Caroline Asplin & James Deayton - reading

And so we look to the poets. We look to the poets as we always have. On days such as these. We look to them - to guide us with their verse – and their grace - and their gift. In these – the true matters. The matters of the heart.

For the poets can translate. Our yearning, our ache, our love. Give words to our wonder.

Say what can’t be said, speak what can’t be spoken. They can lead us - by their quills and frills - through the mysterious gardens of the heart and put a name to every tree that blossoms there.

Yes. We look to the poets but - they are gone. Their dusty pages have crumbled, their inkwells long since dried. In a Reebok and ring-tone world, poetry is now just rhyme. A radio jingle. A slogan. Our Byrons now drive Beemers and composes sonnets to sell us shampoo.

And so we look - to the lyrics. The songs. Those words that move our feet and the words that move our hearts. Songwriters have been passed that heavy baton. To answer our questions. To tell us the truth about love.

Those on the shelves of Caroline and James’s home do just that. From (insert touching James lyric here)

To the less ambiguous – Girls, yeah all I really want is girls.

But in truth – today - we’d need not look to the poets, nor to the songwriters.

We need long only to our own hearts.

And to the eyes of Caroline – and the eyes of James. On this day.

For within is all the poetry one will ever need.

Best man speech – PAUL SUBBIAH

INTRO

Thank you.

On behalf of the bridesmaids - I thank Paul for his kind words. And I’d like to take this opportunity myself to say that Sarah and Maria have helped marvellously today, and done so while looking pretty darned fabulous to boot.

I know I speak for them both when I say that for all of us, it has been not only a pleasure - but a privilege to have been a very small part of your very big day.

(beat)

As best man, it falls upon me now to talk a little about our groom.

There are a just a few thoughts I would like to share. For those of us here who know Paul, they will give us - a reminder of why we love him the way we do. And for those who don’t know Paul so well it will give you - ammunition, I hope, which you can tease Paul mercilessly with - for the rest of his life.

(beat)

As it turns out, all my fondest stories about Paul are connected in some way to the summer-time. The first summer being back in 1984.

FIRST MEET

Picture if you will, the stuffy platform at Bond Street station. With his mother, stands an eleven year old boy - all fidgety in a new school uniform – tight white collar, shiny blazer, unusual hair, smelling of ironing and shoe-polish.

He is on his way home from his first nervous day at big school.

Onto the platform comes another mum. She too followed by a sheepish son. Same white shirt, same shiny blazer, also smelling of ironing and shoe-polish. Same unusual hair.

The mums – using their Mum Radar - immediately hone in on each other. This is my son Richard – this is my son Paul.

The shy little boys meanwhile, hot-cheeked with embarrassment, are standing apart, eyes down, examining their Clarks shoes, hands in pockets, trying to look grown-up, both thinking the same thing – please mum don’t say anything embarrassing. Don’t call me your little poppet. Don’t get a tissue from your sleeve and spit on it and wipe around my mouth. Don’t make me say anything in case my voice goes a bit LOIKE THAIT. And above all, whatever you do, WHATEVER YOU DO – DON’T do anything that means I’m going to be stuck with this skinny, speccy geek for the next five years.

However the mums, oblivious to their sons’ silent protests, decide it would an excellent idea if their sons became best friends. They’re bound to have lots in common and should they finally pluck up the courage to speak to each other, they’ll no doubt find out what that is.

But as we soon came to discover, our fears were unfounded. Neither of us were stuck with a skinny, speccy geek for five years. It turned out to be 21 years.

(beat)

Now every one of those 21 years has had a memorable summer and I don’t know if Sheila is aware, but every one of those summers has seen her husband Paul make the same momentous, life-changing decision.

He has stood in front of his bathroom mirror, hands on hips and pledged This summer - I’m going to get fit.

And so every August sees a new pair of gleaming Adidas trainers. Sees Paul’s mother Marjorie sent into town to buy a pack of white sports socks. Perhaps a new, questionably patterned t-shirt.

And then, stopwatch in hand, on your marks, set, go – he’s OFF! Legs pumping, sweat running down his glasses, pounding the streets of Wembley like a young Paula Radcliffe.  

And then, much like Paula Radcliffe, the novelty abruptly wears off and he comes to a grinding halt. The socks go in the laundry, the trainers back under the bed and out comes the chocolate biscuits for another year.

Although – Sheila assures me that Paul’s brief, short-lived bursts of exercise have in fact, over the years, paid off. I have it on good authority that during any sport – football, tennis, badminton – Paul can summon his energy at the opportune moment and like that – CLICK – change channels and watch something else. Doesn’t even break a sweat.

Every fourth summer of course, Paul leaves the fitness to the experts and becomes utterly devoted to the Olympic Games.

I recall many happy August afternoons as a boy, in Paul’s sitting room, him glued to a particularly nail-biting gymnastics quarter-final or a dramatic canoeing play-off.

So I take this opportunity to warn Sheila that come the 2012 Games, when the events are taking place just a few yards from here, Paul’s excitement may reach dangerous levels. Perhaps it would be a good idea to have the cardiac equipment on stand-by in case of a shock judging decision in the synchronised swimming.

But I mention this because the secret that I know, and that now, regretfully for Paul, you’re all about to know as well, is that Paul’s interest in the Olympics goes further than that of mere spectator.

It was in the hot summers of the late 1970s you see, that Paul – along with his sister Anita and their cousins – staged an annual athletics tournament in their garden - THE SNOOPY OLYMPICS.

One has no difficulty picturing young Paul as an eager contestant in a variety of games:  the Snoopy Javelin – sellotaping a lot of felt-tip-pens together and chucking them across the lawn. The Snoopy High Jump – which I understand meant balancing the Javelin between two chairs and leaping over it. And finally, in a break from tradition and using no felt-tip pens at all, the Snoopy Marathon – Or ‘running round and round the garden until one collapsed from heat exhaustion or until it you got bored and went indoors for Scooby Doo.’

Paul is too old for this sort of thing now of course, although I do understand Sebastian Coe has spoken to Paul about a coaching role – he’ll be off to Beijing in 2008 to really show our British boys the way an experienced athlete jumps of a swing and lands in a hedge.

Summer with Paul wasn’t always such energetic outdoor pursuits.

Just as much time was spent every summer, sat around his dining table. I have fond memories of glorious sunny hours with nothing to do, listening to Steve Wright in the Afternoon.

Ahh, Paul has always enjoyed his Radio One.

But then of course there is enjoyment – and there is just being weird.

Enjoyment is p’raps smiling when a familiar jingle is heard.

Being weird, as Paul might admit, is spending an entire summer, hunched over your Dixons own-brand cassette player, little fingers over the pause button, obsessively recording every Radio One Jingle in broadcasting history and then playing it, in full, to everyone who came round to your house.

Now whether or not Paul still has this lovingly prepared cassette or not, we don’t know. There is a danger it lurks among Paul’s other two cassettes – Best of Abba and – More Best of Abba.

I can only offer a warning to Sheila that, one romantic evening, candles alight, wine poured, should Paul offer to put on some music, she should perhaps brace herself for a sudden WOO GARY DAVIS!

As we grew up, the summers never seemed so long of course. Through A Levels and University, they became a time to sit in pub gardens, listening to the buzz of wasps, sip our first alcoholic lemonades and think about the future.

A small group of us would while away the hours deciding how each other’s lives would turn out. One question always arose – that of which of us would marry first. And while we squabbled and bickered about second and third place, the first place was never questioned. It would be Paul. Always Paul.

And every summer, when we reconvened in the pub all a year older, the ages would be pushed up a bit, but first place never changed. Always Paul.

And this was because we knew that the first girl to meet Paul - to see in Paul what WE all saw in Paul – would never let him go.

Which brings us the summer of 2003 – when Paul met Sheila and fell in love -

And to the summer of 2004 – when in New York Sheila accepted Paul’s proposal –

And to today. And the start of a new story.

Paul - once again in a tight white collar, a shiny black jacket, still smelling of shoe polish.

And the wonderful Sheila – with a smile like sunshine who has captured his heart.

A love story – surely the best summer story of all.

So I ask you all to charge your glasses.

To stand.

And to join me in toasting – Paul and Sheila.