Text 1: Learning to leave the silence alone, by Aisha Morton

An original contemporary magazine article.

Before I agreed to conduct a fundraising auction, I imagined that an auctioneer merely read out numbers while other people did the difficult part of spending money. Then I entered the community hall and saw three hundred chairs facing a single microphone.

During the rehearsal, Mina Shah, an experienced auctioneer, watched me grip the lectern with both hands. The microphone seemed to enlarge everything: each breath, each swallow, even the small nervous laugh I had hoped to keep private.

‘Do not apologise for a silence,’ Mina said. ‘That is where the next bid grows.’

This sounded like one of those elegant pieces of advice that experienced people give because they have forgotten what it is like to be a beginner. I had prepared jokes, extra facts about every item and several emergency sentences. Silence was the one thing for which I had no plan.

The first lot was a fruit cake made by a local baker. I asked for twenty pounds. Nobody moved. I immediately dropped to fifteen, then ten, speaking so quickly that I almost began bidding against myself. Somewhere near the back, a chair creaked. My face felt hot enough to toast the cake.

Then I saw Mina beside the curtain, doing absolutely nothing. I stopped talking. The pause stretched, but the audience did not turn against me as I had expected. A woman in the second row raised one finger. Another voice called twenty-five. Within seconds, the room was awake, and the cake eventually sold for forty-six pounds.

After that, I began to understand the strange balance of the job. I had to lead the room without dragging it. I looked at individual faces instead of the crowd, allowed people time to decide and discovered that a raised eyebrow could sometimes do more than another sentence. By the final lot, I could feel the audience waiting for me. That control was thrilling and, if I am honest, slightly too enjoyable.

Afterwards, people told me I had looked calm. My hands were still shaking as I packed away my notes. I had not defeated my fear of public speaking; I had simply found that fear and confidence could occupy the same small space behind a microphone.

Text 2: My address at the reading-room meeting, by Eleanor Price

An original diary entry written in a nineteenth-century voice; a period simulation, not an archival document.

This diary entry was written in 1872 after a schoolmistress spoke at a public meeting to raise money for a town reading room. Public speeches by women were unusual in her community.

All morning my written address lay upon the parlour table, and each time I passed it the pages appeared to accuse me. Mr Ellison had assured me that the meeting would be small. By seven o’clock, however, the hall was full, and there were men standing along both walls.

Behind the curtain I heard the restless feet and occasional coughs of the audience. I confess that I wished for some respectable misfortune that might prevent my appearance: a broken carriage wheel, perhaps, or even a brief fever. Yet when my name was announced, my feet carried me forward with a steadiness for which I can claim no credit.

At first I saw only a dark field of coats and hats. I fixed my eyes upon my manuscript and read the opening lines exactly as I had written them. Unfortunately, the paper trembled so violently that the words themselves seemed to shiver. I feared the people must see it and pity me.

Then I looked up. Near the front sat Mrs Green, who works twelve hours each day in the laundry, and beside her was a carpenter whose name I do not know. I remembered that the proposed room was intended for such people, who possess intelligence and curiosity but few books. My terror began to seem a rather selfish occupation.

I laid down the pages and spoke of the room as I had imagined it: lamps burning on winter evenings, shelves within reach of every hand, and working people reading not because they were instructed to do so but because they wished it. When the audience applauded, I stopped in alarm, thinking for an instant that some disturbance had occurred. Their applause came again, louder, and this time I continued.

Several gentlemen afterwards congratulated me upon having the courage to stand before them. I thanked them, though I would rather they had spoken about the reading room than about the novelty of the speaker. Still, in the privacy of these pages, I must admit that I enjoyed their attention. This discovery pleases me less than the speech itself.