Most of us probably go through the experience at some time in our lives of being asked to stand up in front of a crowd of complete strangers and, without any preparation, make a speech. It happened to me for the first time when I was just nineteen years old, and fresh from school in my first job as a trainee hotel manager in a popular seaside resort. I had only been working at the hotel for three days. It was one of those hotels where people hold celebrations: wedding receptions, fiftieth birthday parties, retirement dos and so on, and that night there was a banquet to celebrate a local architect winning an award for his design of the new city hospital.
I was doing the sort of things trainee managers do: showing people where to sit, where the lavatories are and so on, when the head waiter rushed up to me and said, "The toastmaster's been taken ill. You have the right sort of voice. You'll have to do it and you're on in five minutes, or you're out of a job." I could have fainted. My knees turned to jelly as I was pushed to the front of the hall to speak. I had done a bit of play-acting at school, but that was the limit of my experience of public speaking.
"My lords, ladies and gentlemen," I said in a high nervous voice, looking quite a lot younger than my nineteen years, "unaccustomed as I am to public speaking..." and the audience laughed and began to applaud. That was my moment, the moment when I discovered one of the pleasures of my life: speaking in public, making people laugh, and receiving applause!
Of course, being a toastmaster is not a full-time job, and since that first experience I have been assistant manager and manager of various hotels, but when I have the chance, I start the speeches at functions from award ceremonies to banquets, not just at my hotel but at others round about. I was once even toastmaster at the inauguration of the new city swimming baths. During that time I've learnt a few of the tricks of the trade. One of the tricks is that although you are proposing a toast for someone, and there may be two or three hundred people raising their glasses, when you raise your glass, not a drop should pass your lips. The celebration is your responsibility, and for most people, these occasions are ones which they will remember for the rest of their lives and talk about for the rest of their lives, so everything has to go smoothly.
You must be alert, although you appear to be relaxed and not at all nervous. You have to be watching all the guests, to spot that individual who is beginning to get obstreperous, or that person who feels neglected, so that the party will go well for everyone. Not having fun at a party is infectious, and if one person is having a bad time, they will spoil it for others.
You have to do your homework, and know who the people who are attending are, and why they are celebrating. When you make the speech, a few jokes are fine, but you must be sure that they are jokes which no one will find offensive. At the same time, you should make pleasant or complimentary remarks about certain people at the celebration, but without overshadowing the main speakers, who it is your job to introduce.
A lot of the job is a question of having an air of affability, and being ready to play things by ear, so you get the right degree of formality or informality into each particular occasion. I remember clearly once making a speech at a fiftieth wedding anniversary, where I started by saying, "It is my great honour - " only to be interrupted by the husband calling out, "Come off it mate, you've never met me before!" And the fact of the matter was that I hadn't. I had been too busy organising the evening to speak to one of its protagonists.