By A G Russell

What I learned young in life was that you can survive abject failure and still be successful. At the 2004 BSA conference I was encouraged by young people to talk about my way of 'ending a speech block'. But first, there was the telephone.

When I left school at fourteen in 1936 I worked as an office boy, but I couldn't answer the phone adequately, so I left. Eventually I volunteered for the Army in 1941 and joined the parachute regiment. On a training exercise on the coastland of the Firth of Tay in Scotland, a strong ground wind caused chaos. An officer rushed up to me.

"Take charge of this!" It was a field telephone. I didn't know what to do, I was hopeless. Someone took it away. I felt useless. The following weeks I was aggressive towards authority. I was ordered to see the medical officer. I stupidly said: "I can't speak, so how can I become an officer". I was an uneducated, inarticulate stammerer. The officer just looked at me, seemingly speechless himself.

I was sent to a psychiatric unit in a hospital. From there I was discharged from the army on medical grounds as 'a stammerer, anti-social, and psychopathic'. This I found out later from a letter in my local doctor's notes.

Despite everything, I pursued education and obtained an ex-soldiers grant to train as a dental surgeon, having been passed by a London psychiatrist. I qualified in 1955 and worked in the NHS until I retired. Staff answered the telephones.

Ending the block

Blocking however, was still a big problem, but one that I have largely overcome. In fact, some people have doubted that I was a severe blocker most of my life. Here is a brief summary of how I controlled it.

My blocking was speechlessness accompanied with fear before or during the block.

I examined my mind when in a block. Fascinatingly, it was empty. I could not hear any speech sounds; I could see the word in my mind, but not say it.

To get control of the speech centre I take an inward breath to end the block, but this alone doesn't prepare me for speaking. By trial and error, I found I had to whisper inwards the first vowel sound of the word and hear it in my mind on my inward breath. It became easy to say the word, starting as a whispered sound on the outward breath and turning into full speech.

It all seems so simple, but acquiring the habit meant work. I practised for hours. I found there are about seventeen different vowel sounds in the English language.

I practised a - a, ah - ah, ay - ay, er - er and all the others, until I only had to see a word to think of the first sound. For example, Charlie Brown - ah-ah, ee-ee, ow-ow, / ah, ee, ow.

After waiting apprehensively in a queue to ask for 'tea please', I'd discipline myself to breathe in whispered, continuous EEEEE sounds. Then when indicated, I would EEEEEE "Tea please". 'Tea' started on the crest of sound outwards. No problem.

Knowing exactly what to do was the key.

A final thought

Many jobs require a lot more than good speech. For example a newsreader is a very competitive job not just in fluency of speech but other areas of personality and communication as well. If there is any advice I could give, it would be to concentrate on your skills and a career that suits your personality, and then to work on your speech so that it doesn't hold you back.

If anyone wants me to demonstrate the technique, I can do so when I visit London. Please contact the BSA office if you are interested.

From the Autumn 2005 edition of Speaking Out