I bless her, too, for the enforced recitations.

From Trying to Please by John Julius Norwich.  Page 39.

“Sooner or later on these occasions I had to perform myself. Both my parents—but my mother in particular—had a passion for recitation. At no moment during my childhood was I ever given free pocket money; invariably it had to be earned, and it was earned by learning poetry. A poem once learnt must then be recited to my parents or, preferably, to a group of their friends; and it had to be word perfect. A single hesitation, the very suggestion of an “er” or “um,” was enough to disqualify. If, however, I got through to the end without mishap I was rewarded with sixpence or—if the poem was long or difficult enough—a shilling. The poems themselves varied; favorites in my very early years were those from my Kings and Queens screen. I still remember a good many of them today. I have quoted a couple already, but can’t resist adding a third. The poem on William the Conqueror began:

William the First was the first of our Kings,

Not counting Ethelreds, Egberts, and things;

And he had himself crowned and anointed and blest

In ten sixty—I needn’t tell you the rest.

I never cease to bless my mother for that screen; and I bless her, too, for the enforced recitations. What it was like for the unfortunate guests who were obliged to listen to this insufferable child droning on and on I dread to think; but for me the gains were immense. First of all—since anything memorized at a sufficiently tender age is so deeply embedded in the brain that it can never be entirely forgotten—I still retain in my head an enormous amount of poetry, by no means all of it childish; secondly, I have always been able to memorize quickly and, on the whole, painlessly—even though nowadays, without superhuman efforts, the piece is forgotten again in a week; finally I seem to be immune from stage fright, which means in its turn that public speaking and lecturing have never held any terrors.