Mud Sweat & Tears - Bear Grylls [110]
‘Could you help us out? I have hardly any money.’
She looked us up and down, paused – then smiled.
‘Just don’t tell my manager,’ she whispered.
So we stayed in a $1,000 a night room for $100 and celebrated – like the King of Spain.
The next morning we went on a hunt for a ring.
I asked the concierge in my best university Spanish where I would find a good (aka well-priced) jeweller.
He looked a little surprised.
I tried speaking slower. Eventually I realized that I had actually been asking him where I might find a good ‘moustache’ shop.
I apologized that my Spanish was a little rusty. Shara rolled her eyes again, smiling.
When we eventually found a small local jeweller, I had to do some nifty sub-counter mathematics, swiftly converting Spanish pesetas into British pounds, to work out whether or not I could afford each ring Shara tried on.
We eventually settled on one that was simple, beautiful – and affordable. Just.
Love doesn’t require expensive jewellery. And Shara has always been able to make the simple look exquisite.
Luckily.
CHAPTER 102
Pretty soon after returning from Everest, I was asked to give a lecture on the Everest expedition to my local sailing club in the Isle of Wight.
It would be the first of many lectures that I would eventually give, and would soon become my main source of income after returning from the mountain.
Those early talks were pretty ropey, though, by anyone’s standards.
That first one went OK, mainly due to the heavy number of family members in the audience. Dad cried, Mum cried, Lara cried. Everyone was proud and happy.
The next talk was to a group of soldiers on a course with the SAS. I took one of my old buddies along with me for moral support.
Hugo Mackenzie-Smith always jokes to this day how, by the time I finished, the entire room had fallen asleep. (They had been up all night on an exercise, I hasten to add – but still – it wasn’t my finest hour.)
We had to wake them – one by one.
I had a lot to learn about communicating a story if I was to earn any sort of a living by giving talks.
My worst ever speech was one I did for a pharmaceuticals company in South Africa. They were paying me $1,000 and my airfare. It was a fortune to me at the time, and I couldn’t believe my luck.
That would last Shara and me for months.
I soon found myself at a hotel in the Drakensberg Mountains, waiting for six hundred sales staff to arrive at the conference centre.
Their coach journey up had been a long one and they had been supplied with beer, non-stop, for the previous five hours. By the time they rolled off the coaches, many of them were tripping over their bags – laughing and roaring drunk.
Nightmare.
I had been asked to speak after dinner – and for a minimum of an hour. Even I knew that an hour after dinner was suicide. But they were insistent. They wanted their $1,000’s worth.
After a long, booze-filled dinner that never seemed to end, the delegates really were totally paralytic. I was holding my head in my hands backstage. Sweet Jesus.
Then, just as I walked out on stage, the lights went out and there was a power cut.
You have got to be joking.
The organizers found candles to light the room (which also meant no slides), and then I was on. It was well after midnight by now.
Oh, and did I mention that all the delegates were Afrikaans-speaking, so English was their second language, at best?
Sure enough, the heckling started before I even opened my mouth.
‘We don’t want an after-dinner speaker,’ one drunk man shouted, almost falling off his chair.
Listen, nor do I, big fella, I thought.
I suspect it was just as painful an hour for him as it was for me.
But I persevered, and endeavoured to learn how to tell a story well. After all, it was my only source of work, and my only way of trying to find new sponsors for any other expeditions that I hoped to lead.
The best advice came from the legendary actor, the late Sir John Mills, who I sat next to backstage at a lecture