Tony Smith describes how his continual experiments with different ways of speaking helped to overcome his stammering.

I was inspired by the articles in the Summer Speaking Out and hope my own story will be of help to someone else.

It is a story of perseverance. At school my teacher had no experience nor comprehension on how to cope with my stammer, passing it of as "oh, its just a difficult word to say for you, isn't it?" Not when the class laugh at you which makes it worse, it's not.

The letters on which I stammered played tricks on me by changing every 2-3 months. In month one for example, I couldn't say "Yes, Miss" in class, then later I couldn't say my name (Smith). I was taught the usual breathing exercises at speech therapy, speaking on the exhalation. These had very limited success. The sad thing was that I'd always wanted to be a teacher which was obviously out of the question as I was unable to speak fluently. I learnt to gesticulate along the lines of the French and Italians, and concentrated on that when I feared I may be about to stammer. This worked quite well. I also learnt to enunciate punctiliously (how I wish the young of today spoke properly!)

However, because of my impediment, I did not want to go to university, so got a job in a bank. There too, they did not want to understand and I very soon realised that if I was to hold down any job, I had to do something. It was in my teens that I started observing people, their mannerisms and how they spoke, that led me to the most successful way to overcome my stammer. If I stammered and I could not use my own voice, then I would talk in somebody else's. They spoke without a stammer, so I did too! I worked hard at this and ended up with a repertoire of over 50 accents. I was always trying new ways to overcome the stammer and improving the accents.

Through my GP I got my referral to a psychologist for hypnosis, and went to the local mental hospital where I experienced the most traumatic experience of my life en route to my appointment. I heard a man screaming as he was having electric shock treatment. It was horrible. The hairs on the back of my neck rose.

My psychologist was a lovely old boy whose very presence calmed you down. He talked me down into a shallow hypnotic state and 30 minutes later I felt a lot better and was speaking very fluently. I had to go back for a further 'fix' and then I was fine. I was in control. The enunciation, arm movements and accents were but a temporary fix! The fluency came later - with age and hypnotherapy.

The side effect of all this is that I keep up my accents as a party piece and can hypnotise people (shallow only). At present I am helping my wife with the study involved in becoming a nurse.

While working for a bank I did some public speaking which I quite enjoyed.

I now teach English on a home-stay basis to students, after completing my TEFL qualification last year at 54 - I got there in the end! Here too, public speaking held no fear for me whereas everybody else was scared witless.

There is light at the end of the tunnel, although it might not seem that way sometimes. I have certainly had those times when I feared I would never get started in life. Persevere, and you'll be amazed at the power of the mind.

If anybody local wants to contact me (I'm in Deal, Kent) my email is: ajs1951@tiscali.co.uk

From the Autumn 2006 edition of Speaking Out, page 15