They say to get over arachnophobia, you have to hold a spider. I will never do that. Even the thought of those sticky brown legs spread across my palm makes me shake. I will happily live the rest of my life, leaving the house whenever one pops in. Another fear I had was public speaking, which was rather inconvenient because I love talking.
I knew I needed to cure myself. So, instead of making soy macchiatos for obnoxious men during my Masters, I decided to become an Oxford tour guide.
I lied in the interview when asked if I was scared of public speaking.
“Of course not,” I laughed. “I love public speaking.”
A memory flashed across my mind, 17-year-old Mary, fluffing up her GCSE speech in front of the class, “Men have superior sex than women.” The class of teenage girls couldn’t stop giggling. It was impossible to recover.
I had a couple of weeks to learn the material – a two-hour script filled with Oxford’s history and a few Dad jokes peppered in. Then it was time for the test… an excruciating experience where you perform the tour one-on-one with the boss.
So there I was, on a cold Tuesday morning, with Mr. Tour Boss Man in the middle of Broad Street. My mouth was dry as sand, and my heart was thumping.
“You can start….” he ordered.
I cleared my throat. “T-This is Balliol college.”
He interrupted. “It’s pronounced BAAY-LE-OL, not BAL-E-OL!”
Great.
I proceeded to say the rest of the tour as quickly as possible. Sentence after sentence left my mouth like Grand Prix cars.
“Slow down! Slow down!” He demanded.
But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t speak without sounding like I had a gun to my head.
He stood there in disgust as I stumbled through the history of the Radcliffe Camera. I thought, you know what, making soy macchiatos for obnoxious men doesn’t seem that bad.
The highlight occurred at Christ Church when I was explaining the Oxford Time concept.
I began. “Oxford Time has come about because people in Oxford are a little bit anal.”
He put his hand up to stop me. “Don’t say anal on a tour…ever.”
I spent the next day in the foetus position, waiting for the phone call to tell me that there was no way I should even consider saying anything out loud in public….but it never came.
Two weeks later, I stood on Broad Street wearing a disgusting lime green jack. In front of me was my first tour group, listening to me talk about BAY-LE-OL.
Now, I am a “proper” tour guide who talks at a normal speed. Sure, I have stumbled, blanked and made some errors… like the time I said Spotty Dick instead of Spotted Dick, and one of the tourists pulled me aside to correct me.
But I am officially over the fear. I held the spider.
THE QUACK 