By Felix Ordeig, Conference Interpreter, AIB
I recently
came across a eulogy of the late Richard Kingsbury, conference interpreter
among many other pursuits, delivered by his cousin Martin at his funeral
service. It makes for a good read, and brought back memories of my encounter
with Richard earlier this year.
Now that
just over six months have elapsed since his passing, I would like this text to
be a brief tribute to quite an original, out-of-the ordinary and very likeable
colleague who I had the privilege of working with.
I must add,
that sadly, I was the last person to work with him. I shall
also share a couple of thoughts on a tricky subject- namely how long an
interpreter’s working life should last.
For those
who never met or heard of him, Richard Kingsbury was a long-standing
practitioner of our profession who for
many years was an in-house interpreter and translator with the International
Coffee Organisation (ICO) based in London, later becoming a distinguished freelance working for many
international institutions and commodity organizations. Our paths had only
crossed fleetingly, at EU or UN- agency meetings; I had been briefly
introduced to him years back but we had never worked together. I had however
heard of him on the grapevine, so to speak, and on the basis of hearsay – oh,
dear, how often is this the case in our profession!! – I had formed an image of
someone “d’un certain age” and like
some elderly interpreters, quirky,
temperamental, eccentric and rather on
the tetchy and morose side; everyone
admitted however that as an interpreter
he had much experience and professional prestige. He was known to be very well
read and widely travelled, with a
passion for languages, working in both
the English and Portuguese booths, with active Spanish, and a longish list of C
languages, including Russian and German.
So it was
with a certain sense of trepidation that I learned I would be working with this - in
my mind -rather formidable character in
the English booth at a week long series of coffee production-related events in
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in March this year.
I had been recruited at the last minute by the ICO. a body I had never worked for,
dealing with a subject- coffee – of which I didn’t have much of an inkling
apart from enjoying a really good “macchiato” while knowing it was probably not
very good for one’s blood pressure.
“Better watch your p’s and q’s” I thought to myself, as I hastily
started to gen up on the basics of this commodity and its organisation,
learning about the different varieties – arabiga , robusta – and the diseases:
rust, wilt, et al...
When the members of the interpreting team gathered
at our hotel in the relatively sanitized UN and embassy district of Addis,
slightly bleary-eyed after predictably
long and tiring journeys from all over Europe,
I met a wiry, alert and well-dressed silver-haired colleague, very
courteous but rather quiet, even
circumspect.
On day one
of the meeting my reservations quickly dissipated. Richard turned out to be a
very helpful booth-mate, assisting me with key vocabulary and above all, as an
old “Coffee” hand (that’s how he referred to the ICO) he gave me invaluable
background on the ins and outs of the body, its origins, evolution and its
“raison d’etre” after the end of coffee quotas in the early `90’s, plus the
vagaries of the the economics and politics of
the global trade in coffee,etc…chapter and verse, all
with a mercifully light touch.
As time
wore on, he became quite chatty and sprightly.
A
digression here : one dubious advantage of manning the English booth in many
international organizations is that one has plenty of down time in the company
of one’s colleague - which can be good
or bad, of course (I’m not gloating about this controversial aspect of the
English booth’s workload – or lack of it; it’s just the way things often are at
the moment. Perhaps someone else will discuss this in a future post). But it does give one the chance to have
enjoyable conversations if the opportunity arises, as it did on this occasion
Richard talked about his career and life in general in a very
humorous, self-deprecating way, devoid of all pomposity or self aggrandizement,
rather with a quiet wit and often a
delightful and slightly mischievous twinkle in his eye,as one team colleague
remarked. He was a refreshingly good
raconteur indeed, with many interesting tales to tell, and it was a pleasure to
listen to him.
On reading
the words written by his cousin, who knew him well over a whole lifetime, and
therefore infinitely better than someone who only shared four days with him, in
and out of the booth,I became aware what a varied and interesting life Richard
led. But some of the stories he told me are there, obviously with many more
details: for instance his
recollection of a blissful
childhood in Monserrate, the estate near
Sintra built and owned by a wealthy English family and managed by his parents.
His vivid description of the Serra da Sintra landscape - which I am familiar
with - did justice to the eerie, almost magical nature of the thickly-wooded
hills, often shrouded in mist. His happy childhood memories had drawn him there over the years whenever
he had a chance, and in fact he had a second home there. He told me about how
the wondrous vegetation there had instilled in him a love of gardening and
horticulture; he talked to me proudly of the farm he lived on in Sussex, his
garden, fruit orchards,vegetable plots
and his collection of domestic animals. He mentioned how much he loved the outdoors, and disliked
big cities and to the extent he and his wife tried to be as self-sufficient as possible.
But he also
talked at length about his travels; of
making his way overland as a young man
from London to Cairo via Istanbul and the Middle East, on foot, hitch-hiking
and by whatever other means of transport became available - a trip that would
be very difficult if not impossible today. Listening to him reminded me of
Patrick Leigh-Fermour’s magnificent descriptions of his wanderings on foot
through Central Europe in the ‘20’s and 30’s.
which he had also read and much enjoyed. That led to his discussing
Willaim Beckford’s “Travels in Spain and Portugal” written in the late 18th.
century in such an amusing way that it
made me want to read the book (which of
course I have not yet got hold let alone
even began)
He had
worked as a young man in San Miguel de Tucumán, in northern Argentina, teaching
English – and had very fond memories of
his time there, describing in quick brush-strokes some of the characters he had met- he had indeed a way with words,
borne out by his vivid descriptions of his travels through the Andean
countries, including a scary bus trip up (and down) a
nightmarish narrow mountain road in Bolivia with a sheer drop to a deep
ravine; he recalled seeing a prescient
sign by the road side “ Recuerde que
está en las manos del Señor” as he
realized the brakes were getting faultier by the minute. His descriptions of staying
with Aymara,Quechua and other indigenous communities in Bolivia,Peru,
Ecuador and Colombia long before mass tourism made inroads into these areas,
bore reminiscences of a very young
Ernesto ”Che” Guevara’s “Diario de una motocicleta”, his diary of his travels through Latin America.
Mentioning
Guevara, he had also by the way visited Havana shortly before the fall of the
Batista regime and the entry of Fidel Castro into the city: he talked about the
wild and slightly feverish end-of-an-era atmosphere in the city.
We also
discussed our profession and the many people he had met– one thing that struck
me was that he was always very discreet and never once criticized a colleague,
and surely he must have met more than his his fair share of interpreters throughout his long professional
life.
This brings
me to the question of how long an interpreter ought to stay on the job (a topical matter for me, by the way, as I am
rapidly approaching my mid-sixties). Richard started working at the ICO in
1964, a year when most of the current
practitioners of this noble profession were either unborn ,still toddlers, or
in their early childhood. At one point Richard was telling me how much he
enjoyed flying on his micro-light, and how he had let his licence lapse a few
years earlier when he was 76. Stunned I asked him how old he was: 83, he
replied.
Now many of
us have unfortunately worked with ageing colleagues who were past their
“shelf-life” and who should have known that it was high time for them to bow
out with dignity. I personally am happy to continue working as long as I feel
that my abilities are still unimpaired, but would not wish in any case to be
still working much after 70 (dear readers, you may call me to account when that
moment arrives!)
Richard
Kingsbury was probably an exception to the rule: a keen mind, still full of
curiosity about people and life in general, a sharp wit, and I bear witness, an
excellent interpreter (granted, of course that he knew his Coffee backwards)
He was also
a great companion, appreciated by all in our team, and we were all shocked and
upset at what happened. On the last day
he did not turn up in the booth- concern turned into alarm when after frantic
calls to the hotel and the UN police he was found unconscious in his bedroom
and hastily taken to hospital, where a massive brain haemorrhage was diagnosed.
The local organizers and government authorities ensured he got the best local
medical attention available, but he died a few days after the end of the
conference, which deeply saddened all of us in the team.
He had at
one moment told me he dreaded physical disability and losing personal autonomy
and becoming dependent. So in a sense although terrible for his loved ones, for
him it was not a bad way to go.
I got the
impression that he lived his life to the full right to the end, with an
adventurous spirit, but also a very
practical approach to life, as well as with an enquiring mind. In the short time
I was with him I took a liking to the man; he was good company and I enjoyed
his sense of humour, his unfeigned modesty, and total lack of snobbishness, his
intellectual curiosity about both his
surroundings and the people he came across, his friendliness and good manners.
But I also suspect that he was a very decent human being.
Farewell therefore to an unconventional and amusing gentleman – may he rest in peace.
