This is the text of an interview by Eddie Mair with BSA Vice Chair Leys Geddes on BBC Radio 4's PM programme on 25th September, 2007. Hear the interview.

EM: Is stammering funny? Ronnie Barker used to get big laughs as the stammering Arkwright in 'Open All Hours'. Now YouTube is under fire from the British Stammering Association. Leys Geddes is Vice Chair of the Association. He wrote to YouTube complaining that some videos of people stammering were labelled on the site as 'comedy'. Mr Geddes was unhappy with the YouTube response and so he posted his own. You can see both for yourself on the PM blog bbc.co.uk/blogs/pm. I've been hearing from Mr Geddes himself.

LG: If you actually have a stammer, it isn't a joke. We talk to each other, as we understand the situation, and we laugh about it often. However if outsiders seem to be joking - seem to be taking it out of you - then clearly they don't understand how it is. Distressing is how you feel about it, and I got angry about that. I just thought we should be doing something. And I think always if you have a stammer to begin with, you tend to avoid the talking option. So I emailed them and asked them to review the videos they had up as 'comedy', and they said they wouldn't. So I chewed that over, and my elder son said to me "You ought to do a video, dad." I thought "Crumbs, I will do then."

EM: YouTube say that their rules haven't been broken by having it categorised as 'comedy'. Is that fair enough as far as that goes?

LG: I can't argue. I think they are effectively a space for people to occupy. But then how some of the people have presented the things they have put into this space I think has typified an attitude in society - that stammering is a bit of a joke anyway, ha ha ha. And it's a joke because we don't have the chance to explain how it is to people. Hence it remains a joke, I think, to a lot of people. And that's unlike how it is for other kinds of disability. It's hard to imagine that anyone would be laughing at a man in a wheelchair, or be laughing at a blind man. And yet, if you aren't able to talk properly as I am - and something like 3/4 million others aren't able to do this properly - it's strangely debilitating. It's hard for us, I think, to say we are disabled if we all in our hearts hope to be cured, if you know what I mean. Hence we think it's the temporary state we're in, and hence we haven't entirely embraced the thing because we're hoping to be free of it.

EM: Since we posted the videos on the blog, there've been all sorts of interesting comments, and a name that comes up again and again is Arkwright, a character in a situation comedy, who is funny for all sorts of reasons but sometimes because he stammers.

LG: No, it isn't harmful on the surface, but there is somebody somewhere who produced a script who said: "If we gave him a stammer, it will just help to prick his pomposity." And I think hence it's a device that has been applied, and you see that same kind of thing happening in all styles of other programmes.

EM: In terms of what you go through and what lots of other people who stammer go through, what work is being done to help them?

LG: Two things have to be done. To begin with you have to screen all the children probably between the age of 2 and 3, in order to find out if they have a problem with their speech. After that you have to have the resources to be able to help them out of it, and the crucial thing is that if you can get hold of a child between that age of about 2 and 3, when the stammer comes on, in about 80% of the cases you're able to take them out of it and thus you're able to avoid the thing that I have and that hundreds of thousands of other people have in the UK which is over 50 years worth of stammering. And who needs that?

EM: Often when - we're recording this interview, it's just after 3 in the afternoon - often when I finish recording an interview with a guest they'll say "Oh, d'you know, I um'ed and ah'ed during that and I sounded a bit uncertain - would you mind just - can you take those out - can you make me sound better?" That's something you often hear. What should we do when we're editing this interview?

LG: I think you ought to leave it exactly as it is. I think that is partly the reason you hardly hear anyone on TV, on the radio or whatever who has a stammer - it's inappropriate - and everyone hopes to clean you up. But I think it's terribly important, if people in the outside world have to start to understand how it is to stammer, then they have to hear a person stammering.

Audio interview