Searching for an Oral Storyteller who tells stories from history

Are there any other oral storytellers out there who do the sort of thing I do, I wonder? I’ve searched The Web far and wide and not found any so far. What I have found are two groups of oral storytellers: those who use story as some sort of sales pitch; their story leads to a message for people to do something – usually buy and, secondly, those who tell stories of to children. The entertaining teller who tells his or her stories to simply entertain adults seems to be a rarity. So the question once more is, are there any out there who do something similar to what I do?

My specialization is to entertain an audience for anything from twenty minutes to over an hour. I'm a guest speaker. A typical presentation might contain one long story of, say, forty, forty-five or fifty minutes, or a series of shorter yarns which fit into fifty-minutes. Many of my tales are from modern history, real events spiced up with a bit of drama and humor. For example my presentation The Sixty Milers, is really a eulogy to the hundreds of sailors who perished off the New South Wales Coast here in Australia. The men who manned the colliers.

On the Centenary of the Titanic’s sinking I presented my Titanic – a Night to Remember, to an audience of 153 people at a dinner function. Once again, a story from history which many people know about and yet still wanted to come along and hear. Such is the draw of the oral story well told.

When I was a member of the Australian Storytellers Guild around a decade ago, there was not one person in the Guild to my knowledge –and I’d met and heard at lot speak – who told dramatic and entertaining stories from history. When I was a member of the National Speakers Association of Australia the same applied – no historical stories. I recall being ‘showcased’ (tested by NSAA peers) to be asked, “What’s the point of it? What is the message you’re trying to sell?” I couldn’t answer at that time, but it became clear later. I didn’t want to sell anything. I simply desired to entertain the audience.

In Rostrum Clubs of New South Wales, in Toastmasters International – the latter of which I’m still an active member – it seems that there are none who do what I do, or even come close to it. But surely, among all the hundreds of thousands of speakers in Australia there must be those who enjoy telling a historical story to a live, adult audience, just for its entertainment value.

So this is a plea for contact with similar kind; a ‘belongingness” call. Are you an oral storyteller who tells stories simply to entertain adults? Do you tell those yarns from history – even though they might be exaggerated a bit – simply to have that audience hanging off your every word? If you do, I like to hear from you.