By Anne Semmes
They finally gathered at the Belle Haven Club, a year after a Covid shutdown, the 150 members and friends of the Greenwich Branch of the English Speaking Union (ESU), “with ladies in millinery, English scones, strawberry jam and cream,” shared Natalie Pray, the Australian-born, 14-year serving president of the group. Standing before the Club’s Greenwich Harbor vista, Pray welcomed the crowd with, “It’s so good to see smiley faces again.”
The event was a double celebration of “Her Majesty The Queen’s 95th [April 21] Birthday” and this year’s winners of the ESU Shakespeare Competition, held on a sunny Sunday afternoon, June 27.
Addressing the crowd was guest of honor, Paul Beresford-Hill, CBE, ESU National Chairman who also serves as
Ambassador of The Sovereign Order of Malta to the UN. He told of the many congratulations the Queen continues to receive from around the world, from “leaders, kings, queens, emperors, pontiffs, presidents, and prime ministers. In her role as Queen of England, and head of the Commonwealth of Nations, she has quietly and steadfastly followed the sage advice of the 19th century constitutional historian, Walter Bagehot. The role of the constitutional monarch he said, is to do three things, to warn, to advise, and to encourage. And following that simple formula, the Queen has endeared herself to people across the globe.”
Praise was also given to the Queen’s late husband, Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh. “Born on a kitchen table,” said Beresford-Hill, “on the island of Corfu, his earliest memories were of those of a refugee, being carried aboard a British warship to a life which was both dramatic, painful, and filled with uncertainty. In his bride, however, he found the happiness and the purpose, which was to guide him through a long and fulfilling partnership at the side of Queen Elizabeth.”
“Both her majesty and Prince Phillip,” he continued, “enjoyed a long association with the English Speaking Union. Her majesty has since 1957, been the royal patron of the ESU. So, let us today raise a toast both to the 95th Birthday of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, while at the same time, acknowledging the memory of her late husband Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh.” With that, champagne glasses were raised, “To Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth.”
Shakespeare then took the stage, with the first of the two Connecticut winners of the 2021 Shakespeare Competition introduced by ESU Executive Vice President Anne Hall Elser, who chairs the Competition for Connecticut. (The Greenwich Branch is the only ESU Branch in Connecticut.)
“Veronica Zimmer, a graduate senior of Guildford High School, won a Second Place with her Sonnet 128 presentation.” Zimmer, now on her way to Yale, took the stage: “How oft when thou, my music, music play’st,/Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds/With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway’st/The wiry concord that mine ear confounds…”
Zimmer was followed by Greenwich Academy sophomore, Sarah Prevot, who received an Honorable Mention for her presentation from “Measure for Measure” of Claudio’s monologue in Act III, Scene 1. “Death is a fearful thing. Ay to die and go we know not where; To lie in cold obstruction and to rot; And the delighted spirit to become a kneaded clod; to bathe in fiery floods…”
Zimmer spoke afterwards of falling in love with Shakespeare reading his “Romeo and Juliet” in her first year of high school. She was drawn by Sonnet 128: “It’s about a woman in love with a piano player, and so I’m a huge fan
of music, so I just thought it fit my personality, and it’s very sweet.”
Prevot’s choice from “Measure for Measure” came from her love of tragedies. “Claudio’s going to jail and he’s scared because he’s about to get executed…It was just such a powerful monologue because it just showed vulnerability in its truest form.”
But it was the humor Prevot found in Shakespeare’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream” that first got her hooked in sixth grade. “It was so funny – I was just dying. Everyone was like, you understand this?” Yes, she answered. “It’s so funny. This is hilarious!”
Credit goes to Beresford-Hill, it turns out for introducing the Shakespeare Competition in 1983, with it becoming national in 1988. The Greenwich Branch (with its British town name) was noted for its “particular passion” for the Competition shared Karen Karpowich, ESU national executive director. “It touches the lives of 1000s and 1000s of students and teachers of Shakespeare. It’s the core of who we are as an organization as our signature program.”
On that note, Karpowich presented a gift of appreciation to Beresford-Hill for his good idea, a “very fashionable” hoodie tagged with his title as founder of the national Shakespeare Competition.
Before he left the stage to be enveloped in the celebratory crowd on their way to the heavily laden table of assorted crumpets and tea sandwiches, Beresford-Hill was asked just what had kicked off the creation of Britain’s English Speaking Union?
“It grew out of the First World War (1918),” he told, “From a group of people in London who were convinced that a successful resolution of the war was in a large measure the work of people who shared a common language, Australia, the United States of America, the United Kingdom. And they felt that by sharing and expanding the use of English around the world, it could create a better regard for the principles of democracy and freedom of speech, and for the liberal values that have kept us safe since the Second World War.”
Surely an idea worthy of support – and another toast!
