Some Speeches «

Some Speeches

Saturday 24th November 2018

Poor Little Rich Gays are against speeches on principle. ‘I must thank the Committee…. generous support… without whom nothing would have been possible… indefatigable work… tireless efforts… ‘ Anyone eager to make a speech must be prevented. That’s the Poor Little Rich Gay point of view. But somehow Poors are forever on their feet, addressing a throng. Why is this?

The speeches of the Head of the Garden Museum will be studied for many years to come. ‘Be quiet!’ he goes. ‘Now look here, the Mellon Foundation.. the late Bunny, the late Gwatkin, my tutor in Cambridge days, thank you very much …. ‘ Lady Egremont, Lady Riblat, all the Foundation people, all the Christie’s people fall silent. Also the Head of Crocus who is just back from Umbria for the olive harvest. We’re at the opening of the Repton Exhib at the Garden Museum. ‘So…’ the Head of the Garden Museum continues…. ‘have you looked at the Red Books? You go through that little door over there. Now Gwatkin, he taught me how to look. And Repton, he looked and altered. You must look too. Repton was a genius…. ‘ Then follows a passage of scholarship and insight of great interest.When that comes at end a canon goes off: ‘NOW, these sites near here. I’ve got to have them. We must garden in Vauxhall. The canon is discharged. It’s back to the Mellon Foundation. ‘You wouldn’t believe the safeguarding involved. These Red Books, they’re so fragile. The insurance…So the Mellon Foundation… ‘And finally the Head of the Garden museum, holding the audience under thrilling rapid fire, conjures a miraculous web of patronage, expertise and institutions, a ferocious jewelled panoply of influence of which many present are a part.

The Head of the Garden Museum’s address to the Annual General Meeting of the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association took place earlier, in the presence of the Marchioness of Salisbury. At the end of it he was presented with a spade. ‘I’ve been swimming,’ he says, accompanied by slide of himself in a pool possibly at London Fields. This is exciting for he is a champion swimmer and raised money by swimming the length of the River Thames. Many would find pixs of him in swimmers very acceptable. He shows some other parks he frequents, one apparently in front of his present flatti in Hackney. These aren’t high-born parks which is the point, as far as I can remember. But there’s a sense of impending crisis. The Head of the Garden Museum grips the lecturn but it’s only a slide of some rose beds. Finally he bursts out: ‘Why couldn’t they get the roadsweepers to do more weeding?’ (or something like that). ‘Why did that initiative fail? Why can’t more be done?’ It’s not without bounds that he might fling himself, there and then, from the side of the Nomura Building directly into the Thames. But on he battles, for better gardens, not just middle-class pretty swarming with middle-class gardening and conserving and greening and loving it. But hard-line gritty youth too, real rough types, wielding rakes even in Elephant and Castle.

Then we had canapés.

Marmion Beaufleasance made a speech also at his party for his 70th birthday. The Queen was present in all but fact. Come back later for that. For Marmion is a Member of the Royal Household. On State Occasions he accompanies her in an ancient role. He is so close to the Throne he could reach out and touch it. Find out how he wove James Bond into the historic herald weave.

The View from the Nomura Building Where the Annual General Meeting of the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association was Addressed by the Head of the Garden Museum