From Enzo Ferrari to Greggs sausage rolls, the Spoken English Finalists 2024 share their reflections on life... 

At the start of term, Head of English Mr. Purkiss performed his own Spoken English. 3 minutes later, we all knew that Mr. Purkiss loves, but is not very good at, golf – that he has a long-suffering friend in Mr. Brown – and that he has incurably sweaty palms. Ask any of the children and they will be able to tell you something about that assembly, 6 long weeks ago.  

Years from now, we will remember the Spoken English Final that Mr. Purkiss and his team of teachers in the English department, and previous generations of finalists, have inspired. 22 competitors, 11 for each of the Junior and Senior sections, stepped onto the podium with confidence to declaim carefully crafted insights into their own characters.  

First up was Finlay T, telling us what it was like to be ‘a veteran’ of Form 5. We learned a lot about him – how he likes to help people and how he thinks that Mrs. Parks has settled in rather well, which is good – and also that it probably wasn’t a great idea to bring in crisps because Humphrey would definitely eat them. Even for a second time in Form 5, this was an enormously accomplished and impressive start that helped everyone to relax on behalf of all of the competitors. Noah then terrified us with a journey into the deep as he told us the tragic tale of the Dangler fish. I loved the historical reference to Henry VIII as he described the multiple (failed) attempts of the insignificant male, and this was beautifully performed – Noah has a phenomenal memory and he put it to great use to tell us his grisly tale.  

Hard on his heels came Oak, slowing to a jog to tell us how much he ‘HATED’ running. Just what, Oak queried, was the point? Where on earth was the fun? And just why – WHY? – does it have to be his dad that makes him do it? Whatever we feel about running, we were all starting to question its wisdom by the end – perhaps even the Birthday Boy and proud dad himself, Mr. Curry.

Cleo took to the stage to tell us all about life as a young girl in a boarding house full of boys. Giving up her kitchen to hordes of hungry teenagers, controlling their pizza money and checking whether they had made their beds and that they had got out of them in time for Period 1, it was clear that Cleo had formed some lasting memories of the routines of boarding school life, and she conveyed them to us with admirable clarity and confidence as this year’s youngest finalist.  

Next came someone else influenced by their family’s choices – Archie told us all about that tragic figure in Scottish history, his ancestor King John Balliol. He told us about his shame that King John had been the only person to achieve the unique feat of being hated by Scots and English alike, and we sympathised with Archie as we joined him in his journey from euphoria to dejection, and marvelled in the speaker’s obvious research skills, despite the disappointing end to the story.

Holly took us on a trip Down Under, to a world of terrifying reptiles and dangerous 2-year-olds, cute fluffy colonists and drum-bashing uncles. It was colourful and confident, detailed and delightful – a true reflection of life in Australia.  

Innes gave us all something to contemplate as he warned us of a peril yet to come. His absolute bemusement at the behaviour of young Erica, his beloved sister led him to question whether, as an institution, we were prepared to cope with this force of nature when she starts at Belhaven. Given that she had already told the Headmaster (quite rightly, by the way) to ‘Stop talking!’, Innes felt that we have a long way to go. He held us all captivated and, quite frankly, terrified.  

Continuing the theme of female role models was Delphine, who told us of ‘Girlbosses’. Her two heroines, Rosa Parks and Boudicca, were compared as women who refused to give way to invaders of their space – Rosa’s seat and Boudicca’s island were not for the taking and that, according to Delphine and her appreciative audience, made them ‘FabuLISHous!’

Equally fantabulous was Robin – the story of his meteoric musical theatre rise from Nativity pig to ‘Joseph, the greatest carpenter of them all’ had us all on the edge of our seats as the full range of his powerful vocal range resounded through the Sports Hall. As Miss Chakravarty concluded, this will not be the last we see of young Robin on the stage… 

Heidi charmed us all with her confident and heartfelt description of her ‘Best Friend’ – her dogs. Different but equally important, we were allowed a glimpse into Heidi’s world as she tapped into one of Belhaven’s favourite topics – a vote winning performance, full of confidence and fun. The junior competition concluded with Sienna’s fury at the fate of the youngest girl in the family. Not only her sisters, but also her cousins insisted on passing on their clothes to this immaculately-uniformed Form 3 performer… ‘Hand-me-downs’ was a powerful and impressive way to finish a wonderfully confident set of speeches from Forms 3, 4 and 5. At the end of the Senior Final, Miss Chakravarty highly commended Finlay and Innes and awarded the Junior Spoken English prize to Oak, praising his range and tone of voice as well as his fantastic use of humour. 

A man on a mission, Ollie TM started the final with a story to tell and a place to catch. His delivery of ‘The Tackle’ was captivating. For all of us who have, at one time or another, faced down an opponent of larger stature, this was a unifying moment: Ollie’s nemesis, ‘young Hercules’, with muscles in his palms, for goodness’ sake, became all of our worst nightmares as he took us through the agonising anticipation of making a match-saving tackle. Cleverly using Mr. Dryburgh’s tackle technique to structure his speech, Ollie showed us all that it is alright to fail, as long as we do it with a smile. Wilson came next, taking his time as appropriate: ‘Procrastination!’ was his theme and wow, did he make this seem like a good option. Not only does it enhance our creativity to delay the tasks that we have been set, it also reduces our stress and increases our productivity. This was a brilliantly structured speech – we knew what we were getting and this helped us to relax and enjoy the way in which this all-too-familiar topic was personalised and contemporised.   

Tristan found that he could no longer delay his ‘Trip to the Dentist’; it was, finally, his turn. Tristan’s style of delivery, use of pathos and ability to create familiar images made this a great performance. All of us will remember his evocation of entering the surgery to be welcomed by pictures of ‘smiling women’ and the bizarre anticipation of being surrounded by a whole organisation of people with ‘perfect teeth’ and ‘toothy grins’. As Tristan ran out of excuses to avoid his turn in the chair, and the 5 year sentence was passed, I think that we all subconsciously considered when it might be that our next visit to the dentist is scheduled… At full tilt behind him came Ottilie, a lifetime at Belhaven after watching three big brothers and now celebrating her own time giving her a unique perspective on a timeless Belhaven tradition – ‘The Race to the Red Stairs’. Every twist and turn, every obstacle in her path (including ‘slow teachers’ - ?) was meticulously observed and speedily bypassed as friends turn to opponents in the daily quest for that last space on the window seat.   

Clemmie addressed one of life’s most familiar conundrums. As she contemplated the tantalising prospect of roast chicken for supper and eggs for breakfast, she took us on a journey to her kitchen to debate the philosophical challenge of which came first – the chicken or the egg. We are becoming spoiled by the high quality and fierce humour of Clemmie’s writing – this was another tour de force, beautifully observed and delivered, with the closing terms and conditions delivered at such pace that I didn’t quite gather for what I was responsible…Rollo took us all on a car journey with him and, for us drivers, to that awful place of needing a service station rather sooner than it seems to appear. In Rollo’s part of the world, this is a more regular feature of life than for those of us in East Lothian, but it was for fuel of the edible variety that Rollo was searching as he wandered the shop fronts and counters of the overcrowded ‘Forest’ services clutching his crisp £20 note. The mecca of Greggs honed into view, the sausage roll, Grail-like, almost within touching distance – ‘Card payment only’ came the crushing, devastating reality of life in one of Britain’s more remote ‘Service Stations’. 

Next, we were taken to the skies by Lukas as we were sold the wonderful experience of gliding. Why, he wondered, had we not already done it? Not only were we reassured that gliding clubs are friendly places, but we were also given advice on costs and accessibility (gliding enthusiasts in Scotland need not apply…). Interestingly, it was also Lukas’ advice that it was a pretty useful thing to talk about in an interview. Eloise took us almost as high – the top of Ben Hope – to share with her the ironic disappointment of that cloudy summit. Through clever use of volume, she built and built to the peak of her speech and the family walk, only for the crescendo to deliver frustration as the curse of Scottish munro-climbing expeditions descended. Like Ollie and Rollo, Eloise tapped into the power of disappointment to engage audience sympathy, an effective tactic.  

Another adventurer came next – Geordie told us all about spending time in Norway and which parts of it were NOT named after his sister. This was a fascinating insight into a country that had not been visited by many of the audience, but which is clearly revered by those that have, and included history, botany, geology, zoology, all delivered with Geordie’s self-deprecating humour. Tommy was the penultimate performer and we were warned that there would be a lot of red to come. His beautifully-paced delivery allowed us to enter the world of Scuderia Ferrari, the world’s most successful Formula 1 enterprise thanks to its famous drivers, its brilliant engineers, its vociferous fans and, of course, its redness. Most importantly, we learnt of Enzo Ferrari, the visionary, born in 1898, who, according to Tommy, in inventing the Ferrari had in fact invented the car. We all revelled in Tommy’s obvious pride in his interest.  

Last up was Jack. ‘This is a fire alarm; this is a fire alarm!’ was the repeated structural device that allowed us into Jack’s world of alternating annoyance and delight at the timing of the interruptions of the institutional fire alarm. This was a fascinating insight into the way in which Jack can turn most situations to his advantage – whether it was getting out of writing out an essay or just hitching a lift on Mr. Brown by pretending to be asleep, Jack’s frustration with the fire alarm had receded by the end of the speech to such a degree that perhaps we were all beginning to look forward to its strident tones...  

To praise all of the efforts of the Finalists, and all of the children who have written their own speech, was a fairly straightforward task. What a wonderful Final they gave us and how much work they had all done. Far harder perhaps, with no set criteria or any prior knowledge of the quirky world of Belhaven, to select a winner from this wonderfully diverse array of speeches. Highly commended were Ollie (‘The Tackle’), Wilson (‘Procrastination!’ and Clemmie (‘The Chicken or the Egg?’) and the trophy went to Ottilie for her exhilarating account of ‘The Race to the Red Stairs’. Thank you to Miss Chakravarty for taking on this challenging assignment and thank you to Mr. Purkiss for another wonderful competition. Well done, everyone.