For John M. Evans, connecting with people and being true to himself became more important than hiding and trying to conceal his stammer.

I began stammering at the age of 5. Soon after I arrived at primary school I was vigorously accused of losing a bean bag, and was so upset about it that I began stammering.

It was a painful problem throughout my schooldays. However, it was only when I began working that the blocks became so hard there was nothing I could do about them. I carried on, acting my way through lots of situations and generally trying as hard as possible to conceal the problem. Usually I felt I was successful, but not so much on the telephone and certainly not in public speaking, when I could completely lose control.

And then, when I was thirty, something happened - something which a friend of mine candidly said marked the turning point at which I began to get some control over my speech.

What happened? Well, I took part in a play which involved me in playing a very angry, difficult character (for those who know the Christian Bible, it was Saul of Tarsus, who took the name "Paul" after he converted to Christianity). I was wonderful at the part. Stammering was never much of a problem when I was acting, and I had the audience cowering away from me. I think it was then that I began to realise how angry I was.

Soon afterwards, I took a step I don't want people to misunderstand. I asked someone to pray for me at a Christian prayer meeting - not that I would become fluent, but that I would be free of the shame I felt was binding me.

To my astonishment, a light seemed to come into my life, and I felt that a power greater than myself was present with me. My speech was greatly released, as my friend noticed, and I found myself on a new stage of my life's journey.

For me, spirituality is about connections, and since then I have been working to improve those connections: between myself and other people, within myself, and between myself and this strange power I sense is with me. Once, in a kind of vision, I saw myself stammering badly, with my face twisted and distorted, and at the same time a voice said in my mind, "This person, I love".

Another part of making connections is being able to be true to oneself in dealings with others. Here I felt more and more strongly that I had to be myself with other people, that I could not go on acting - as if something in me had to come out and get into contact with others. It became more important to make these connections than to hide and try to conceal the fact that I still stammered.

Part of the business of making and strengthening connections is forgiveness. The Alcoholics Anonymous literature talks a great deal about that, and you don't have to be an alcoholic to appreciate the truth and power of it. There was a real breakthrough when I found myself forgiving the teacher who, not knowing what she was doing, and acting for the best, had wounded me so deeply all those years before. And it was as if the root of the problem had been cut.

But there was so much work to be done in relearning to talk in a way that feels right to me - to reoccupy my own territory and speak with my own voice. So many people have helped me - particularly a singing teacher, who was finally able to convince me that it was possible to speak without getting all tensed up beforehand, and a speech and drama coach who helped me focus strongly on talking well, rather than avoiding talking badly.

One of the great joys for me recently has been public speaking, where it turns out that I have a genuine talent. Sometimes I listen to myself in full flow and think, "Isn't this great?" And in some ways it is. However, I know that fluency is not the real point - the whole business is really about making connections - about loving and being loved. Speech is simply one way of doing that.

From the Spring 2008 issue of 'Speaking Out', page 7