She was a wonderful speaker and i could happily have sat there listening to her talk for hours.
Please bear in mind though that whilst i've recreated the stories as accurately as my memory allows these are not direct quotes!!
Orson was such a great story-teller… When he was a little boy a stream of famous people and exciting characters would come to visit his mother and they would sit round a table telling their stories, and Orson was allowed to sit at the table, and even Orson was allowed to talk. But his mother always warned him beforehand “if you are going to talk, make sure it’s interesting!”
And Orson was always so interesting!
Another story concerning Orson’s childhood was about one particular piano lesson. Orson was bored of the lesson and wanted to stop, but the teacher insisted they continue. Orson being young and not really understanding all about death climbed out of the window onto the ledge and threatened to jump unless the lesson was ended!
The piano teacher went rushing to Orson’s mother saying, Mrs Welles, Orson is going to jump out of the window rather than continue with his lesson.
His mother replied, “Well if he really wants to jump out of the window, then let him!”
A few moments later Orson could be heard back at the piano continuing his lesson!
It was his eighth birthday and he went in to see his mother. The room was very dark because she was so very ill, and in the room there was a cake with eight candles. She told Orson that there’d be a lot of birthday’s in his life and a lot of cakes… but this was the only day he’d have one with eight candles on. She said, blow them out and make a wish.
Orson blew the candles out and the room was plunged back into darkness… it was the last time he ever saw his mother’s face.
Years later he said, “I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, but one regret that bothers me to this day, is that I never made that wish.”
