Speech by Simon Fillion

Speech Type: Best man
Speech Creator: Simon Fillion
Speech Date: mar 2004
Ladies and Gentlemen could I have you attention please…
I would like to take this opportunity if I may to announce the order of the speeches..…
The first Speech will be delivered by Ian ……The father of the Bride.
Followed by Robin, and finally myself as The Best Man ….…
Ladies and Gentlemen it gives me great pleasure to handover to Ian …

Best Mans Speech

Ladies and Gentleman thanks for your enthusiastic welcome?

It just occured to me as Robin was up doing his speech that today must be the first time he has stood up in front of as many people and not sent them to sleep talking about pension schemes.

In fact that is the most I've heard him say without mentioning PENSIONS.

Is everyone having a good time? Excellent! I hope you were all enjoying the day as much as I was, well up until about 30 seconds ago.

This may come as a surprise, but yes I am Robin's Older Brother and aside from his acting debut as Wee Willy Winky in the 1977 Silver Jubilee..My fondest recollections date back to him wearing my hand me down trousers, you know the ones that had the band sown around the mark after they had been let down.

As the youngest I guess he got picked on well by me anyway …..awwwwwww

I tried to suffocate him inside a sleeping bag, split his head open while chasing him around a coffee table…You know the normal loving brother stuff…

Thinking back though we did have some scams going. I Remember climbing the fence of the local off licence in Furnace Green, I used to hand the empties to Robin who would take them back to the shop keeper. That kept us in Curley Wurley's I can tell you.
Funnily enough Robin started to show a keen interest in girls then, and I remember catching him with his pants down in a cupboard with a young girl, fair play he was 5 years old at the time, but I notice he had some big cupboards put in when he moved in with Alison………….…

Now I'm not saying Robin was a gullible young boy but he tended to do most of the things I told him. Like the day we went swimming and he needed the loo, So I said it would be OK to do it in the pool. I didn't expect it to float Robin. So when we went on holiday the other year I didn't risk it and told him to get out.

Of course we used to pull the wool over Mum and Dad's eyes, as children do. One day we were playing down at what we used to call conquer valley.

At the end of the valley there were lots of old used paint tins and spilt paint of course we went home with a bag of conquers and covered in paint.

Dad rightly wanted to know how we got in such a state.
Naturally Robin was worse than me.
The only thing we could think of on the way home was to make up a story about punks and skinheads that threw paint over us and mainly got Robin.

Dad took us down to Crawley police station and Robin had to give descriptions. I would now like to apologise publicly to any of the punks and skinheads that may have been arrested for this incident.

Dad came to our rescue many times as Dads do, even though we didn't always tell him the full story. We once took a bus trip to Brighton to have a few hours in the video arcade. I remember we were both skint.
So armed with Robin's post office book we went and took £15 out of his account and hit the Pac man machines.

Later that evening Dad comes home and notices Robin's Post Office Book on the side and notices the £15 withdrawal.
Good old Robin swears blind that he made a deposit not a withdrawal so Dad bundles Robin with PO Book into the car and down to the local Post Office, obviously I'm sweating a bit at this point as well.

An hour later Dad comes back with Robin, a credit for the 15 quid we'd taken out and an extra 15 for Robin's Phantom Deposit.

Needless to say Robin we may call on Dad later to sort out some of the other Wedding Bills.

With sound financial backing Robin left school at 16 and started his pensions career with Royal & Sun Alliance. If anyone here does want to be bored to tears talking about it I am sure he will be willing to discuss it with you later on.

He went to college day release and did his ONC in Business and Finance. That was very fortunate for him because I did the course 2 years earlier and still had all of my course work. Needless to say he came away with higher grades than me. Obviously this was because he applied himself a lot more than me.

He then moved on to Watson Wyatt where he is today and has done very well for himself. I would like to think it was down to my influence in his younger years and the way I looked after him.

I have been on holiday with Robin a number of times from 18-30, ski-ing and touring California also with Darren and Sean.

Robin was amazed when he went back the 2nd time to California with Alison that things were so far apart. I told him that was because he slept most of the time when he came with us.

I been abroad on a few occasions with both Robin and Alison, In fact after a long flight to the Maldives we decided to have a meal and some drinks, One drink led to another and we ended up on the Brandy's

The next morning our hero here tells me he had a little accident except it wasn't in the pool this time. It involved Robin thinking that the spare bed in their room was the toilet!

Alison of course made Robin prop the mattress up outside the beach bungalow, however this confused the cleaner completely , as the mattress kept finding its way back in for the next 3 days.

Robin proposed to Alison January 2002 in Chicago and as the spare bed in their hotel room stayed dry this time she accepted –

I guess the rest is history.

Speaking of history it is traditional for the Best man to mention the Stag do, of which we had 2.

The first was 3 weeks ago in Bristol. After Robin picked up the magazines for the weekend we started with a bit of Go-Karting. Robin always said he wanted it to be relatively low key despite tucking up half of the other guys on their stag nights that came along.

This made life interesting and I managed to get Robin off with just having to wear a bright green Jesus preaching suit on the Saturday in the day around the town and bowling.

Disregarding the rules of the stag I would like to share with you all one of the things that Robin had to do that weekend when a certain phrase was said by one of the stag party. I am sure Robin will play along.

SO On the count of 3 I need everyone to repeat after me
“So who's stag do is it anyway”.
Ready 1,2,3
“So who's stag do is it anyway”

OK, onto the more local event around Horsham. This started with a few beers watching the footy and then golf for 8 people. Dad was the main man of the day and managed to score a massive 7 points playing off of 36. Wouldn't have been too bad but he was my partner.

Then it was 4 pubs around town with the highlight of finishing the evening in Shelley's nightclub. Robin handled himself well up until about 12.30am. Unfortunately then the shirt came off trousers were half down and he ended up wearing a woman's under garment.

She wants that back by the way Robin!

No one got arrested and spent the night in a cell and this time Robin didn't break one of his mates arms……the rest is between us and the lads.

Obviously I didn't go on Alison's Hen night but I understand she did have an excellent time. Bath and Brighton were host cities and they are still standing so all must have gone well.

I would now like to present to Robin and Alison pictures of both Stag and Hen nights which you are all welcome to look at later. (Daz to bring over framed pictures)

I think everyone will agree Alison and her bridesmaids look absolutely stunning today.

I have mentioned a few things about Robin and his toilet habits and I could move nicely on to some of Alison's. I have been given strict instructions NOT to so if you speak with me later, I may fill you in.

One thing I can say is that Alison does like her boxing and is a big fan of Prince Nazeem.

Whilst watching one of his fights on Sky with Robin she thought she had found out his first name and it was LEO PARD ! Robin had to point out that this was in fact the colour of the shorts he was wearing and NOT his first name.

Robin as my brother I would like to offer you one bit of advice, for a long and peaceful marriage. In any argument, a husband's last words should always be "OK, just buy it".

Seriously though, Robin I would like to take this opportunity to say how happy I am for you, you have achieved so much so far in your life and now you also have a beautiful wife and no one is more proud of you than me, your older brother.

To bring things to a conclusion, I'd like to thank you all for your attention. And let me just say that if you've enjoyed listening to this speech as much as I've enjoyed making it, then all I can do is offer my sincere apologies.

Ladies and gentlemen please be upstanding and join me in a Toast to

THE BRIDE AND GROOM