40th wedding party speech and present help, please!

[babybouncer]

My parents are having a 40th party with a theme of '40 years, 2 kids, 4 grand kids and no serious arguments' at their house this December.

I want to get them something a bit special for their present, but they are not big on photos. They have spent the last year since retirement going through their old photo albums to make posterity albums for my brother and I, so they've already made use of their favourite ones. I'd like something really personal, but I'm all out of ideas.

I also want to do a speech of some sort. They've been great parents and grandparents and have an incredible marriage and I'd like to tell them how proud I am of them and everything I've learnt from them. Unfortunately the last time I did a speech it was at my wedding and it was rubbish - do you have any tips to help me do a better job this time? The irony is that I am a writer and have written poems for my kids' naming days that went down very well, I just can't seem to do it orally!

For our parents' 40th, we got someone my sister knew to make an illuminated copy of Phillip Sydney's poem 'My true love hath my heart'. She did it in reds, we framed it and it hangs in my parents' living room.

Write a poem pretending it won't be read out. Then read it out?

I made my parents a word cloud gift from my kids - you know those pics made of words? Basically I listed all the things that my kids liked doing with their grandparents like feeding the ducks, watching Peppa, eating cake, cuddling, having a bath, blowing bubbles, cooking and so on and you send it to a company and they make it into a great framed poster. I found mine on Not on the High Street.

You could do this starting with what you said already - forty years, 2 kids, 4 grandkids, no serious arguments, and then add in things like fave tv shows, places they have been on holiday, great days out, favourite family meals etc

If you wanted you could then say in lieu of a speech you are going to read out the list of words.