Ladies and gentlemen
I hope that includes all the other people that you mentioned.
As patron of the college, I give myself a very hearty welcome.
So when I first heard about your invitation
I was naturally very flattered and grateful.
And for a short while, I held the wildly improbable notion
that I would get a meal at the Guildhall without having to make a speech for it.
I'd like to say how very delighted I am to be here this evening
I can say that in all consciousness because I didn't know I was going to be giving a check
for 5000 for turning up.
I have one or two messages here which I would like to read to you
and I have been in a bit of a quandaries to
quite what order to read them in.
So I've arranged them in the sizes of the bits of paper they're written on.
So there's no significance at all.
The trouble is that I have to get back for the Queen's birthday parade on Saturday
Don't ask me to explain why she has her official birthday in June
when her proper birthday is in April
You just have to accept it
Britain is not just an old country of pottering ruins inhabited by idol roués in eye glasses.
Where yokels quaff ale by the tankard outside rickety pubs.
And where all the soldiers are dressed in scarlet tunics and bearskin caps.
And spend they're time marching up and down for the benefit of visitors from abroad.
I would like to discharge a debt of gratitude to the citizens of Edinburgh for your hospitality
to myself and to thousands of other servicemen who managed to get here for a few hours of
relaxation during war. I know we were a dreadful nuisance
and frequently misbehaved.
My generation, although reasonably well schooled,
is probably the worst educated of this age.
This contribution is to be spent on a children's
playground in the East End of London.
All I hope is that the children who play there
will have a thought for their sugar daddies here in the Albany Club.
What looks charming to the designer and to the finance committee and possibly to the
layout committee may be deadly boring to a child of four.
It's all very well to praise the cow, but don't forget the milkmaid, she delivers the good.
We seem to have gotten into the habit nowadays
of thinking that all our troubles will be solved by machinery of this sort.
That if you have a lot of science, in some strange way, it's going to solve everything.
In fact, of course, nothing could be further from the truth.
But, ultimately, some poor, well, I won't call him a clot, but some poor chap
of which there are great many here.
As you heard, tonight's check brings the total
collective in the last three years to 35000 pounds.
A balloon, a balloon, Sir.
I think I must have been almost as surprised
as you are at this time.
We want yes men as well as well as no men.
And we want people who can encourage and people who can see further than the end of their noses
and further than the end of the Ministry of Supplies' vote.
Because, that's anotherthing is that, we're all in this together.
I noticed the minister looking rather smug
when Mr Barrow said that the press is sometimes rather unkind about the aircraft industry.
He's part of that industry, very well.
If he chooses wrong it's not the aircraft industry's fault.
However, I think that's enough…
That's enough of that.