Wedding speech

Several nice things have been said to me in response to this speech – given at daughter Becca’s wedding on 17th Sept 2021 – so I thought I’d post it here.

“I’ve never given a daughter away before – Becca’s big sister managed to escape unaided. Apparently you have to make a speech; just handing her over and saying “best of luck mate” doesn’t cut it. And this is it (holds up speech), the product of much delving into memory and assembled following extensive research.  So if it’s rubbish blame ‘tying-the-knot.com/nuptials for beginners’.

Bringing up Becca wasn’t difficult.  We did have a naughty step but only used it two or three times. Even so I was glad when we got rid of it – it was doing my back in.  We never needed it for Rebecca.  Not that she was perfect.  She wasn’t a paragon of tidiness in her teenage years, for example.  It was only after she’d left to go to university that we rediscovered the colour of her bedroom carpet.  After we’d sorted out the mayhem and clutter I counted 50 single, unaccompanied socks.  Where the partners ended up is one of the great mysteries of our age, like the identity of Jack the Ripper and how we ended up with Liz Truss as prime minister.

But with Becca the positives outweighed the negatives many times over.

She played Mary in the Nativities at both nursery and primary school.  Of course, she couldn’t keep grabbing the star roles and a couple of years later found herself playing a singing donkey.  I didn’t think donkeys could sing, and nor, judging by her performance, did Becca.

Outside the festive season the certificates came thick and fast; her first being awarded for sitting up straight in assembly.  Jude and I were so proud that day.  The many that followed were for more substantial achievements, so when it came to the prize giving at the end of year six we were quite hopeful.

But prize after prize came and went and and no cigar for the Mason girl.  And then came the Curtesy* Shield.  This curiously named award was a kind of educational best in show and was voted for by the kids in year 6.  Becca won it, gaining votes from across the year and not just her own class.

It was only when we got it home that we noticed that the accompanying certificate contained a spelling mistake.  There was an R missing so it actually said Cutesy Shield, which is how it’s been referred to in the Mason household ever since.  It’s nice to speculate that when her grandchildren are rooting through what’s survived of the old lady’s schooldays they reach the conclusion that grandma had been a cute child whose main educational achievement was sitting up straight in assembly.

Of course there is much more to the girl than that.  There was, for example, the post university trip round South East Asia which we were led to believe, thanks to a FaceTime video, was largely in the company of loads of other back packing young westerners.  It was only after her return that we learned such details as the 36 hour journey from Vientiane in Laos to Hanoi in Vietnam along bumpy, fenceless mountain roads in a bus packed with locals and piloted by two drivers sharing an opium pipe.  

Either side of this adventure was work.  First, thanks to cousin Harry, came catering, where an event of some significance took place which we may come back to.  After was retail where she hired, fired and spent twelve hour days concerning herself with the availability of everything from suntan lotion to sausages.  She now spends a much shortened working week in cyberspace.  She is, in fact, a computer nerd.

Needless to say, she’s no ordinary nerd.  Apart from having a personality, one good enough to win Cutesy Shields, she also plays sport: these days and since Primary school, it’s been netball.  As her No 1 fan and driver from those early days I spent many a happy hour, and a fair few freezing cold ones, watching this fast paced, end to end extravaganza of a game.  I even managed to work out some of the rules.   Watching Becca play the game is certainly educational.  Something happens to this most gentle and understanding of individuals when she gets on a netball court.  Netball is a non contact sport but accidents do happen and they seem to happen to opponents who get between Becca and the scoring ring, or wherever else she decides she needs to be on the court.  

I enjoyed the netball, but one of my favourite sporting memories is of watching Becca, aged ten, playing mixed cricket. I had a wonderful day at Old Trafford watching her play this greatest of games but my abiding memory is of her first away match at Queens Drive in Fulwood.  As Becca was coming into bat, I heard the opposition bowler say, dismissively, to his mate: “It’s a girl!” I don’t know if Becca heard him but she knocked his first delivery for six and then quartered the field with the rest of his over.

I’ve got to admit, that when you’re putting something like this together, all the best stuff does come from Primary school.  Like this gem that Judith found in her diary recently.  Becca, aged 8 told Jude she had a secret.  “I’ve got a boyfriend,” she announced proudly.   ‘He even knows it because Eleanor’s told him.”

So the question is Ryan – who told you?

You know, I always worried that Becca, being a people person, always happy to lend an ear, a shoulder to cry on or a thoughtful helping hand, would end up with some useless bloke whom she could rescue and look after.  What she’s ended up with is one of the most resourceful people I’ve ever met.  I contemplated starting this speech with the line: “I don’t look upon this as losing a daughter, more as gaining a builder.”  But that wouldn’t have done the man justice. He’s much more capable than that.

Basically, if there isn’t one Ryan will build one, if there is one he’ll improve it, if it’s broken he’ll fix it and if you’re not sure what you want he’ll design you one and create a 3D version on his laptop.  And the ‘one’ in that sentence can be anything from a restaurant to a website.  What’s more he can’t help himself.  Leave him alone for five minutes and he’ll be fixing something or other.  I’m convinced that if Ryan were invited to Buckingham Palace to receive an MBE you’d find him mending a dodgy hinge on the throne room door whilst he was waiting to be let in. 

So what we have here is a couple of incredibly able people.  They’re also extremely competitive.  Try going to an escape room with them, for example – you end up just watching.

I’ve got to admit, you get a good deal when you give your daughter away, at least Jude and I do. We get a welcome addition to the family, in the form of Claire and Martin, not to mention another Rebecca and her partner Nick.  You also, in my case, get a new suit.  Now I’ve almost finished but, according to tying the knot.com , I’m supposed  to offer some advice about marriage.  Luckily I do feel fairly well qualified to do this having been married, myself, for over half a century – not all of it to same woman admittedly but nevertheless I have learned a thing or two.

Of course Ryan and Becca have, like most couples these days, been practicing for a  few years and it seems to be going well enough. “So far so good,” as the man falling off the twenty story building is reported to have said as he passed the 18th floor. So the advice needs to be for the long term.  And marriage, in the long term, is like painting the Forth Bridge – if you stop making the effort it goes rusty and falls into the river.   It helps if you’re mates as well as lovers.  To quote Friedrich Nietzsche, the man with the biggest moustache in philosophy: “It is not a lack of love that makes unhappy marriages but a lack of friendship.” Fortunately these two seem to me to tick both those boxes.  And they also seem  to be following the advice of  American Journalist Diane Sawyer: “A good marriage,’ said Diane, “is a contest of generosity.” We’ve already established that these two like a good contest.  So the omens are good.

This is undoubtedly a moment to celebrate.  These are two remarkable individuals.  Together, I reckon, they’re unstoppable.

So let’s drink a toast.  If you’d like to stand and raise your glass – to Ryan and Rebecca.”

 

* An error has been pointed out to me. The shield was ‘The Courtesy Shield’, courtesy spelt with an O. Curtesy, which is how I spelled it, is a husband’s right to the estate and property of his deceased wife. So what the certificate actually read was Coutesy Shield. This didn’t matter much in the speech verbally delivered (we have always referred to it, conversationally, as the Cutesy Shield). Written down, it provides an opportunity for the pendants to attack