Good People
The Best of Speaking Out (the Canadian magazine),
published by Speak Easy Inc., Canada

Throughout its history, Speaking Out, the magazine of the Canadian Speak Easy, has published many personal stories and articles with each one presenting a new idea or perspective about stammering.

The story of Douglas Bader, the famous fighter pilot from the 1930s should be an object lesson to anybody who faces adversity in their lives (stammerers included). Despite losing both his legs in a plane crash he was determined to live as full and active a life as he could and scoffed at the doom merchants who said it cannot be done.

The book moves on with a number of stories about people who have started their own self-help groups and have worked hard to increase awareness of stammering in their communities. This includes the mother who tirelessly worked to get the help and support that her son needed. Before this he was, as his mother described it, "a master of avoidance".

I enjoyed the story of Herb Albert who, upon using the Edinburgh Masker to help his own stammering difficulty, worked closely with speech clinicians and other professionals to promote not only the benefits of the Edinburgh Masker but anything that would help stammerers.

Famous people from the past are well presented. The surgeon Joseph Lister and Erasmus Darwin (scientist, poet and inventor, to name but a few of his talents) are just two examples. Both of them overcame their speech difficulties at a time (1760s and 1830s) where failure to communicate verbally was frowned upon.

NSP program director John Harrison, and Tangled Tongue author Jock Carlisle are featured prominently. John gives an interesting insight into a game of table tennis and how he sometimes held back from making his shots and compares this to stammering, how we sometimes hold back from speaking situations. Jock Carlisle tells us how he got the inspiration for his book, how for years he put on that he was a fluent speaker. He also presents a list of therapy horror stories from the past, including splitting tongues and public humiliation.

Stammerers are remarkable people. They have a lot to be content with. They have knocks and setbacks, yet nothing puts them off and they keep coming back. I found the book to be an excellent read, full of inspirational stories, and anybody who reads it will, I feel, be inspired as well.

Reviewed by John Russell in the Sunner 1997 issue of 'Speaking Out'.

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