Soapbox speakers

(Published in June 2002. I haven't been to London since the late Sixties. Hyde Park Speakers' Corner was then an exclusive British institution devoted to freedom of expression, of cranks, windbags and other unemployables. I read that some years back, they tried it out in Singapore. Wonder what its current status is; if the Singapore's soapbox orators still have their corner. Would any of our Singapore familiar folks - Capt. Anup Murthy, Mrs. Vidya Nagaraj - know ?)

My friend and Zine5 writer Padmini Natarajan says that her Wednesday feature 'This and That' is her 'soap-box in the corner of Hyde Park'. By making such declaration she has licensed herself 'to wax and wane, grumble and groan, cheer and cry', blah blah blah. This, despite some 'skillful arm-twisting' by her editor. At the real place they are known to have done much else, unedited at that.

At the Marble Arch end of London's Hyde Park there is a corner meant for soap-box orators. I was a regular there, initially as a passive listener , and eventually, a back-row heckler, on Saturday afternoons in the Swinging Sixties. The Speakers' Corner attracted all sorts, from the world over - petty politicians on dole, dissidents in exile, extremists, evangelists in search of a congregation, cranks and other windbags. The thing about the speakers' corner was that it gave commoners (in terms of freedom of speech) the type of immunity MPs enjoy in the House of Commons. What made the place a prime source of Saturday afternoon entertainment for Londoners and visitors alike was that the speakers represented all creeds, colours of skin, shades of opinion and degrees of madness.

Michael Foot in his book Debts of Honour - a collection of essays on the personalities to whom the author felt indebted - refers to Bonar Thompson, a Hyde Park orator who valued his freedom so much that he refused to earn a living and lived on what others gave him in the name of freedom. N'Khrumah, several other leaders of newly independent African countries and our own Krishna Menon had graduated from the Hyde Park Speakers' Corner.

It took lung-power, wit and guts and a fairly thick skin to survive as a soap-box speaker. Those with king-size egos were cut to size by the sharp and highly interactive audience. Your voice should be loud enough to drown the noise coming from hecklers at the back row; and it helped if you had something sensible to say.

Some senior soap-boxers, however, were exempt from this criteria. There was this pathetic, but delightful, basket case who had collected, over the years, a band of faithful listeners who were so accustomed to his senseless and repetitive speech that they would not accept anything fresh or sensible from him. This crowd knew his script by heart and checked the speaker if he departed from the text and prompted him if the speaker skipped a phrase or fumbled for a word.

Then there was Sam, who said he could have been Billy Graham, if only he had taken to golf. It was golf, said Sam, that had brought Billy Graham close to LBJ and Nixon. It was at a game of golf Cecil B Demille invited Billy Graham to go into the movies. He declined the offer because, as Sam put it, "Billy boy was already making a fortune as special envoy to the president of the universe." But then Sam didn't approve of those who became disgustingly rich - "I am proud to be on dole in Britain."

Sam then went on to caution the audience of the wrath to come, despite, nay, because of the likes of Billy boy. "I warn you," said Sam, "there will be much weeping and wailing, and gnashing of teeth." An old woman in the audience yelled, "But Sam, I have no teeth!" to which Sam responded, "Don't worry, madam. We will get you dentures under the National Health Service scheme."

At the adjacent soap-box George held forth on how his lousy set of teeth had kept him away from serving his queen and country. He claimed that he would have been in the royal navy during the War, had it not been for his rotten teeth. "In London those days bombs fell all over the place," said George, "and I had planned on getting away from it all by joining the navy."
But the doctor at the naval recruitment board held that George didn't have a chance.

"Why, doc?"

"Your teeth are bad, George, that is why."

George got furious. "What have my teeth got to do with this, doc? Can't you see, I am going to fight the enemy, not eat them."

An African soap-boxer who claimed to have been on dole ever since he came to England took delight in deriding the British - "Britain is a nation of inventive geniuses; they make 40 different types of electrical plugs, none of which work satisfactorily." Britain, he said, was a nation of chips-eaters - "They have fish with chips, beef curry with chips, baked beans and chips, pie, pudding... you name it, they have it with chips. Why, presumably, they even have sex with chips."

Heckler : "Tell me, do you still eat people who visit your country?"

Speaker: "Oh yes, we do. But don't worry, we no longer eat Englishmen. Because the last one we put in the pot ate all the potato.