Monday, August 07, 2017

Harrovians Meeting Learning about Workers' Welfare, Writing Your Family History and Improving Meetings

Speech by Indra

Speech by Angela Lansbury On Writing Your Family History
I spoke about being a writer of several books including one on Weddings and Toasts which was why when I met Indra at a Harrow Writers Circle meeting, Indra invited me to join Toastmasters.and recommended writing your family history. I said that I was previously a travel writer and had to check all phone numbers before going to press because one reader because of a typo had her number given out as for a restaurant, part of a hotel, and had dozens of photos from people wanting to book meals.

I thought that writing about the past would be easier. I wrote about my late father's grandfather who came from Ukraine to London, starting with 1880 and I soon became an expert on the period 1880-1890.

I had him working in the post office. I finished my first chapter all about him working in the post office. Then I discovered that hew as the wrong nationality and religion and would not have been allowed to work in the post office. I had to rewrite the chapter, making others suspect him, and him being chased.

Next I had my hero getting on an old-fashioned train, a steam train. Then I looked for a picture of a train in Ukraine and discovered they had horse drawn trains on rails.

Following that, I had my book's hero landing in New York and seeing the Statue of Liberty. I thought, let's check how long after it was built he arrived. I found it had not yet been built, although he was would have known the poem written as a fund-raiser.

Writers' Holiday
Researching a novel does wonders for your history and is a constant entertainment. I am going on a writing holiday shortly, there's another in February. I suggest you come with me, and learn to write novels, poetry or your family history.

You would think that moving my novel's hero back to London, would make life easy for an English writer. My mother told me her grandfather was the first person in the street to have electric lights. That sounded like an idle boast. Until I realised that he had a store selling building supplies and fittings. So he sold electric lights. Also having electric lights would advertise his shop. What about electric lights in streets? The internet was no use. All the searches told me about the first electric lights in Chicago or New York. Most English speaking readers and writers on the internet are in America. My source would be the library of London's East End.

Best evaluator ribbon won by Grammarian by Steve Ferguson, a visitor. He had been a member of a Toastmasters group a long time ago when he did a best man's speech for a wedding in Wales.

Table Topics and Christmas In Communist Countries
His friend, Denise, revealed in table topics that she is from Albania and that in a Communist country they did not celebrate Christmas but New Year.

Table topics ribbon was won by Lorna.

Indra won best speaker, telling us he worked for the home office and when the system was that people were risking their jobs at the annual review, they worked less well than later. The system changed to one of rewards instead of punishments. Nowadays they also tried to make positive moves to keep workers happy and have team spirit. He was part of a committee finding new ideas and had suggested a monthly lunch together, and a breakfast together.

Jayanthini conducted a very useful workshop brain storming on how we could improve club meetings. (We were down to about nine members but that is usual in August when many members are on holiday.)

I gave a talk on why you should write your life story and go to a writing course.

Author
Angela Lansbury, author of Quick Quotation for Writers and Speakers. You can buy it through Lulu.com and Amazon.com

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