Flowers Final 28:02:25 - Flipbook - Page 115
from the speech he made as a guest of honour.
"I wonder if any of you folks here can imagine what it feels like to be in my shoes facing you tonight and talking to you. I
was born and bred four or five thousand miles from here, and yet I have been brought up on the story of what my
forefathers accomplished here 150 years ago.
There is no member of the Flower family in England that isn9t familiar with the history of the founding of this settlement
here by Richard and George Flower and Morris Birkbeck. So you see I thought about Albion and Edwards County all
my life and wondered what it was like. But in spite of this natural interest I never thought that the opportunity would
come my way to visit this part of the world, so intimately engraved in the annals of my family, so much a part of my
family is history.
So perhaps know you will understand how I feel tonight, standing before you here, not without some emotion, and
deeply conscious of the great honour you have accorded to me.
Now, you will have seen in your program that I am slated to give you an address. In my country an address means
something a bit formal, a bit like a sermon. Let me assure you of the fact that I am no preacher. All I9m good for is a
straight and simple talk, and what I say to you tonight come straight from the heart.
I dare say that some of you may have wondered what I was going to be like. You may have thought who is this
