The Polymath

By Ken Gibbs

English, French, Spanish, German, Bayerisch, all four Scandinavian languages, Pharsi and Quebecoise. He could probably have got away with broken Portuguese as well. Martin Beyer was what we call a polymath; trained as a geologist but, because of his proficiency with languages, he did so many other things.

My first encounter with him was in Geneva, where I was working for the WHO. My boss told me that a person from UNICEF was to address us about the International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade - you have to be there to hear him. Martin Beyer started speaking, in English, at a little after 11:00 hrs and had us all spell bound. At precisely noon, he looked at his watch and noted to the Chairman that WHO had a wonderful refectory on the top floor of the building, why don't we break for a short lunch and a glass of wine? So, we went upstairs and had a jolly lunch.

At the appointed time for the continuation, we were all in attention when Martin asked the Chairman if he should resume? He was given the go-ahead and with absolutely no warning, he launched into the second part of his speech in Spanish. The translators went mad because they were NOT ready for it. It was chaos for a couple of minutes, but he completed the speech in Spanish. . . . . It was just the sort of thing that Martin would do.

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