Born in the 1930s, Hunter Adair tells the story of his lifetime experiences as a stammerer, through being bullied as a child, meeting girls, and life at work. He also talks about the techniques he developed to control his stammer, including the 'silent pause'.

Hunter Adair

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Hunter runs the family farm near Hexham in Northumberland. He is the author of several country books for both children and adults, which he mostly illustrates with his own photographs, drawings and paintings. He also writes articles and does radio interviews about the countryside.

From the Foreword by The Hon. Wentworth Beaumont:

"The book describes Hunter's lifetime experiences as a stammerer and details the remarkably successful efforts he has made to control it. It describes the communication problems that he underwent throughout his school life and the problems with adolescence, including the all important worry over being unable to invite a girl to dance. The worries over the job interview and how to deal with farmers on, the stammerer's biggest bogey of all, the dreaded telephone. These things lead up to the impetus that made Hunter really determined to improve his communication skills, this impetus coming in the form of a hurtful insult from a bombastic farmer who had probably, in reality, thought too little and imbibed too much. Hunter carries on to describe how, with some help from a speech therapist and a considerable degree of determination, he has been able to bring his stammer under control.

"As I read this book, I felt an increasing admiration for what Hunter has achieved and I feel that this book will do much for the confidence of many stammerers. It demonstrates that a stammer need not inhibit one's lifestyle or ambition and it achieves this in the most descriptive prose. However I hope that this book will also be read by non stammerers as it will result in greater understanding of an affliction which is capable of causing great unhappiness to the stammerer but which is frequently misunderstood by fluent speakers."

Published September 2009