imagine knocking on people’s doors in King’s Cross (holds up papers) and preaching the word with this.”

Audience: laughter and applause.

Apple product launch

Steve Jobs (walking slowly on stage): “And so let me go ahead and show it to you now…” (holds up office envelope)
Audience: clapping and cheering
Jobs: “let me take it out and show it to you now” (unwraps envelope)
Audience: more clapping, cheering, whistling.
Jobs: “This is it (takes Macbook Air from envelope)
Audience: more clapping, cheering, whistling.
Jobs: “This is the new Macbook Air (holds it up in the air) and you can get a feel for how thin it is”
Audience: Even more clapping and cheering…
Jobs: Yeah there it is
Audience: continuous clapping…

Ted Talk on malaria

Bill Gates: “…course transmitted by mosquitoes and I’ve brought some here (unscrews jar on table in front of him – slight laughter from audience) so you could experience this and we’ll let them roam around the er (louder and more extended audience laughter) auditorium a little bit there – There’s no reason only poor people should have the experience (laughter).

BBC TV Andrew Marr interview with the Archbishop of York

John Sentamu (having removed his clerical collar): “As an Anglican, this is what I wear to identify myself – that I’m a clergyman (holds collar in front of him)
“Do you know what Mugabe has done? He’s taken people’s identity (produces scissors) And literally, if you don’t mind, (starts cutting collar to pieces) cut it to pieces.
This is what he’s actually done so that it the end there’s nothing. so as far as I’m concerned I’m not going to wear a dog collar until Mugabe’s gone” (puts down scissors and remaining pieces of collar).

BBC TV Robin Day with retiring defence minister John Nott

Day: “But why should the public on this issue with regards the future of the Royal Navy believe you a transient here today and if I may say so gone tomorrow politician rather than a senior officer of many years experience?”
Nott: “I’m sorry, I’m fed up with this interview (stands up, unclips microphone and throws it down on table between them) ridiculous (inaudible)”
Day: “Thank you Mr Nott.”

Royal Society: Christmas lectures for children

Professor of Physics (holding red ball: “I have here a solid steel ball – it weighs fourteen kilograms – it’s incredibly heavy – and it’s suspended from the roof of the Faraday lecture theatre by this steel cable.
“Now what I’m going to do is to take this steel ball over here and I’m going to stand with my back against this head-rest and in a moment, I’m going to place it against my face and then I’m going to let go (exhales audibly – audience laughs – professor laughs).
“It’s going to swing out across the lecture theatre and then it’s going to swing back towards my face. Now, according to the laws of physics, it should stop just before it touches me. OK, that’s the theory, now see what happens. I think this is probably worth a countdown – are you ready? Three (audience joins in with him) two, one, go.
(Prof lets ball go)
Audience: “Oooooh” louder and upwards as the ball swings towards this face. Loud applause as it just misses him.

Did Tories pay royalties for playing ABBA's 'Dancing Queen'?

Media image for still pictures of theresa may 2018 conference speech from Mirror.co.uk
Video and text courtesy of the Guardian

CLICK ON PICTURE TO WATCH
Theresa May took the opportunity at the start of her keynote Tory conference speech to make light of some of her previous gaffes. She walked on stage to Dancing Queen by Abba, a self-deprecating reference to her dancing antics during her Africa visit in August. 

She then made jokes about her speech from last year's Tory conference, when she was plagued by a cough and the backdrop behind her fell apart.....























Chuck Chequers and hog the headlines with alliteration

Readers of my books will know that the sound of words, like simple alliteration, can often play an important part in the the effectiveness of rhetoric - as when the then new prime minister Tony Blair spoke of "the people's princess" a few hours after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Compared with Blair and David Cameron, Mr Johnson is far from being the great speaker he is thought to be by his brexit fans, who seem to have conveniently forgotten what a late convert he was to that particular cause.

But expect to see "chuck Chequers" quoted on all tonights new programmes and tomorrow's newspapers and/or see what the Belfast Telegraph an ITN have already made of it.

Image result for still picture boris johnson speech 20018 tory conference

CLICK THIS LINK TO WATCH EXTRACT:


ITV Report 2 October 2018 at 1:01pm:

Boris Johnson calls for Government to 'chuck Chequers' in speech to Conservative Party Conference

Leaving the EU on the terms of the Chequers plan would be a "mistake" and would be the "perfect" way for the UK to return to the EU, Boris Johnson has said in an eagerly-anticipated speech at the Tory conference in which he told the audience to "chuck Chequers".......