Public Speaking

I’m naturally a very shy and introverted person, it has taken a lifetime of experiences and training to enable me to feel confident standing up in front of a group of people and talking. I now really enjoy it.

I wasn’t a fan of school, actually that’s not completely true, I wasn’t a fan of secondary school. Looking back now I think it was probably because you become one of a crowd, all creativity and imagination stripped from you. Daydreaming is something I still do and in primary school I did it a lot, this was drummed out of me to a large extent and I was taught that being quiet, creative, imaginative wasn’t ok; these things were deemed odd and different and didn’t fit into their convention.

Every year the school would hold a public speaking competition. Each student chose their own subject and the first round would be in front of the class and then you would have to talk in front of the school. One year I chose to talk about my favourite subject at the time - pigs. I went to the library (we didn’t quite have the internet yet when I was at school) and took out all the books I could about pigs and then found the interesting bits about the different breeds and put together a talk. I have a brief memory of standing in front of my class and reading out my writings, I even had pictures of each of the breeds to illustrate (no PowerPoint then either!!). Much to my surprise I got through to the final and had to talk in front of the entire school. Not something I wanted to do at the time but I did it with lots of encouragement from my mum and dad. I think I was about thirteen years old. Of course then came the teasing and because I was still growing into my features my nose didn’t have a full bridge and stuck up a little the unimaginative name calling was hollered down the bleak hallways for months to follow.

I kept my head down, tried not to be noticed and left school at 18.

When I was twenty years old I was at a bit of a loose end. I’d returned from the United States where I’d been a nanny / au-pair and I was trying to find my place in the world. The local amateur dramatics group were putting on a musical “Little Shop of Horrors” so for something to do I thought I’d audition. I loved singing and pretending, but in the space of my own bedroom most of the time but there was certainly a performer inside and when my audition went really well I was cast as one of the Ronettes and even secured a solo! Long story short one of the cast said I should try acting professionally so I looked though The Stage newspaper and found an advert for the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art summer school. I applied, was accepted, went to school for four weeks over the summer, had the most incredible eye opening experience and decided this was something I could do more of. I applied for their full time course which was starting the following April and after auditioning I was accepted into a class of just 12 of us.

I sadly only managed a year at the school. It was incredibly expensive, which my family all paid for, and I think the combination of lack of confidence and the guilt of the thousands of pounds that were being spent on me which wasn’t particularly freely available, culminated in the decision to stop. I don’t regret either decision. I learnt so much during that year and made some lovely friends, it’s still a little strange when one of them pops up on the television though! My experiences in learning to perform, and to support the performers around me, helped form my career.

Today I use the experiences, not only from my public speaking at school and my performing at drama school but also later my presenting marketing plans to big audiences and small, to influence the visits to groups around East Anglia, when I’m speaking to the employees of businesses that sponsor our hives and of course when I’m teaching beekeeping or running my experiences. I still like to find random facts about the bees that will have people ooo’ing and I can also be found dancing the waggle dance with school kids or when it’s just me, perhaps singing to the bees!

I get a real buzz (excuse the pun) when someone tells me that they enjoyed the talk or that they were inspired by something I’d said about the bees. I’m still learning to be comfortable in front of a camera so I can talk to more people about what we’re doing, but I’m sure I’ll get there!