You are in: Timeline -> 2000 -> Wedding -> The Speeches -> Tony's Speech
When I first set out to start writing this speech I was slightly worried that it would be a difficult task, as any man present will testify who has stood in this position. I sat down and started to scribble notes, and thoughts spanning the 14 or so years I have had the fortune to know Dave for, and rapidly came to the conclusion that writing this monologue wasn’t in itself going to be the problem, keeping it to under 3 hours was! For, I quickly realised, there was definitely no lack of material with which to work.
As any of those who knew myself and Dave during our undergraduate years we shared a love of many things, and I’ll now share a few of these with you if I may :-
Pubs and whiskey. How well I remember the valiant attempt Dave and I made to drink our way alphabetically through the entire whiskey collection of the Wagon and Horses – I think we survived a fortnight before my poor wallet could stand it no more!
And the fateful afternoon in that same pub when, after several weeks of noticing two particularly attractive bar maids working there, we mustered up our courage to ask the barman when they would next be in as we’d like to take them out to a concert in Preston. Knowing wink to jovial landlord. Oh replies Simon, you’ll be meaning Eveva the student and Sally, MY DAUGHTER. As you can image we didn’t end up going to the show!
Curries – those most traditional of English dishes! The hours we spend eating in what was “The Trades Hall” , now the Shabab near the castle. The restaurant which has quite likely been where I have consumed my most expensive curry ever. Since it was in the Shabab, whilst drunk and incapable, courtesy of an evening with Dave and Bill, our resident pianist, that I broke a tooth – an event which ultimately cost me £400.
Motor bikes – egged on by our friend Nige, who sadly can’t be with us since he has also jumped ship and set up home in California(!), first Dave, then I trained for and took our motor cycle licenses – sharing the same trusty little 100cc Honda motorbike. At least in this case, ladies and gentlemen, it was only Dave who crashed it, whilst attempting to perform a remarkable impressive attempt to knock down a wall with his head! I had the decency to wait until getting a bigger bike before hospitalising myself!
And Girls – ah girls. Well, where do I start on this subject??? Probably no-where since I have no intention of raising the wrath of Ann, or quite possibly, any member of the audience who may very well be related to one of the many females we have spent happy hours pursuing!
But that does of course lead me most usefully to Ann.
Ann. A woman he met, funnily enough, in a restaurant / bar. I met up with Dave the day after the night he’d gone to that bar, for our usual Saturday lunchtime snack in The Assembly Rooms. And despite the fact that he was still very hung over, he was disgustingly happy because he, told me, he’d met a wonderful woman – and funnily enough had managed to get very friendly with her! Well one thing led to another, and before the poor girl has chance to stop him he’s moved in (on a temporary basis of course).
But to love Dave is to love his gadgets. Up until that moment Ann had had the luxury of living in a large house with plenty of space and a garage! All to change with Dave of course – stereos / motorbikes / musical instruments (including a saxophone and a full sized keyboard) as well as a variety of computers. And to boot, she doesn’t just get Dave, she gets a whole new raft of disreputable friends as well! What more could a girl ask for?
One of Ann’s first losses was of course her poor Persian cat who soon realised it couldn’t cope with the competition, since Dave was capable of shedding even more hair that it was.
Ann always been incredibly kind to me – offering food / beer , somewhere to lay my poor tired (and usually drunk head). Always the offer of a bed, possibly a fact Dave didn’t know about. Her world has been turned upside down, but Dave has of course allowed Ann to show what she is best at, organising and entertaining. Hence we move in to the era of the black tie and ball gown parties, Christmas parties, New Years parties, funny hat parties, in fact almost any excuse for a party parties! Ann’s poor unsuspecting neighbors had to become accustomed to entire gangs of Ann’s new found friends descending on them with alcohol and strange outfits!
To end ladies and gentlemen though I’d like to finish on a slightly more serious note, in case you’ve developed the idea that David is just a walking alcohol and curry consuming chaos machine. One story that maybe puts him in a slightly better light. 1992, myself getting highly hacked off with my Ph.D., Dave equally unhappy at his work. One evening walking along the quay front at Lancaster towards the Wagon and Horses past, funnily enough, we passed the LanTrain HGV Training Centre. Dave turned to me and suggested we throw in the towel, pay for our own HGV licenses and offer ourselves to the UN for humanitarian aid work in Kosova. How differently might things have turned out if they hadn’t turned us down because of our lack of off road driving experience…
Therefore Ladies and Gentlemen may I ask you to join me in a second toast to the Bride and Groom.