I first visited France in 1959 on my 11th birthday. Within minutes of stepping ashore I was stung by a wasp. The pain. The indignity. I was sure it had been waiting for me.

Things picked up after that. By the time of my year abroad (1969-70) as a British Council assistant in a Dijon lycée I had made a full recovery and was a 100% Francophile and Germanophile, following exchange visits, and an Italophile having spent four months before Oxford at Perugia Università per Stranieri.

I am eternally grateful to my parents for making all that happen. How proud they would have been, as I was, when I was asked to give the Threlford Memorial Lecture at the CIOL conference in 2011 and was subsequently elected Honorary President of the Institute. As I step down from that position I am taking the opportunity to reflect on my life with languages.

My memories of that first French visit, which continued southwards to Provence in the family car, were powerfully triggered when I came to read Goethe’s “Letters from Italy” where he describes the overwhelming new scents and sounds and warmth which enfolded him after he’d crossed the Alps. His poem “Kennst du das Land wo die Zitronen blühn…?” revived the same sensation; it embodies my cultural development.

I found the UK’s trashing of the Erasmus scheme heartbreaking. We had all marvelled at the ease with which young Europeans had seized the chances that I had in my privileged youth, to learn others’ cultures and at the same time to learn from them about their own British identity. I wish success to the lobbying by the British Academy and others, strongly supported by CIOL, to revive it.

The removal in 2004 of MFL from the list of compulsory subjects at Key Stage 4 was equally damaging; their inclusion as an Ebacc subject made some restitution but by then the caravan had moved on. There are heroic efforts being made to catch up but a generation of language teachers has been lost as well as a view in society at large that languages are worth learning. I was very proud to watch as the schools in Hackney, where I have been very involved over the years, collaborated with the LEA in introducing Spanish as the default language in all primaries and secondaries in order to remove the loss of enthusiasm in students who might otherwise have had to start another language from scratch on transition at year 7.

It’s been so sad to watch the decline. I truly believe in the opening phrase of CIOL’s purpose: "To contribute towards international goodwill by encouraging the effective study and practice of languages.” The deeper one’s knowledge of a language, the better one can understand the mindset, the cultural framework of its native speakers. The bilingual son of a friend of mine moves effortlessly from the mindset of a British person to that of a voluble Madrileño and back with English and Spanish interchangeable but bringing out different aspects of his character. He says it’s like flicking a switch and finding that he is among his own people, adopting a new identity.

I used French and Italian (and German to a lesser extent) throughout my 50-year business career. I was so lucky to work in a huge multinational firm with thousands of clever colleagues many of whom had a fluent grasp of two or more languages. There were sadly very few Brits amongst them. This often gave me a huge advantage as I could interpret the strategy devised in London to my overseas colleagues and, crucially, to local regulators who had some English but naturally felt more comfortable speaking in their own language to convey their message. I like to think I played a part, albeit modest, in the development of Equities markets on the continent (as a supplement to its traditional bond markets) and to ensuring the pre-eminence of London. In the longer term, Brexit may have undone that as well.

A highlight of my post-retirement life was the invitation from the British Academy to chair the “Born Global” research project. My friend Bernardette Holmes, CIOL Vice-President, was the researcher. The credit for its status as the seminal academic investigation into the use of foreign languages in British business is entirely due to her. When I mention the title to teachers or others, from employer membership bodies for example, who are promoting the value of language-learning, I am often told that it’s used to support their cause. The key finding was an acceptance by the majority of employers who did not have language skills amongst their workforce that in less than ten years they would need them as they expanded their export trade.

Well, ten years are nearly up. The need is as evident as ever but heightened by the side-effects of Brexit and the navigation of administrative barriers in trade and educational exchanges, a linguistic night has followed day. But hope springs eternal. With Arabic now the number one language for new CIOL members, the UK’s tremendous linguistic diversity is slowly being recognised as one of our assets, so perhaps there are rays of sunlight on the horizon.

Whether you are bitten by the bug - or as in my case stung by a wasp - a love of languages can come to us through myriad different life experiences, and the Chartered Institute of Linguists celebrates them all. Which makes me very happy, as languages have enormously enriched my life and the lives of every single CIOL member I have had the joy to meet.
 

Richard Hardie is Honorary President of CIOL

Meeting the late Queen at an event for the LSO of which she was Patron and Richard is a non-playing Director.