The King's Speech
by Mark Logue and Peter Conradi
My rating: 4 out of 5 stars
For history buffs, and baby boomers especially, these glimpses into the first half of the twentieth century resonate powerfully. This being the era passed down to us orally by parents and grandparents, we are intrigued by accounts of events that shaped our elders and immediate forebears. The period rekindles memories of our late loved ones, adding insight to their generational formation.
This epoch's significance for us is its context. Our lives are rooted in these world events, even though most of us had not yet arrived. So close does it lie to our own pending genesis, we can picture the world into which we or our parents were conceived.
Wallace Simpson, Edward VIII's abdication crisis, World War II, the young Queen Mum, our own Queen Elizabeth II as a tiny girl not intended to reign – all these ingredients make for nostalgic reading.
Whilst it was arguably the award-winning movie, co-starring Australia's Geoffrey Rush as Aussie royal speech therapist Lionel Logue, that brought this tale to the wider world, this book from which its screenwriters gleaned priceless detail is a standalone piece, co-written by Logue's grandson Mark.
Not penned in fictional form, the storytelling has a natural authenticity. Drawn from personal diaries, it takes us to the heart of things.
Australians will appreciate the early lives of Lionel Logue and his wife in a developing post-colonial land in its infancy, still many weeks' sea voyage away from the heart of empire.
For anyone who has touched on speech presentation, basic elocution, or ventured further into remedial speech therapy, insights to Logue's technique will fascinate. Two 1930s tongue twisters brought down to us are worth trying: 'Let's go gathering healthy heather with the gay brigade of grand dragoons' and 'she sifted seven thick-stalked thistles through a strong thick sieve.'
I read this in three cosy nights and loved it.
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